Scholarlink

<p>The paper describes the Hindu philosophers’ understanding of how humans produce speech and draws parallels with our modern scientific understanding of this phenomenon. Hindu philosophical literature divides speech production into four stages. It starts in the most subtle <i>para</i> stage<i>,</i> is followed by <i>paśyanti</i>, the stage of ideation and visualization, progresses to <i>madhyamā</i>, the stage of mind, memory, and word choice, and finally manifests into the outer world as <i>vaikhari</i>. <i>Vaikhari</i> was the only stage that could be heard with our ears, while the others were “concealed” within the body. Modern neuroscientific understanding reveals that there are multiple stepwise processes in the brain that precede the uttering of audible speech, each of which, when absent, is associated with a distinct clinical presentation. We discuss what clinical syndromes might be associated with deficiencies of each of the four Hindu stages of speech. The fourfold classification of speech in Hindu philosophy bears many similarities to findings from modern psycholinguistics and neuroscience. A systematic exploration of these texts might provide useful insights into understanding and managing pathologies of spoken language.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Hindu ideas on speech production anticipated modern scientific findings

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月1日

查看全文
  • Anand Venkatraman,
  • Marehalli G. Prasad,
  • Subhash Kak,
  • Darshan H. Mehta

摘要

The paper describes the Hindu philosophers’ understanding of how humans produce speech and draws parallels with our modern scientific understanding of this phenomenon. Hindu philosophical literature divides speech production into four stages. It starts in the most subtle para stage, is followed by paśyanti, the stage of ideation and visualization, progresses to madhyamā, the stage of mind, memory, and word choice, and finally manifests into the outer world as vaikhari. Vaikhari was the only stage that could be heard with our ears, while the others were “concealed” within the body. Modern neuroscientific understanding reveals that there are multiple stepwise processes in the brain that precede the uttering of audible speech, each of which, when absent, is associated with a distinct clinical presentation. We discuss what clinical syndromes might be associated with deficiencies of each of the four Hindu stages of speech. The fourfold classification of speech in Hindu philosophy bears many similarities to findings from modern psycholinguistics and neuroscience. A systematic exploration of these texts might provide useful insights into understanding and managing pathologies of spoken language.