I recently finished this book called the Geek Sublime which deals with the aesthetics related to coding and sanskrit poetics. The author finds some parallels between the languages of coding and sanskrit along with conversations around aesthetics as they relate to political environments.
It is an amazing book and I highly recommend it.
Here is an excerpt where the author mentions Eliot who references studying sanskrit. It relates to Abinavagupta's concept of rasa-dhvani (I believe an 11th century text that dives into aesthetics and suggestion of emotive experiences).
This first quote, the author shows similarities between what Abinavagupta says (shown earlier in the book) and what Eliot says:
"The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding...a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked."
Eliot studied sanskrit and Indian philosophy for a time and said this about it (emphasis mine):
"Two years spent in the study of Sanskrit under Charles Lanman, and a year in the mazes of Patanjali's metaphysics under the guidance of James Woods, left me in a state of enlightened mystification. A good half of the effort of understanding what the Indian philosophers were after- and their subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schooolboys-lay in trying to erase from my mind all the categories and kinds of distinction common to European philosophy from the time of the Greeks. My previous and concomitant study of European philosophy was hardly better than an obstacle. And then I came to the conclusion...that my only hope of really penetrating to the heart of that mystery would lie in forgetting how to think and feel as an American or a European: which, for practical as well as sentimental reasons, I did not wish to do."
Just thought I'd share. Feel free to comment!
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