Divine consciousness and the levels of language ( <i>vāc</i> ): An Indian model of revelation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The levels of language (vāc) known by the names parā, paśyantī, madhyamā, and vaikharī, are a mainstay of esoteric practice in Śaiva, Śākta, and even Vaiṣṇava tantras. In this paper, I will present new evidence from the earliest source that mentions the levels, Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadīya, as well as from one of Abhinavagupta’s earliest works, the Mālinīvijayavārtika to show that the levels are primarily intended as a model of revelation. They work as a bridge between divine and human consciousness, unique to a metaphysical outlook that maintains a close relationship between language and consciousness. It is by virtue of this ‘divine linguistic consciousness’ and the levels that mediate human experience of it, that revelation can be viewed as a natural occurrence arising within subjective awareness and potentially accessible by any practitioner.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.035 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".