Ola Wikander: Ancient Tongues and Ideas about Truth

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00][singing] >> What is truth?

[00:00:04]What makes something [music] a lie?

[00:00:07]Across the whole of history, truth has never stood still.

[00:00:11]It moves.

[00:00:13]Well, I'm not a crook.

[00:00:14]Power, language, and belief.

[00:00:20]>> [singing] >> From Socrates [music] to Donald Trump, how do we know the truth? How do we recognize a lie?

[00:00:26]>> [music] >> Is it up there?

[00:00:34]We're talking to Ola Akanda, reader in Old Testament studies at the University of Lund. Ola, to start with, what is the truth? And what makes something a lie?

[00:00:44]Well, that obviously depends on whom you ask. My personal interest in a way is in the early systems of knowledge and early languages specifically used to express them that saw truth as not something that we arrive at really, but something that's built into the fabric of reality by means of language. If the ancients thought that that language itself was sort of constitutive of reality, >> [sighs and gasps] >> I mean, where did they see language as coming from?

[00:01:17]In in many like cultures of the say of the say the ancient world and early medieval times, not all of them, but many of them, you find this idea that language constitute the very building blocks of reality. We find this idea, for example, already in a way, you know, since I'm an Old Testament scholar, this is close to my heart. You find it in the beginning of Genesis 1, the so-called priestly creation story, where uh where Elohim, the God, basically does two things. He He He divides stuff, you know, above, below, and and male and female. He does all this sort of division division work, but But also talks. The the recurring verb in Genesis 1 is wayomer and he said and that sort of sets the tone for that text that he said and thus it came to be. He says yehi or, may there be light and then wayhi or, and there was light.

[00:02:11]There's this direct relationship being painted between divine speech and true happening, so to speak. And that that idea of logos Yeah. in the age is it is that sort of central to this?

[00:02:25]Yeah, it is. I mean the the logos idea uh started in Greek philosophy. We find we find it in Heraclitus, for example, but uh that was welded together with this ancient Near Eastern idea, this Jewish idea from from Genesis 1 about divine speech and we find that in Philo of Alexandria, for example, who uh Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who sort of welded these two ideas together using this idea of the logos, the which which is it's a very hard word to translate. It means I mean it means word, but it also means principle, rationality, and that's what we find in the beginning of the Gospel of John, you know, en arche en o logos, in in the beginning was the word, which takes this sort of Philonian idea of rational logic process being the building block of reality, also meaning word, and what we see in Genesis 1, that God spoke the word into being and sort of welds these together it welds these together in a very creative way. And this idea that that language comes from God, that language enacts things, Yes. and that it's part of a process of dividing one thing from another. I mean, in some ways that seems to kind of anticipate some quite modern linguistics, doesn't it? It it does in a way. I I'd say it anticipate anticipate several things. It anticipates, you know, like you said, the idea of rationality as a sort of process process of division, which is very Aristotelian in a way. So, it's a uh and you know, analyzing even clauses by dividing them into halves and you know, sort of syntactic analysis. But, it also in a way anticipates what you find in some post-modern philosophy, the idea of language as power, the idea that the world is constructed through our linguistic understanding thereof. The difference, of course, being that in these ancient systems, you you find it in parts of the Hebrew Bible, you find it in the Kabbalah, for example, which has this idea that the world is literally built out of Hebrew Hebrew Hebrew characters, almost. The difference being that in those systems, it's not just us imposing our understanding on the world so as to create social power or whatever, it's creating the world itself. It The world would not exist without you know, without linguistics, basically, which is a much more grand conception of it in a way. And also more theistic one, I guess. I mean, It can be, yes. But, it That's actually not necessary. I mean, a one very cool version of this uh uh is uh in ancient India, where the Vedas The Vedas themselves the the Vedic writings were originally they weren't writings because they were written down pretty late. They're defined defined as Shabda Brahman, Brahman in the form of sound.

[00:05:06]So, it's like the the absolute reality in the form of speech, which is a very cool concept, if you think about it.

[00:05:12]Like, the idea that the the the deepest sort of level of reality can be conceived of as being linguistic in nature. Vibrations. Yeah, yes, in a way.

[00:05:23]Yes, in a way. [laughter] A Sanskrit philosopher and grammarian whom I've always found quite endearing, well, impressive, actually, called Bhartrhari, from the late antiquity early Middle Ages period.

[00:05:35]And he argued that uh well, as you may know, several different Indian philosophers have these you know, they have a a common idea of liberal spiritual liberation. We need to be liberated, get back to Brahman, as it were, but they differ on how to do that.

