SANSKRIT AND NON-SANSKRIT. THEORETICAL AND SOCIO-LINGUISTIC
ATTITUDES OF BHARTRHARI AND LATER SANSKRIT GRAMMARIANS.

Jan Houben

The aim of my research at the International Institute for Asian
Studies in Leiden (1993-1994) is to follow up on one of the
findings in my recent Ph.D.-thesis, and (a) to investigate the
theoretical and socio-linguistic attitudes of Bhartrhari (4th or
5th century A.D.) and his successors in the Indian grammatical
tradition of Panini; (b) to confront the results with whatever
can be concluded (from these grammarians themselves as well as
from other sources) about the linguistic practices in the time
and area in which they were working.

These investigations may be expected (a) to improve our
understanding of the general linguistic theories and
presuppositions of Bhartrhari and later Sanskrit grammarians; (b)
to improve our understanding of the socio-linguistic situation
of Sanskrit, varieties of Sanskrit, related dialects, and
different languages in India from the 4ht-5th century A.D.
onwards; and (c) to provide a basis for evaluating the
socio-linguistic position of Sanskrit in modern India, and recent
developments in the 'revival' of Sanskrit as a spoken language,
which form part of a large-scale search for a new national
Hindu-identity in India against a historical background.

The results of this one-year research project will be published
mainly in the form of articles.

J.E.M. Houben (1960) studied Vedic and Classical Sanskrit at the
University of Utrecht (1981-1987). From July 1988 till July 1992
he was Research Assistant (A.i.O) at the University of Utrecht,
Faculty of Letters, Department of Oriental Languages and
Cultures, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree with the
dissertation The Sambandha-samuddesa (Chapter of Relation) and
Bhartrhari's philosophy of language (Utrecht, 1992). He has been
in India several times, where he visited Indian Universities,
traditional places of learning and communities cultivating
Sanskrit. Publications include the Pravargya Brahmana of the
Taittiriya Aranyaka (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991), and the
articles "The Sequencelessness of the signifier in Bhartrhari's
theory of language" in Indologica Taurinensia vol. XV-XVI
(1989-1990): 119-129, "Bhartrhari's samaya/Helaraja's samketa"
in Journal of Indian Philosophy 20 (1992): 219-242.