Kyoko Amano Program-Specific Associate Professor

Vedic Literature: Faithfully Capturing the Language of Ancient India

Your research has focused on a Vedic literature text from ancient India. What’s included under the category “Vedic literature”?

Amano: It refers to many scriptures—dozens of them, although this somewhat depends on how you count small variations. I work on a text called the Maitrayani Samhita, but in my joint research project, I deal with some other related ones as well.

Are there manuscript copies of them?

Amano: Indian texts were generally orally transmitted. The oldest are said to have taken their current form around 1200 BC. There was no writing or paper, so for ages, teachers would transmit them to pupils, who would also memorize and further pass on them. This has continued basically up through today.

Around the tenth century CE, these texts finally started to be written down. We scholars read manuscript copies. However, the transmitters of these texts think of them as things to be memorized. There’s a robust oral transmission tradition. In modern times, it seemed like transmitters were going to die out. However, there have been efforts to revitalize the tradition and, at Vedic schools, cultivate transmitters that completely memorize these texts.

Language gradually changes. Does this process keep old language alive?

Amano: Yes. Emphasis isn’t placed on meaning but, rather, sounds. Texts are transmitted by completely memorizing them. There’s a really strong feeling that in order to maintain the Vedic tradition, sounds must not be changed. So that they don’t become accented and similar sounds don’t lose their distinctions, people have been analyzing and precisely defining them ever since before the Common Era. Therefore, words’ sounds lose their identity less than they would if people transmitted them while understanding their meaning. I think that ancient language remains almost unchanged in these traditions.

The Appeal of Vedic Literature

What led you to work on Vedic literature?

Amano: I’ve almost always only dealt with the Maitrayani Samhita, and, at first, I found its puzzle-like nature really interesting. Sanskrit isn’t something you can read through quickly. The logic and such are difficult, and the topics are hard to follow. But it’s really solid; words and sentences are put together very precisely. Interpreting sentences is hard—like putting together a puzzle. This is what at first caught my interest, rather than the content.

However, about fifteen years after I started reading this text for my master’s thesis, there was a moment when I felt I could sense, albeit only a bit, something like people’s lives, their breath, in it. I thought, “These are things that an actual living human said and did at the time.” Since then, my interest has been broader. I want to know about the worlds of the people who wrote it.

Language Differing By Chapter? Sensing a Major Discovery and Searching for Companions

Can you share why you decided to do interdisciplinary research? When did you come up with your idea for it?

Amano: Reading the Maitrayani Samhita, I realized that each chapter’s language usage is different. Scholars had not really thought about this—I think they just saw texts as single units and didn’t break them into smaller pieces. However, if you analyze the language very closely, you can’t help but feel differences in its use. It’s like each chapter is a layer. Or, to put it plainly, it’s like the text is a collection of things written by different people. That’s what I thought.

However, others didn’t really get what I was saying. They felt it was just an impression I had. So, I wondered if I could show these differences using statistics and thereby have objective discussions. While until now in Indology, there have been almost no research techniques that use statistics, I thought that there are probably fields, such as linguistics, that do incorporate statistics. So I began looking around in that area, trying to find out the kinds of techniques used in other fields.

Also, I created a convincing graph that showed the frequencies of certain words in different parts. That was at a conference in 2012. I’ll never forget it. Eight years ago. I saw clearly that language usage was different between this chapter and that chapter, confirming my suspicion, and showed this to others. I thought it’d be really easy to have discussions with people if I visualized statistics using illustrations.

After that, you tried contacting people?

Amano: Yes. I would abruptly approach anyone who seemed like they’d be able to share information related to the kind of research method I was envisioning. I began by sending people SNS messages and also would go up to them at academic events. I did this again and again. More often than not, I wasn’t successful. I’d be ignored, or our conversations wouldn’t progress. I was also still coming up with ideas, so even if the other person listened to what I was saying, our conversation wouldn’t go as far as talking about the next step. But, repeatedly doing this, I accumulated knowledge.

Three years ago, I joined Hakubi, and, finally, things started to take shape. After joining, people began more seriously listening to what I was saying, and it became easier to get across my points. Hakubi’s research funds have also made it easier for things to materialize.

Then you started working on new interdisciplinary research with a JSPS Grant-in-Aid , Kyoto University’s SPIRITS fund, and so on. Is that how you got to know your research project’s members and collaborators?

Amano: At first, using keywords like “linguistic layers” and “statistical research,” I took a scattershot approach when looking for people. I then found out that Hanazono University’s Professor Moro Shigeki was doing statistical research on Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, exploring their intertextual relationships and histories. I pounced on the opportunity. He was an acquaintance of an acquaintance. I found him on SNS and messaged him, saying that I’d like to get together and talk. He agreed to do so and introduced me to Oshiro Naoko from Doshisha University’s Graduate School of Culture and Information Science. This graduate school has been pioneering in its fusion of information science with humanities and social science fields. She was a Ph.D. student, so it was easy to talk about things with her. She taught me a lot. I say so because I was an absolute beginner when it came to information fields—or, rather, I have a bit of an aversion to them—and I was always nervous, afraid to ask excessively amateurish questions when talking with scholars.