[00:05:50]Do you do that through contemplating God or do you do that through realizing oneness? All sorts of variants.

[00:05:55]Bhartrhari had this idea that you get liberated by perfecting grammar.

[00:06:00]He says that grammar is dwaram apavargasy the door to liberation. So that through perfect perfect Sanskrit grammar, we will understand absolute reality perfectly. And it's such a it's such a magnificent view of linguistics. You know, it's it's not just us understanding our language better.

[00:06:19]It's understanding the literal fabric of the universe. I kind of love it. Which would yes, encourage the recalcitrant children in the average class.

[00:06:28]>> Indeed it would. Indeed it would. I mean letters to the Daily Telegraph would be a means of saving the world. Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:33]I mean telling one's students that you I'm not drilling you in grammar just just because you have to, you know, ace the test. I'm doing it so to so as to help you to attain final spiritual liberation. Well, you're you're describing some quite sort of constant some consonant ideas across some quite different traditions, you know, sort of ancient Greek, the obviously Talmudic and cabalistic Jewish traditions and you know, you're talking about Sanskrit. Um What's the kind of relationship between these? Are they sort of separate evolution? Is there a Is there a kind of I don't know, some evolutionary baked-in form of these ideas? What did How did they relate to each other? I mean there are basically two possible answers of course. One of them is that it has to do with some sort of vague philosophical transfer going back and forth especially in the Hellenistic age, but if but then of course I mentioned the Vedas which are much earlier than that. So that doesn't sort of encapsulate that. So I I think it's fairer to say that some of these ideas, not all of them, but some some them actually did appear spontaneously in a similar way in several places on the globe and that of course makes one ask is there some sort of innate idea about the divinity of language that the truthfulness the innate truthfulness of of language that I mean I'm not going to sound Chomsky in here because I'm not but but this some is there possibly some idea of language being so definitional to to human life that it's you know almost logical note the word logical by the way logos like to assume that language is definitional not only to human life but to the world as as we see it and what is true but whether or not there is some sort of actual historical link I I I wouldn't presume to say actually Yeah fair enough. Um You know we talk about truth. I mean is it are the cultures you're talking about would they have understood truth in this concept of truth in kind of the same way we do as a sort of discoverable actuality that's somehow objective in the world?

[00:08:55]Objective yes but that I mean the ancient world had so many philosophers and so many thinkers so this this obviously varied but if you have you know in in the sort of thought systems where you have the sort of language mystical view of the world it is of course a sense of discovery but not discovery of something previously totally un- unknown. It's rather like a sort of platonic idea of of sudden remembering to what was actually already known.

[00:09:26]Again the example of the Vedas is fascinating that it's a it's actually a dogma in so to speak Orthodox Hinduism that that the Vedas are apauruṣeya, which is they are impersonal. They have no author. They never came into being.

[00:09:44]They're like built into the original fabric of the world, which means that if you learn the Vedic writings by heart, which is still done, by the way.

[00:09:51]If you do that, you're not learning new information. You're relearning something that is sort of innate to the structure of reality itself. So So yes, it's it it it it it it it it it it it it this sort of true imagined truth is, of course, discovered, but it's discovered in a way It's an idea of discovery very different to what we might imagine today. You know, we do we discover new information in a laboratory that what that was never known linguistically by anybody. No, it's the other way around. We rediscover linguistic knowledge that was that was there of eternity, which is a very sort of alien concept to many people today.

[00:10:29]It's a worldview that demands an an sort of integrated almost theological view of how the world works. Everything affects everything else. There There are no There's no separation, which is something that is, again, very alien to many people living in at least in the West today. And that thing of no separation, I mean, do the Do the ancients make a distinction between different categories of truth?

[00:10:54]If that makes sense, I mean.

[00:10:55]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:56]Many did. Again, the ancients is a very >> A very broad set But but but there's there's actually a very cool example of this. Um an idea, again, that appears in India.

