Twilight language or secret language is a rendering of the Sanskrit term ' (written also ', ', '; , THL ''gongpé ké'') or of their modern Indic equivalents (especially in Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Maithili,

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, Nepali,

Braj Bhasha Braj is a language within the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Braj region in Western Uttar Pradesh centered on Mathura. Along with Awadhi, it was one of the two predominant literary languages of North-Central India before gradually ...

and Khariboli). As popularized by Roderick Bucknell and

Martin Stuart-Fox Martin Stuart-Fox (born 1939) is a retired Australian professor and foreign correspondent who writes about the history, politics and international relations of Southeast Asia, primarily Laos. After studying biological sciences at the Universit ...

in ''The Twilight Language: Explorations in Buddhist Meditation and Symbolism'' in 1986, the notion of "twilight language" is a supposed

polysemic Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a Sign (semiotics), sign (e.g. a symbol, morpheme, word, or phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word h ...

language and communication system associated with tantric traditions in

Vajrayana Buddhism ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition that emp ...

and Hinduism. It includes visual communication, verbal communication and nonverbal communication. Tantric texts are often written in a form of the twilight language that is incomprehensible to the uninitiated reader. As part of an

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

tradition of

initiation Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense, it can also signify a transformatio ...

, the texts are not to be employed by those without an experienced guide and the use of the twilight language ensures that the uninitiated do not easily gain access to the knowledge contained in these works. The phrase "twilight language" has subsequently been adopted by some other Western writers, including

Judith Simmer-Brown Judith Simmer-Brown is a Distinguished Professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies Emerita at Naropa University. She has expertise in Tibetan Buddhism, Women and Buddhism, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, Western Buddhism and Contemplative Educa ...

Meaning

According to

Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and in ...

(1970), in 1916

Hara Prasad Shastri Hara Prasad Shastri (; 6 December 1853 – 17 November 1931), also known as Hara Prasad Bhattacharya, was an Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist, and historian of Bengali literature. He is most known for discovering the Charyapada, th ...

proposed the translation of "twilight language". However, in 1928 Vidhushekar Shāstri disagreed with that translation, showing that the term is based on a shortened form of the word ''sandhāya'', which can be translated as "having in view", "intending", or "with regard to". Eliade concludes that: "Hence there is no reference to the idea of a 'twilight language'." He continues by speculating on how the term came to be corrupted by scribes who read the familiar word ''sandhyā'' ("crepuscular") for the original ''sandhā''. Eliade therefore translates the phrase as "intentional language". Staal explains, "sandhā means

meaning, as contrasted with

prima facie ''Prima facie'' (; ) is a Latin expression meaning "at first sight", or "based on first impression". The literal translation would be "at first face" or "at first appearance", from the feminine forms of ' ("first") and ' ("face"), both in the a ...

or superficial meaning," and suggests to translate sandhābhāsā as "secret language". However, the phrase "twilight language" continues to be used by many Western writers. For example, according to

Usage

In the Vajrayana tradition

As Bucknell and Stuart-Fox state: Numbers,

numerology Numerology (known before the 20th century as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, ...

and the

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

of numerals is key to the twilight language and endemic to Vajrayana, as it is throughout

Indian religion Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism,Adams, C. J."Classification o ...

s. Numbers that are particularly frequent in classification are three, five and nine. As Bucknell and Stuart-Fox state:

In the Pali Canon

Although twilight language is primarily a feature of

traditions such as the Vajrayana, Bucknell and Stuart-Fox cite the Thai

Bhikkhu A ''bhikkhu'' (, ) is an ordained male in Buddhist monasticism. Male, and female monastics (''bhikkhunī''), are members of the Sangha (Buddhist community). The lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the pratimok� ...

Buddhadasa as having explored "the importance of symbolic language in the

Pali Canon The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant Early Buddhist texts, early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from t ...

... in a number of lectures and publications."

In Sonepur literature

Sonepur, Odisha and its literature is championed by such as Charyapada,

Matsyendranath Matsyendranātha, also known as Matsyendra, Macchindranāth, Mīnanātha and Minapa (early 10th century) was a saint and yogi in a number of Buddhism, Buddhist and Hinduism, Hindu traditions. He is considered the revivalist of hatha yoga as we ...

, Daripada and other

Nath Natha, also called Nath (), are a Shaivism, Shaiva sub-tradition within Hinduism in India and Nepal. A medieval movement, it combined ideas from Buddhism, Shaivism, Tantra and Yoga traditions of the Indian subcontinent.

References

Works cited

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