Philosophical diving with Professor Daniel Raveh

After the Mid-Sem break, we at team Udaan attended an exciting special talk, “No Place Like Home?: From Plato’s Cave to Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands,” by Professor Daniel Raveh, Professor of Indian and Comparative Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. The talk aimed to rethink the concept of home as the contemporary avatar of the age-old question of self-identity.

After the talk, we had the fantastic opportunity to interview Professor Daniel Raveh, who is the author of three books: Exploring the Yogasūtra (Continuum 2012), Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy (Routledge 2016), and Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury 2020). He is co-editor of two collections of essays: Contrary Thinking: Selected Essays of Daya Krishna (OUP 2011) and The Making of Contemporary Indian Philosophy: Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (Routledge 2023). His articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the Journal of Indian Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, Sophia, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Journal of World Philosophies, Culture and Dialogue, Prabuddha Bharata, and the International Journal of Hindu Studies. Raveh translated the Yogasūtra into Hebrew (in Philosophical Threads in Patañjali’s Yogasūtra, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2010) and English (in Exploring the Yogasūtra, 2012).

We started the interview by asking, “In your book Exploring the Yogasūtra, you delve into the core tenets of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Can you elaborate on some key insights you discovered in this exploration, and do they align with or differ from traditional interpretations?” In reply, he said:

“Generally speaking, you know, there are these famous texts like the Yoga Sutra or the Bhagavad Gita, or, you know, people speak in general about the Veda, whichever they read, the Rig Veda et cetera. And, I think that we more or less know, or we are supposed to know, what's written there because we studied the textbooks, or our teachers and our parents told us. I'm just giving examples of Indian texts. But it's the same with the Book of Genesis and the same with the New Testament. It's the same with the Quran. It's the same with novels like The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. So, we are told what's written there, but when we actually open the text, I think that there are always great discoveries in any text. If we actually open the text, we always find something new.”

Then he shared his journey with the Yoga Sutra:

“The first question was, what is the Yoga Sutra? I wanted to translate the Yoga Sutra. So, I studied Sanskrit for years. Now, where will I get the Yoga Sutra? I mean, it's not that you go into your nearby shop and ask them for the Yoga Sutra, and then you go home and translate. You don’t know which verses are original verses, which verses were added later, if the text is really made of four chapters, or perhaps only three chapters with another chapter which was added later. I don't know if you know that in the sutra literature, the sutras always start with a certain word and end with a certain word. They start with the word ‘atha,’ which means that the book is opened, and they end with ‘iti,’ which means the book is closed. So, if you recite several sutras one after the other, you know that the new sutra begins when you say 'atha,' and the sutra ends when you say 'iti.' But in the case of the Yoga Sutra, chapters three and four end with the word 'iti.' So, my first mission was to find out what the Yoga Sutra is, (and) what the text consists of.”

To find the answer to his question, he wrote to different scholars who had translated the text before him. Then, he discovered that most translations were from the first typed version of the yoga sutra from 1927. So, he started asking himself if he wanted to consult the manuscripts. That’s when he realized that translating from manuscripts would create the need to learn several scripts like Malayalam, Bengali, etc. 

He then proceeds to talk about the text:

“When you read the yoga sutra, you know, it's a treatise about meditation, but Patanjali also writes about language, and about the notion of time and about language and the limits of language. There are so many themes, and of course, he writes about the ingredients of consciousness. Probably you know that it begins with this famous statement, ‘Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha,’ which means (that) Yoga is the stoppage of consciousness activity. So, what is consciousness? What are the ingredients that consciousness is made of? What is the content of consciousness? So, he maps the consciousness. This is what we now call the philosophy of mind. This map is intended to enable the practitioner, the yogi, to switch off this content, mental and psychological. And then you go to the commentators, and you see how the commentators use the text as a platform sometimes to express their own views. And you can also read contemporary commentaries on the yoga sutra.”

He proceeds by giving an example:

“Take someone like Swami Vivekananda, that when Patanjali writes Kaivalya and refers to something which is metaphysical in essence, Vivekananda translates, Kaivalya as "independence", as to also include political overtones, namely independence for India from the colonizing British.”

He then recommended that everyone at IIT read the texts. He noted that it’s easy to do because of the magic of Google. By simply searching for the Yoga Sutra, different versions can be found in Sanskrit, English, and many other languages, including Hindi. He believes that reading the text could be a highly rewarding experience.