[00:11:07]You find it in the great Mahayana philosopher Nagarjuna and also in a couple of others who who posit this idea of the doctrine of two truths. They literally call it the It's called the doctrine of two truths. And the idea there is that you read sacred writings if you if you're a Vedantin, that is a Hindu, you it's the Vedic and Upanishadic writings and and so on. And if you're a Buddhist, it's other stuff. And some of the some of the statements there seem to relate to what we would call philosophically the absolute truth, the Brahman in in Hindu terms, the or Nirvana in in in in Buddhist terms. But some of the stuff seems more mundane. Some of the stuff seems to relate to this world and the vicissitudes of just living, and you have to sort of get these things to fit. And what amongst others Nagarjuna came up with was this idea of relative and absolute truth, that there are actually two levels of truth. There's the absolute truth, which is unspeakable. It's, you know, he wouldn't call it divine, but, you know, absolute reality. And there is relative reality, which is what we mistakenly believe ourselves to be living in. And both of these are actually true, and you can see this also in the text. That's The argument is that some part of the text relate to relative reality, what we seem to be living in, and some relate to some sort of description of the unspeakable actual mystically true reality. So, that you can sort of say in those systems that yes, there are actually two truths that are truths that are true at the same time. And realizing that is actually part of the liberation itself, that there is no differentiation.

[00:12:51]They're both true, they're two levels of truth. Well, isn't that another kind of shape of an idea that seems to go come up again and again, this idea that there is a sort of absolute truth, which is itself ineffable in this sublunary world, that, you know, I mean, once we see it as a Platonism and versions of early Christianity is I mean, again, what is there a line of inheritance in that, or does that seem to be a sort of baked in idea? Well, I mean, it it's I'd say it's several lines of inheritance in in in the West widely defined. It's of course all it this goes back to Plato, as you mentioned, because he he really sold this idea very strongly. I mean, he didn't call He had different terms for it, but the idea is very similar.

[00:13:36]Uh and the same idea seems to have appeared in India. And and then it sort of disseminated. So, I'd say that it's it's several pedigrees, but they're very very similar. And the funny thing is you can find something similar in a less spiritual sense in say, like modern physics, where you have this idea Yes, we have our models, and we know they're totally wrong, but they're good to think with. And they're And they're less wrong than some other possible ideas. Because we we cannot Like something on a subatomic level, the human mind cannot conceptualize what that actually would Well, it wouldn't look like anything because it's it's below the level of sight. So, you know, it's it's it's physically doesn't look like anything.

[00:14:20]>> of itself. Yeah. And how can something, you know, be a wave and a particle at the same time? It But but but some models are easier to use for thinking with than others. Again, going back to Nagarjuna and the other Mahayana Buddhist philosophers, they they refer to this sort of thinking as Upaya-kaushalya, which means it it's usually translated something like skillful means. And the idea there is that you can't tell your student what's true. So, you tell him or her a fib that gets them in the right direction.

[00:14:52]It's a skillful It's skillful means. You You can't tell them what's true, or even if you did, they wouldn't understand it.

[00:14:57]So, you give them some sort of an image that sort of nudges them in the right direction. It's it's better than nothing. So, is this sort of like that anticipation of kind of apophatic theology?

[00:15:07]>> Yes, very similar to that. Very similar to that.

[00:15:10]But, again, with the with a caveat that there are sort of even though the theology is apophatic, we cannot say anything really, some analogies are more skillful than others.

[00:15:23]Now, obviously, now I mean you we've danced around this idea of maths and right, you know, Kabbalah and you know, in particular notoriously you know, is really interested in numbers. Yes.

[00:15:35]>> And is that are those systems which kind of incorporate numerological games and structures and ideas? I mean how much do you see those as trying to kind of bring this idea of linguistics and language as constitutive reality you know, into line with this idea of the intuition that there may be a kind of a kind of mathematical truths which kind of underpin I mean now you know, we now have this idea that maybe maths you know, those are as close as we can get to that platonic realm.

[00:16:11]You know, they're absolute truths that are are kind of are prior right perfect. Um Was that sort of intuition that these systems you described would have had?

[00:16:22]Yes, I think so. And and and in the Kabbalistic example you mentioned it it's even more salient because there it's directly tied to the idea of Gematria, the idea that the Hebrew letters can be read also as numbers, which means that every word out of the Hebrew Bible is potentially a number and can be used for you know, seemingly spurious connections between concepts because they add up to the same number, which is again a concept very very alien to to modern and post well, at least modern partly post modern thinking. But I absolutely agree.

[00:16:57]It's just just what you say that there is this sort of intuition and and there of course the influence of Pythagoreanism cannot be must not be forgotten and and middle Platonism which also inherited a lot from Pythagoreanism and then influenced both early Christian and and Jewish thinking a lot. There of course, the idea of numbers is absolutely vital.

