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Twilight language orsecret language is a rendering of the Sanskrit termsāṃdhyābhāṣā (written alsosāndhyābhāṣā,sāṃdhyabhāṣā,sāndhyabhāṣā;Wylie:dgongs-pa'i skad,THLgongpé ké) or of their modern Indic equivalents (especially inBengali,Odia,Assamese,Maithili,Hindi,Nepali,Braj Bhasha andKhariboli).
As popularized by Roderick Bucknell andMartin Stuart-Fox inThe Twilight Language: Explorations in Buddhist Meditation and Symbolism in 1986, the notion of "twilight language" is a supposedpolysemic language and communication system associated withtantric traditions inVajrayana Buddhism 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 anesoteric tradition ofinitiation, 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, includingJudith Simmer-Brown.[1]
According toMircea Eliade (1970), in 1916Hara Prasad Shastri 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 wordsandhāya, 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'."[2] He continues by speculating on how the term came to be corrupted by scribes who read the familiar wordsandhyā ("crepuscular") for the originalsandhā. Eliade therefore translates the phrase as "intentional language". Staal explains, "sandhā meansesoteric meaning, as contrasted withprima facie or superficial meaning," and suggests to translate sandhābhāsā as "secret language".[3]
However, the phrase "twilight language" continues to be used by many Western writers. For example, according toJudith Simmer-Brown:
As has often been said, tantric texts are written in "twilight language" (sandha-bhasa,gongpay-kay), which, as theHevajra tantra states, is a "secret language, that great convention of theyoginis, which theshravakas and others cannot unriddle". This means that the texts of Buddhist tantra cannot be understood without the specific oral commentary by authorized Vajrayana teachers.[1]
As Bucknell andStuart-Fox state:
In the Vajrayana tradition, now preserved mainly in Tibetan sects, it has long been recognized that certain important teachings are expressed in a form of secret symbolic language known assaṃdhyā-bhāṣā, "Twilight Language".Mudrās andmantras,maṇḍalas andcakras, those mysterious devices and diagrams that were so much in vogue in the Buddhist culture of the 1960s, were all examples of Twilight Language [...][4]
Numbers,numerology and thespirituality of numerals is key to the twilight language and endemic to Vajrayana, as it is throughoutIndian religions. Numbers that are particularly frequent in classification are three, five and nine. As Bucknell and Stuart-Fox state:
The fivefold classification presented in thetantras is remarkably comprehensive, embracing objects of every conceivable type; it includes the infamous set of "five Ms" (fish, meat, wine,mudrā, sexual intercourse) and even a set of five "body fluids" (faeces, urine, blood, semen, flesh). In addition it includes sets of doctrinal principles, such as the fiveskandhas (factors of existence), the fourkāyas (Buddha-bodies) and the triadprajña,upāya,bodhicitta (wisdom, means, enlightenment-mind). For example,prajña,upāya, andbodhicitta are identified with the triads female/male/union,Amitābha/Akṣobhya/Vairocana, and so on, and are thus implicitly assigned to the water, fire, and space groups respectively.[5]
— The Twilight Language
Although twilight language is primarily a feature ofesoteric traditions such as the Vajrayana, Bucknell and Stuart-Fox cite the ThaiBhikkhuBuddhadasa as having explored "the importance of symbolic language in thePali Canon ... in a number of lectures and publications."[4]
Sonepur, Odisha and its literature is championed by such asCharyapada,Matsyendranath, Daripada and otherNaths:
The growth of literature at Sonepur can be traced to Charyapada, to Matsyendranath and Daripada of the Natha cult. They wrote esoteric poetry in language known asSandhya bhasa. The local idioms they used are still in currency in this area.[6]
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