I met Kyoto University’s Natsukawa Hiroaki, who is involved with K-CONNEX at a retreat that this consortium was holding. I was invited to this retreat to develop a relationship between K-CONNEX and Hakubi. Dr. Natstukawa is an information science expert, and, when listening to his presentation, I thought, this is my chance! I basically asked him if what I wanted to do is possible, and he kindly took an interest. Having gotten a bite, so to speak, I didn’t want to let the opportunity escape, so I talked to him again and again. This led to our current research project.

I also approached the University of Zurich’s Oliver Hellwig when he gave a presentation that drew from information fields at an Indian languages conference. However, at the time, I could only introduce myself, and we didn’t talk any further. While continuing my groundwork, his name came up again. He was developing a program that automatically analyzes Sanskrit. I contacted him, asking if he remembered me from that conference two years ago. About a half-year later, I met him again at a conference in Croatia. Thrilled, I started talking quite excitedly. Things then progressed at a good pace, and right now we’re creating grammatical analysis data for the Maitrayani Samhita using his program.

I got to know Leipzig University’s Kyogoku Yuki, who was introduced to me by a common acquaintance. At the time, I was trying to figure out how to do a joint research project and would tell anyone and everyone about my plans, or should I say my delusions, my aspirations. An Indology scholar then said that she knows of someone who seems to be interested in a similar kind of thing—originally a systems engineer, and now doing statistical analysis of classical Sanskrit texts, that was Yuki. So I contacted him. He joined my project, and is doing analysis design and trial runs, trying to figure out the kind of analysis that can be done with grammar data. I go on the offense while feeling nervous, and when I get a good reaction, I’m ecstatic. It’s almost like I’m flying.

Visualizing Ancient India

When your team visually renders the findings of this joint research, your own research will obviously advance. What about other scholars—what will be the impact?

Amano: I think that their discussions will develop a lot. A significant benefit of making data visible is that it becomes easy to get on the same page concerning the big picture. The research in which we specialize concerns minute details. For example, the development of a particular word’s usage or a specific religious concept. It’s really hard to tell others how what we’re doing fits into the geographically and spatially broad framework of “ancient India.” Shared tools, though, could facilitate acquiring a bird’s eye view and grasping things spatially and temporally. This would allow us to locate our very narrow research topics in an overall picture, and I think we’d have quite fruitful discussions. If I may make a big claim, it’ll probably become easier to talk with people in history and archeology.

In your grant proposal, you touch on ancient India’s history when discussing your research’s background. Were you drawing from philological findings?

Amano: Actually, there is no hard evidence regarding dates in ancient Indian texts. In later times, some information about India would make its way to China and Greece, which had historians and traditions of writing history. For example, people from Greece came due to Alexander the Great’s Eastern Campaign. It was after this outside contact that they began understanding history. However, this happened after the Vedas, and one just has to give up when it comes to India before this. Therefore, dating is almost entirely speculative and relative. Going back from what’s certain in later generations, one speculates, for example, that something happened some hundreds of years earlier. This is another thing that makes our discussions difficult.

The idea that Indo-Aryan people arrived in India and then came into contact with indigenous people is also speculative. The same goes for archaeological evidence. Say that pots of two different shapes are found. There’s no writing on the pots indicating who made them, and texts don’t talk about making pots. So while you can speculate that these people probably made this pot and indigenous people probably made that pot, that’s all it is—speculation.

One seldom finds geographical names written down either—they didn’t precisely decide on places’ locations. The Indo-Aryan people of ancient India were basically nomadic immigrants. They didn’t make towns and were always on the move. For this reason, there’s almost no direct archaeological evidence regarding where they moved around to.

If you start working on other texts after finishing your Maitrayani Samhita analysis, might you get data that renders such speculations more certain?

Amano: I think that we will be able to come up with more concrete hypotheses. Also, I believe that people’s movement in ancient time will become apparent as analyses and comparisons of texts advance. Earlier I said that there are multiple Vedic texts. In the end, one can see each of them as a group of humans. There were flows of people: groups came into contact with each other, split up, then came into contact with other groups, and so on.

This isn’t written at all in texts. Due to the nature of Vedic literature, only things about gods and ceremonies are. There’s basically nothing about actual human society; they’re entirely religious texts. It’s therefore difficult to understand the societies of the time by reading them. However, by repeatedly engaging in narrowly-focused analyses—primarily about how language is used—I’m hoping to bring into relief, even if just a little bit, the flows of people, which equals developments in society.

Taking the First Steps Towards Interdisciplinary Research

In closing, do you have any encouraging words for early-career researchers who want to do interdisciplinary research?

Amano: First, you have to just try and meet a lot of people. If you don’t take your chances, nothing will be gained. In most cases you’ll fail, but there’ll always be people with who you connect. I’m still on this path myself, and I intend to keep fearlessly meeting as many people as I can.