He then talks about a misconception:

“Often, people rely on what others said, and sometimes negative remarks prevent us from opening the text, like with The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The "Satanic Verses" refers to verses of the Quran known by this name. This is not Rushdie's invention. Prophet Muhammad is supposed to convey what Allah, God,tells him, but here suddenly, about these verses, he is unsure if their source is Allah or Satan. So again, it's interesting if you think about it in a more personal way: if you hear a voice, an inner voice; is it the voice of God? Is it the voice of Satan? This idea also finds expression in the Old Testament, where Abraham hears a voice telling him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Was it truly God who told him to sacrifice Isaac, or again, the Satan, or a dreadful inner voice?”

Following this, he delved into the works of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, particularly highlighting how Kierkegaard began his famous book Fear and Trembling with four different versions of the story of Abraham and Isaac, each exploring the narrative from a different angle. He used this as an example to illustrate the importance of exploring multiple perspectives.

He also discussed the concept of intellectual freedom. While we do have the freedom to think, he argued, it is not absolute. Surprisingly, most people tend to avoid this freedom, often out of sheer laziness. Instead, they prefer to rely on information presented in newspapers, on television, and now, through new technologies like ChatGPT. While these tools are convenient for summarizing information, he believes that relying solely on them makes us miss out on the deeper, more rewarding experience of engaging directly with the texts themselves.

He then stated:

“I was just listening to an online lecture by a brilliant scholar now at Ashoka University, Prof. Arindam Chakrabarti. Apropos ChatGPT, Arindam said that he is interested in breathing subjects, not in non-breathing machines or chatbots. I thought this was wonderful. I'm also interested in breathing persons, more than in non-breathing programmed devices.”

He elaborated:

“If people are relying too much on ChatGPT, I'm not saying it's bad or that it shouldn't be used, but it's similar to smartphones. This is your generation—be smart. If you're truly smart, you don't need to rely so much on smartphones. But if you're not, you end up hooked on them. Ultimately, it’s concerning for me, perhaps because I’m getting old. Apart from phones, and ChatGPT, there was a movie a few years ago called Gully Boy. The slogan of the movie, and also one of the songs, was 'Apna Time Aayega'. After the movie, I saw many young people wearing T-shirts with 'Apna Time Aayega' printed on them. I would go and ask them, 'Kab Aayega? When is your time coming?' Please remember that it's your time to change the world. Set aside the phones and engage with something that breathes.”

We then posed another question, ”I have a question regarding translation specifically. You mentioned that you took more than four years to study Sanskrit. It did take you a considerable amount of time.” He replied:

“Yes, more than four years. But it was a worthy investment of time. And by the way, I’m currently studying French. For the past six months, I’ve been studying French. I find that learning languages is both interesting and pleasurable. Plus, it allows you to read texts in their original language.”

When asked, ”Do you think that the lack of a consistent organizational standard for certain Indian languages acts as a barrier for foreign scholars interested in studying these texts? For example, I am formally educated in Tamil, so I can read Tamil texts. However, there are very few resources for someone to read the original texts without actually learning the script. Learning the script is quite hard; there are 247 characters. The script is difficult to learn, the grammar and vocabulary are challenging, and the pronunciation is tricky as well.” 

He replied:

“I see. I think the problem isn't just the script. The script can be learned. I could ask you to learn the script of any language, and by tomorrow, you could have passed an exam. The real challenge is openness towards something new and finding the motivation to tackle something difficult. It's easier to lie back and watch a movie than to memorize French vocabulary, for instance.”

“I have a very strict French teacher, a young French woman teaching at Rajasthan. She’s probably younger than most of the students here. She scolds us like children when we don’t do our homework, and we take it seriously. This dynamic helps us learn. Learning languages is crucial for dialogue. It’s not just about understanding different languages in the traditional sense but also recognizing that each person has their own way of using language. Within families or groups of friends, we often have a "private" language with specific meanings. This also applies to computer engineering, with programming languages and the language of images. Translation, in a broader sense, is a fascinating theme. It’s all about bridging gaps and understanding the nuances of communication.”

Moving on, we asked, “You mentioned in your talk about the Tower of Babel and how the people there used to speak in an Edenic language. In many ways, we see that the field of computer science is oriented toward finding something like a perfect language because there is this common joke: ‘You have 15 imperfect standards, so you invent a perfect standard. Now you have 16 imperfect standards.’ This sort of multiplication happens. However, we do have certain candidates for maybe an Edenic language, a sort of ‘write once, run anywhere’ type of language. Do you think that this pursuit of perfection is ultimately a good thing in the field? On the one hand, we have practical considerations, as programs need to run somewhere. On the other hand, defining the parameters of a language also constrains the way a person using it thinks. Should we be moving towards a more universal system with standards or embracing more diversity?”