[00:17:20]The idea that not only the physical world, but the divine world, too, is built up by numbers. Especially the number in in um in the middle Platonism, the number three is very, very prominent, which of course influenced early Christian thinking, where it appears in the in the Trinity. The Yes, I was going to say it comes to be quite important in Christianity >> But so I'd say that it it's many things.

[00:17:43]It is this natural intuition that yes, numbers are a very efficient way of character sort of categorizing the world in a way that seems to be sort of inherent in the structure of the of the reality that we seem to see around us and which is what you mentioned. And also the fact in in in Kabbalah that numbers seem to be, you know, a very sort of efficiently built into the writing system itself. So it's sort of a fortuitous blend of ideas which makes number mysticism numerology extremely palatable, of course. Is is it Is it fortuitously built or is there you know, is that an accident?

[00:18:21]>> No, I I It's that >> [laughter] >> that depends on how confessional you want to be, obviously. But but let's maybe maybe fortuitous isn't the right word. Just just fitting. Let's just call it fitting. It's two idea two ideas that fit extremely well together. The the sort of middle Platonist Pythagorean idea that the world is made from numbers, which is partly an experiential thing and the thing inherent in the Hebrew alphabet that every word can be read as a number.

[00:18:51]Those those two ideas fit together very, very neatly, obviously. They do. Well, we've talked a lot about the congruences between these different cultures and idea systems. You studied Are there any dramatic differences that stand out? Any any kind of ways in which you go, "Actually, these guys are doing something quite unli >> Yeah, I mean I I I've taken examples from Greece, the Jewish world and India. There are others obviously, but the one big difference is that in India it's much more okay to say that like like like when Bhartrhari says like that that that grammar is the way to spiritual liberation. It was okay for him to say that.

[00:19:32]The pluralism was very great. There there has never been much of an much of a Hindu orthodoxy that you know there are there are schools that are regarded as orthodox and some that are regarded as heterodox, but the main thing there is do you accept that the Vedas are apauruṣeya that they are just they're just there that nobody wrote them. Do you if you accept the authority of the Vedas you're okay. And with and beyond that you could basically you could do quite a lot of things. So so so the Indian traditions are in a way more anarchic in in a in a very creative way because because Judaism isn't really a religion founded in orthodoxy in in in the the sense that it orthodoxy has has in Christianity of course. It's not based on belief. It's based more on on covenant and and and orthopraxy if you will, but but but >> more to do with deal rather than a Yeah, you do it's more important what you do and then and then what you believe. This idea that the important thing is what you believe is a very not only specifically a Christian idea specifically a Western Christian and specifically a you know a a what what we what we sometimes refer to as Protestant idea. It's sola fide this idea that the definition of religion and and the spiritual striving is belief. That that's a very actually quite a rare idea.

[00:20:57]So there are differences in but there are by they're by degree, you know.

[00:21:01]Does in these traditions does truth at this stage have the kind of peculiar moral valence it takes on in Christianity.

[00:21:08]There is a many of these systems have have the idea of that knowing truth makes you a better person, you know, that if you if you know the what something of the absolute the absolute truth of what the world is and our experience of it, then that will that will influence your actions in some way, which could be regarded as morally beneficial.

[00:21:34]So, yes, I'd say that.

[00:21:36]I I I'm hesitant to use the word harmony, but let's let's go with it being in harmony with what absolute reality is like. That it this idea that there's some sort of an an inherent structure to the world, which with with which one can be more or less aligned. On the other hand, um it's quite interesting to note that again in India there there is this rare, but existent thing called Vamachara Tantra, left-hand Tantra. I mean, Tantra is not sex magic. That that's a blatant misunderstanding. Tantra is is is a complex sort of a set of ideas about language, again, uh the divinity of a guru, uh the the need for ritual action, and the the ability to be liberated in this life. That's kind of what and and a special type of ritualism, but there is a minority type of Tantra called left-hand Tantra, which is predicated on deliberately breaking all the taboos.

[00:22:34]You know, you have you have a unmarried sex with a low-caste woman, and you eat meat, and you drink alcohol, all these things that that a good Brahmin is not supposed to do. Breaking every last barrier of the human mind.

[00:22:49]You know, what are we most afraid of?

[00:22:50]And what what is most contaminating?

[00:22:52]Well, it's dead bodies. Well, then we should associate with those, because that will break down this final barrier.

[00:22:58]>> there's an Alister Crowley vibe about it.

