Skip to content
Wellsprings
hindu-mindWe're still mapping where this idea was first discussed. Key passages and related ideas below.

Audible Speech (Vaikharī)

The spoken word: language at its most outward, the audible tip of a much deeper descent.

Vaikharī is ordinary spoken speech — the fully formed, audible word as it leaves the mouth and reaches another's ear. It is the most external and concrete of the four levels, the surface that everyone recognizes as 'language.' In this scheme it is only the final, outermost expression of a much deeper process that began in the silent creative pulse of consciousness and descended through vision and inner thought into sound.

Key passages(7)

Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.

Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)

Relevance: High

Śiva-sūtra · Vasugupta

Relevance: High

Chāndogya Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

Relevance: High

Let a man meditate on the syllables of the udgîtha, i. e. of the word udgîtha. Ut is breath (prâna), for by means of breath a man rises (uttishthati). Gî is speech, for speeches are called girah. Tha

Tap to expand

Bhagavad-gītā · Vyāsa (Yoga-bhāṣya commentator)

Relevance: Moderate

Speech which causes no vexation, and is true, as also agreeable and beneficial, and regular study of the Vedas,— these are said to form the austerity of speech.

Tap to expand

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

Relevance: Moderate

They said to speech (Vak): 'Do thou sing out for us (the udgitha).' 'Yes,' said speech, and sang (the udgitha). Whatever delight there is in speech, that she obtained for the Devas by singing (the thr

Tap to expand

Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)

Relevance: Moderate

Let him meditate on speech as a cow. Her four udders are the words Svaha, Vashat, Hanta, and Svadha . The gods live on two of her udders, the Svaha and the Vashat, men on the Hanta, the fathers on the

Tap to expand

Upadeśasāhasrī · Ādi Śaṅkara

Relevance: Moderate