On One Intercultural Parallel in the Philosophy of Language: Humboldt, Emerson, Bhartrhari
Authors:   Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation), Burmistrov Sergey L. 
Published: March 2021

The aim of the study was to reveal the cause of the noteworthy resemblance between Wilhelm von Humboldt’s view of the nature of language, the conception of poetry in American Romanticism, and the philosophy of language in early Vedānta (Bhartṛhari, 5th century AD) that demonstrates a non-accidental affinity of the views on the associations of language and poetry between Indian and Western cultures. Five tasks were set for solving the problem: (1) to reveal the basic principles of Humboldt’s conception of language; (2) to explicate the basic traits of Ralf Emerson’s views on the nature of poetry; (3) to discover their common source; (4) to reveal the fundamental principles of Bhartṛhari’s conception of language; (5) to define the common cultural basis of these conceptions. The study was based on the works by Humboldt, Emerson, Plato, on Bhartṛhari’s treatise Vākyapadīya, and on modern works on shamanism. The principal methods of the study were: (1) a hermeneutic method, presupposing that any term of a philosophical treatise is treated as an integral part of the conception explicated; (2) a comparative historical method based on the analysis of the context where a phenomenon of culture took place; and (3) a comparative philosophical method based on the explication and definition of fundamental concepts of theories in comparison, their origin, place of each concept in its system, and function of each system in the general cultural context. Humboldt treated language as a product of a human need for a semantic organization of the world. Language in his philosophy is a primary manifestation of Volksgeist (people’s spirit) generating firstly the language specific for it, and the language forms the basis for any other aspects of culture. Emerson’s Over-Soul also reveals itself as an inner need that must be verbalized to become conscious. Self-reliance is necessary for human to hear the inner voice of Over-Soul. The poet for Emerson is a person whose inner hearing is more acute than that of other people, and this allows him to hear the voice of Over-Soul more clearly and transform it to words that can be apprehended by common people. The poet in his creative activity can perform only the inspirations of Over-Soul. Both these theories go back to Ancient Greece with its peculiar interpretation of poetic works as induced not by the will of a poet himself, but by a supernatural power. Similar ideas were elaborated in ancient Indian philosophy. According to Bhartṛhari, Brahman is an eternal Sacred Speech that creates the world. Any real language is a partial and scanty form of this Sacred Speech audible only for prophets (ṛṣi) having a “supernatural ear” (divya-śrotra). The conclusion of the study is that Humboldt’s and Emerson’s conceptions go back to Ancient Greek view of poetry as inspired by a supernatural power that cannot be controlled consciously, and this view, together with Bhartṛhari’s theory, has roots in the idea of the magical character of poetry, peculiar to ancient cultures.