[00:23:00]>> Yeah, yeah, and he yeah, a way in a way, but I mean he he studied this stuff obviously. So have many other Westerners and terrorists, but often not quite understanding the role that this had and has in in in Vedantic India and the Hindu India because it it it I always like to point this out that these ideas, these very radical ideas, they're aimed at people brought up in a very conservative, mostly very often Brahmin milieu in which these are the things you're not allowed to do. So that's why it's viewed as transgressive and potentially liberating to do it. It's not meant for people who grew up as party people in the West who who don't have these quote unquote inhibitions to begin with. And that's why it doesn't travel very well. And how much in the Upanishads is there that idea that that truth is not out there, but in here?

[00:23:54]>> Yeah, that's very central and of course one of the most famous dicta of the Upanishads is tat tvam asi Shvetaketu.

[00:24:02]Thou art that, oh Shvetaketu. That being the self, the idea that truth is realized through introspective mystical understanding of one's innermost being, which is identical with the innermost being of the of the whole world. That truth is truth not as in the X-Files truth is out there. Truth is in there.

[00:24:23]Or rather the both are actually the same. That what what we perceive as an outside world is actually just a manifestation of that. That.

[00:24:33]Now the opposite of truth, if it is the opposite of truth, lies, how were lies understood in in the traditions you're talking about? I mean, were they seen as an absence of connection to the divine truth as revealed in language or as as an attack on it, as a threat?

[00:24:48]>> Well, both. Uh I mean it could be an attack like just formulating the the opposite. And you you you find in many of these traditions, you know, the attacks on people who do not uh accept the existence of the divine, you know, that they are deluded. You find this in the Hebrew Bible, you find it you you find it in the Apocrypha, like especially.

[00:25:09]Um But, it can also of course be a sort of sense of degeneration that that yes, we have this language that is somehow built into reality, but we're using it wrong and not understanding its potential and this can also sometimes lead to sort of ideas of double religion, you know, that there is a select few that understands what it's really that understand what it's really about and then you have the masses who just sort of tag along. And and this is also a recurring idea.

[00:25:39]I mean, in a way it's the basis of monasticism in a way that the sort of idea that there is a sort of spiritual elite um that have have a deeper understanding what's going on than just sort of going to the going to the rituals. The um even in ancient Mesopotamia, you could you you can find the sort of idea amongst not least scribes. I mean, scribes in ancient Mesopotamia who knew cuneiform, they were a small elite and they were constantly in demand because their services were needed for, you know, all sorts of mundane tasks, signing contracts, everything, but there was also this idea that some scribes had access to a sort of deeper secret esoteric understanding of you know, secret names of gods and stuff like very similar to what we were discussing here and there were these ideas like pirištu ša ilāni, which is Akkadian for the secret of the gods, which is this idea that there is some sort of a deeper often linguistic or scribal understanding of divine reality, which is only for the few. And that of course implies that the ones who do not have this are perhaps not lying, but you know, we we we them again a simplified version. A skillful means if you will, which is not a it's not a lie, but it's a fib, you know? [laughter] Yeah, but they they they're in error. Yeah. Um but on a sort of day-to-day level for the you know, rather than you know, stepping to one side from the sort of access to the divine syllable or whatever.

[00:27:08]Um I mean, how much was there a sense that, you know, the avoidance of lies in day-to-day life, the existence of what you describe contracts were kind of anthropologically they were underpinning the social order because if everyone lied to each other, you didn't have social capital.

[00:27:27]And so, you know, these prohibitions against you know, bearing false witness, um are they kind of universal? I mean, are they just a feature of German or civilizations?

[00:27:39]As you've as you'll have noticed throughout this interview, I'm a little loath to call anything universal uh because everything is socially and historically contingent, but it is of course widespread features Uh very widespread features it certainly is. And and and again, just to take an example from from what we just talking about, the Mesopotamian environment of of the Bronze Age and say in in say Assyria-Babylonia, you have this and the whole ancient Near East actually have this idea that where often when you sign a contract and even more when there it's like treat, you know, treaties between countries, you have a long list of divine witnesses to, you know, gods so-so-so and so uh have witnessed this treaty. And if anybody would be so be so bad as to break it, then they will strike you down. It's it's it's a little, you know, and hope to die and so help me God, but in a in a much more very literal way.

[00:28:38]You got to get a list of gods who will avenge themselves on you uh if you were to well, not be truthful to what you have promised in the agreement.

[00:28:52]Oluwakanyinsola, thank you very much indeed for a fascinating discussion.

[00:28:55]Thank you for having me.

[00:29:02]>> [singing] [music] [music]