Getting Emotional about Emotions

Regarding last week’s discussion of relativism and universalism in the context of this weeks readings on emotion I would have to side more with the relativist argument. I think emotions and their interpretations and level of ubiquity depends on the cultural context.”Not only ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artefacts” (Corrigan 14) One example from an old class of mine that really stood out for me was from my Japanese Court Literature class. I forget the Japanese term for this emotion but it was sort of like pity. If a girl is so pathetic and useless, the pity that men feel for her is a desirable form of attraction. Women want to produce that pity feeling in men in order to attract them. I think it is pretty messed up but that is because I am not a 10th century Japanese woman. I also thought of the rasas in Indian theatre, these are emotions evoked by certain theatrical conventions, there is a lot of literature written on the subject and it is mildly interesting to me. But a lot of the time I think “hmm why would THAT emotion be evoked at this particular circumstance” It’s FOREIGN to me.

But I would also argue the same way I argued with pure experience (as I think they are all very similar and connected) I believe there is a pure emotion that we have no true way of expressing and use language to express it. And it is that language which is culturally relative.

OK so I guess I am somewhere in between... or like the cognitive theorists mentioned on pg 14 of Corrigan’s introduction.

So I was thinking about how emotion could apply to my own topic, which is turning out to pretty much be totally textually based, or so I propose, because honestly I have no idea what I am actually doing... I have time right??? RIGHT??? I’m in a bit of an academic existential crisis at the moment so you have to excuse me!! But I do Sanskrit, which is pretty much all my life consists of at the moment, so I better make use of it and actually use it for my paper, right?? And well, I’m not into the philosophy aspect of religion, and I am not a huge historiographer, I like stories, I like myths. That is what got me into this field and that is what I enjoy the most. And so that is the approach I am taking. I am right now attempting to find my primary source... hmm why is there soooo much Sanskrit literature to sift through?!?

So I was thinking and thinking, and honestly a lot of the time I have no idea how to apply these concepts to my very loosely formed idea of what exactly my Major Research Paper topic will actually be. The discussion of emotion and language which is present on pages 16 and 17 of Corrigan’s introduction could be tied into my work... But then I was thinking about emotion and literature. A lot of the literature I look at is poetic in nature. It’s called Kavya. In translation the “Hindu” Epics are generally rendered as prose, but in Sanskrit they are in verse following a very strict meter called sloka. They also make use of many poetic conventions.

Poetry is a writing style that evokes emotion. Therefore to truly understand the literature one must attempt to be as proficient in the original language as possible. Ultimately one must begin to FEEL in another language. As I mentioned earlier I side with the relativist side on emotion. Things are expressed very differently in different languages, it’s like how jokes are lost in translation, some things are just not funny to people who think in different languages. Once we can FEEL in a language we can have better insight to that culture. We must figure out how the writer felt in, say, the courts of third century India, to truly understand what is going on. We must also think how the original readers felt while reading the poetry. The emotional element of poetry houses a large part of the content, in order for poetry to be relevant there must be a shared emotion present. The readers must somehow feel connected to the literary work, or else it will not become popular and preserved, being passed down through time, as the literature I will hopefully be looking at has been.

Ahh must get back to the books (or in my case the random unintelligible scribbles on loose leaf paper) as I have two crazy Sanskrit Midterm this week... ahhhhhhhhh

After writing all the above I didn’t feel like translating and decided to come up with random project titles (you know, it’s midnight on a Saturday that is the coolest thing to do, no doubt). One I came up with which I like very much is “Tree to Temple: the Evolution of Worship Space”. If I were to do this title, which sounds pretty cool based on the title alone (and I only have the title so far!) emotional connection to the space would be one way in which emotion could be tied into my project. How did people feel about their natural surroundings when they once worshipped in forests and sacred groves, now how do they feel about the temples they worship in (buildings that were constructed on the sacred land using the sacred trees)?

A second title I came up with (which really sounds more like a book... maybe a book I will write someday!) is “The Sacred Tree: Sylvan Symbolism in South Asian Mythologies”. How would emotion come into play with this? Symbolism is a literary device that evokes emotion, what does one think of when the symbol of a tree is used, how are they emotionally connected to this?
There is quite a strong symbiotic relationship in South Asian between women and trees (one of the many proposals I have gone through in the past year) there is definitely an emotional connection between the two. There is this one festival where the women in a village tie a string around their favourite tree, I think this is very cute, but it shows that there is an emotional attachment. Marriage of a woman to a tree is also not uncommon. Actually just last year the Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai married a mango tree because she was told by an astrologist that something bad would happen to her first husband and she wanted to marry Abhishek Bachchan, another Bollywood actor. This move actually brought much criticism, saying it was derogatory for women or something, but again I think it is cute... I like trees, OK?

There is also the Chipko movement from North India. In this movement from the ’80 the trees of a village were going to be cut down and the women took a stand against the tree cutters and literally hugged the trees (chipko literally means “to hug” in Hindi)! It is fascinating for me because the symbol of women embracing trees (called shalabhanjika in sanskrit) is very very ancient. It can be found on reliefs from the stupa at Sanchi. Yet it is a much older tradition than this Buddhist monument, as it was used to draw in the attention of lay people who were ignorant about the esoteric ways of Buddhism and who were familiar with indigenous folk beliefs, in which the image of a woman and tree is included.

So much Sanskrit poetry also involves the close emotional relationship between women and trees. Kalidasa’s Shakuntala is one famous example. The trees and plants were Shakuntala’s children and she lovingly looked after them. The scene in which she is leaving behind her beloved forest is full of emotion.

Wow! So now I am feeling much better about myself and my project (or at least now I have many to choose from), thanks method and theory!

PS. don’t even think about stealing my titles!!!

Shalabhanjika at Sanchi