The Eskimo has some twenty words to denote snow, but the Arab has no word for snow in his language. The Eskimo distinguishes between fresh and well-settled snow and between different grades of snow with one word to denote each, because his geography demands that subtlety. Language reflects not only the demands of physical geography but also the collective psychic geography of a people.
In my mother tongue, Tamil, when a person is sick, he says Enakku Udambu Sari Illai, which literally translated would read "My body is unwell." This sentence is commonly translated into English as "I am unwell." While this translation is more consistent with accepted English, it is not faithful to the innate cultural nuance of the original, "My body is unwell." When the same person is convalescing, a friend would ask him, Udambu Thevalaya? or Udambu Sugama? literally meaning, "Is your body better?" or "Is your body healthy now?" There is an irreparable cultural loss in the translation, "Are you better?" A man's state of ill health in other Indian languages would read exactly in the same fashion. For instance, in Hindi you would say, Meri tabiyat theek Nahin hai; in Telugu, Na Ontla Baga Ledu; in Marati Maji tabiat teek nahin aahe; all of which mean, "My body is unwell."
The primordial cultural root of the Indian makes him distinguish, even in everyday language and habit, between the body and the soul. 'I' refers to the soul, not the body. Literate or illiterate, wealthy or poor, irrespective of caste and other traditional or modern status, the individual subconsciously believes that he or she is different from the body. In the vast majority, this belief is dormant, while in others it is a conscious "awareness," often one of degree.
Hindi and other northern languages of India belong to the Indo-Aryan family of languages, with a common heritage of linguistic roots between Sanskrit and Latin. Tamil and the southern languages belong to an entirely independent linguistic group of the Dravidian family. In terms of basic cultural expression, however, the languages of India belong to one sociophilosophical tree.
The Hindu worldview and ancient India
The second and most crucial aspect of the Indian worldview is that the individual soul is an integral part of the infinite soul. The Hindus call it Brahman - the imperishable and causeless world soul, filling all space, and projecting itself as the living and the nonliving. Thus the metaphysical basis of Indian culture is more than monistic or monotheistic. It is nondualistic in a fundamental sense.
If the Hindu hymn of 3000 B.C. declares Aham Brahmasmi, ("I am the infinite," or "I am God") the celebrated secular modern Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurthy declares, "I am the world and the world is myself. If you recognize that you are the world and the world is yourself, then you will find that reforming the world is easy. Just reform yourself - and the world will be reformed." He means it not merely in the sense of moral or social reform, but in the metaphysical sense of the individual and the world belonging to one and the same substance. The hundreds of gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon are recognized to be manifestations of the one and only divinity, which is already present in man. If man sheds his ignorance and ego, he realizes his innate divine nature.
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