He answered:

“This is a very complex question, so let's try to take a few steps at least to answer part of it. First of all, for me, the question isn't about seeking perfection or a perfect language. I don't believe there is such a thing as a perfect language. Instead, it's the question about the balance between unification and plurality. For some reason, unification or oneness is over-valued, perhaps tracing back to Upanishadic metaphysics where, in the beginning, there was the one. But why should the one hold an advantage over plurality?”

“Taking the myth of Babel as an example. The transition from one language to many is traditionally viewed as a curse, but Sri Aurobindo claims it’s actually a blessing. Having a myriad of languages allows for a richer and more interesting dialogue. So, when considering the one and the many, I don't prefer the one over the many. Actually, my inclination is to prefer the many over the one. This is one aspect of the answer to your question.”

“You also mentioned universality. English is problematic. It's not my language; it's not your language. It's the colonizer's language. In India, English has a heavy colonial burden. Israel was a bit different because the British were there, too, but Israel wasn't a colony in the same sense as India. Israelis speak and think in Hebrew thanks to a “crazy” (in the best sense of the word) individual named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived Hebrew, which was not a spoken language for 2,000 years.”

“However, despite its colonial history, English allows us to communicate now. I don't speak Tamil or Telugu. You don't speak Hebrew. Some of you speak Hindi. English, with all its burdens, enables us to communicate with one another now, which is not a bad thing. So, nothing is black and white. There are always shades of gray. English has become a universal language.”

“There is also the interesting case of Esperanto, which was devised to become an international language, a so-called neutral new lingua franca. I think that at some point there was an interest in Esperanto in Calcutta. I don't know a word in Esperanto, but it was an attempt to create a new Edenic language.”

We continued, “So when we come to creating new Edenic languages, there are a few more examples. For instance, there’s Lojban, which attempts to create a language with perfect semantic ambiguity. Then there's Klingon, which started out as a language in the Star Trek series but developed consistent grammar and now has a community of speakers. This phenomenon raises an interesting question: how can a language generate a culture around it? Usually, cultures come together, and then a common language emerges, but here we see the opposite. A language is created from nothing, and a culture forms around it. Do you think creating such cultures is ultimately a good thing, especially when they seem to emerge out of nowhere?”

He responded:

“I don't have a definitive answer to this question. Personally, I'm interested in languages with rich histories like Vedic Sanskrit, Old and Medieval Hebrew, and Middle English. These languages carry both positive and negative aspects of heritage. We've discussed the negative impact of colonialism, but there are also profoundly positive aspects when we think of the history of languages.”

“One idea that comes to mind is a statement by French theorist Hélène Cixous, who suggests that ‘Language remembers what we have forgotten.’ This notion fascinates me because it highlights how words like 'pati' and 'patni' in Hindi can evoke deeper meanings. For instance, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the mythic narrative of a primordial being splitting or breaking (pat in Sanskrit) in two gives rise to the concepts of 'pati' and 'patni,' symbolizing the separation of the male and female entities. Similarly, Plato's 'Symposium' echoes this theme.”

“The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad begins with four creation myths, unlike the singular Genesis narrative, which emphasizes diverse perspectives. Two of the myths start with 'In the beginning was the Self,' and the other two, 'In the beginning was Brahman,' highlighting the centrality of self-awareness and the fact that creation and evolution depend on each of us. We are the world. The world depends on us.”

“These narratives reflect human complexities—self-awareness, fear of others, and curiosity about others. So language remembers something; we can ask language questions.”

“You asked what comes first, culture or language. I think it's a great idea to create new languages. The fact that I'm interested in ancient languages doesn't mean that I'm not interested in creating new languages. But this is your time, ‘Apna Time Aayega’. So, your time came to create new languages, maybe without the burden of colonialism? Is it possible? You have to try.”

We followed up, "So in computer science, we are quite familiar with the work of Noam Chomsky, who demonstrated that despite the diversity of languages, they all share a certain universal grammar. He has concepts like type one grammar and type two. If all these languages, despite being so diverse, have common structures, can we truly escape this? Can we ever actually create a completely new language, or are we doomed to repeat these structures?"

He laughed and said,

“Oh, again, you're asking me really difficult questions. Chomsky indeed showed that languages share a universal grammar. But your question about newness is even broader. Is there anything truly new? The search for newness is very old. Can we create something from nothing, or are we always creating something new from what already exists? I think the latter is more convincing. We are always building on existing foundations, creatively reconfiguring them. This makes newness equivalent to creativity.”

“But your question is even deeper than this because what I'm trying to suggest now, and what I tried to suggest this morning, and what I tried to suggest yesterday when I met some students and faculty in philosophy or humanities was that we live in the present, what can be more present than computer science? But often, we think in old terms. Can we update our concepts and thinking?”

“For example, let's consider the notion of truth. Traditionally, truth was thought to be something that exists independently in the world, just waiting for us to discover it. This idea is quite romantic and beautiful, but today's reality complicates this view. In our current era, the concept of truth has become entangled with issues like fake news and alternative facts.”

“Or take the concept of knowledge. What is knowledge? The old definition of knowledge is justified true belief. Can we think of knowledge in a new way? As young engineers, you must think of knowledge in a new way. Knowledge today is something that is manufactured, not something that exists out there for us to reclaim. We are manufacturing knowledge. Can we think of new companions to knowledge? Instead of truth, instead of certainty, can we think of knowledge without certainty?”

“My teacher, Daya Krishna, was trying to construct the notion of knowledge, which he referred to as ‘knowledge without certainty’. So what would be the pramana, the means of knowledge without certainty? Daya Krishna believed that dialogue could be the pramana. Classically speaking, dialogue is not considered a pramana, but someone like Daya Krishna was courageous enough to try and maybe to fail, but nevertheless, to try to change and renew the tradition. And it's not easy to change a tradition, not only in India. I'm not only talking just about India. Traditions are very strong. By the way, not only religious traditions—you were talking about Chomsky. Chomsky became a guru. Not only Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharya etc., even Chomsky is a guru.”

“Can you take issue with your guru? Can you disagree with your guru? If your guru is a philosopher of language like Noam Chomsky, it's not easy. It would be going against the stream. Being able to free ourselves from traditions of thinking is a great challenge. I don't know if I managed to do it myself, but I am trying, at least.”

“Daya Krishna believed that the tool for breaking down traditional authority would be to ask questions. He was the master of raising questions. And it's interesting that we are not taught to ask questions. We are taught to believe that questions are only a tool to receive or to achieve answers, but someone like Daya Krishna believed that questions are more important than answers. Questions are eternal, and answers are always tentative.”

We then asked: ”So, you mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that there are four different theories as to how the universe came to be. Ideally, as far as our understanding of the Upanishads goes, which is very, very surface level, the Upanishads are conversations among different people from various schools of thought, each trying to propound their theory on what happened. Highlighting this, what, in your entire research and academia to date, are the schools of thought you have come across? And what are the major distinctions between Indian philosophical schools?”

He answered:

“Again, I don't want to get into an introductory course on the Darshana system. I'll give you a really short answer. I think that a very interesting theme to think about is the interdisciplinary, inter-school thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy. Take for example, someone like Vachaspati Mishra in the ninth century, who wrote commentaries on every text he came across. It's interesting because many believe that he was an Advaitin, but he wrote commentaries on other texts belonging to other schools as well.”

“When he wrote on Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhashya, he was an Advaitin, and when he wrote a commentary on Patanjali, he became a Yoga scholar. This free travel between schools would be a fascinating topic to explore. By the way, the name of his commentary on Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhashya is Bhamati. We don't know who Bhamati was; it might have been his wife or his daughter. There are different legends explaining why he titled the text after a woman, a special woman in his life.”

“So, Vachaspati Mishra is one example. If we move to the 16th century, we find figures like Appayya Dikshita, and then we can also think about Vijnanabhikshu. These thinkers were not confined to a single Darshana. They were open-minded and engaged in an interdisciplinary dialogue. Their work is dialogic, and I think this is extremely interesting.”

Moving on to the next question, we asked the core question we wanted to ask: “What drew you towards the field of Indian philosophy?”

He answered:

“Oh, I fell in love with someone. His name is Daya Krishna. I read a book by Daya Krishna in the library of Tel Aviv University. The title of the book is Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective, and I was mesmerized by it—not just the content but the way it was written and the way the questions were formulated. And because I'm very romantic, I traveled to Jaipur to look for him. I met him in Jaipur in 1999, and we started to converse with one another. Eventually, he became one of the supervisors of my PhD. So, I'm still coming to India after all these years because of Daya Krishna's work. But Daya Krishna—he was... I mean, I cannot now give you a full introduction to Daya Krishna's philosophy, but he had several huge projects in his academic life. One of them was rereading classical Indian texts.”

“Apropos the question of newness, he always managed to find something interesting. Take, for example, the introduction to Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bhashya. It begins with the statement, ‘The subject and the object are different from one another like day and night.’ The subject and the object—hardcore philosophical notions—the Vishaya (the object) and the Vishayin (the subject). Daya Krishna asks, how is it possible that the Brahma Sutra Bhashya begins with such a dualistic statement? We would have expected Shankara to say the opposite—that the subject and the object are actually one.”

“Daya Krishna had the capacity to always raise new questions. As a student, I used “to steal” his chashma, his spectacles, for just a moment, because I thought if I look through them... He was quite old then. He passed away in 2007. He had very thick glasses, so I wanted to look through them – metaphorically of course – to be able to see what he saw in the text, to learn how to “open the text”. Dayaji raised really interesting questions—questions about theories of action in Indian philosophy, like the karma theory. The karma theory, he claimed, leads to moral monadism: everything that happens in my life is the result of my previous actions; everything that will happen in the future will be the result of my present actions. But what about the other? If I'm hitting you now, it's because it's my story, not yours. You're just enabling me to bring to fruition my karma. If I hug you, again it's my story. But what about collective karma? Collective karma, I think, is a relatively new idea developed by Sri Aurobindo and others.”

“So, my interest in Indian philosophy started through my engagement with Daya Krishna. He was not just a great thinker but a lovely human being. It was fun to be with him. Since I was a very slow student (laughing), it took me years to complete my PhD. We spent years together—not just me and him, but a whole class of students. This is how I landed in Indian philosophy.”

When we were asking about “How Hebrew successfully transitioned from a purely liturgical language to a literary one,” he stated that:

“Hebrew became not only a literary language but also a language of everyday life. We love, we cook, we teach, and we dream—all in Hebrew.”

Moving on with the question, we asked, ”Hebrew was perfectly slotted to be adopted as a lingua franca for refugees from all over the world. Looking at the successful revival of a nearly dead language like Hebrew, we're left wondering: can Sanskrit be revived in a similar way? Do you think it's a worthwhile endeavor?” He again exclaimed that it was a very complex question, which made us proud.

He continued:

“I don't know if you remember or have read Hind Swaraj by Gandhiji, the famous book he wrote originally in Gujarati in 1909 on a ship, on his return trip from England to South Africa. The legend says that he couldn’t stop writing and used his left hand when the right hand got tired.”

“In Hind Swaraj, Gandhiji doesn't envision a return to Sanskrit. Instead, he imagines Hindus learning Urdu, Muslims learning Hindi, and everyone learning the languages of nearby regions in India. He had this vision of a multilingual culture. This touches on the question of one versus many. Why do we need Sanskrit as a single common language? Why can't we embrace multiple mother tongues? This is half of my answer.”

“The second half takes me to the Jaipur Literature Festival. There are many literature festivals, but JLF may have been the first or one of the first in India. One of my teachers, Mukund Lath, a wonderful classicist, grew tired of the burden of English and for many years wrote and spoke mostly in Hindi. His English was of course perfect, much better than mine. But he felt that if someone is interested in his work, they should make the effort to learn Hindi.”

“Mukundji was a philosopher, poet, musicologist, painter, a man of many talents. He was interviewed at the JLF and the first question he was asked was,’ How can you find interest in Sanskrit, the language of the so-called higher castes, a language which excludes the so-called lower castes, a castean language. Mukundji was surprised. ‘Languages’, he answered, are not castean, people are. Sanskrit is such a beautiful language. Luckily, I had the chance to devote years of my life to this wonderful language.’”

He asked us if we knew Sanskrit, for which we shook our heads sideways. He ended the answer by saying, “There are so many things we can learn from Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, words are interconnected, so reading or listening involves breaking a sequence into words. Sometimes, you can break a sequence in different ways, allowing the language to carry more than one meaning simultaneously. Which is the right meaning? The beauty is that we don't have to determine; we can hold onto several options at the same time. Adopting this insight into our lives could make the world a far better place.”

(A special thanks goes to Sneha MS and Mathew for conducting the interview.)