Speak no Evil

Prof K. VISWANATHAM

In a famous address Will Durant stated, “Speak no evil of any one; every unkind word will sooner or later fly into your face and make you stumble in the race of life. De vives, rather than de mortuis, nil nisi bonum.To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves; let us be above such transparent egotism. If you cannot say good and encouraging things, say nothing. Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” The Gita details the penance or purification of the tongue: Vaangmaya tapa uchyate. We should cultivate anudvegakaram, vaskyam satyam, priyahitam – speech which does not ruffle others, which is truthful and pleasant and beneficial. A well-known sloka points out: satyam bruyaat priyam bruyaat. Speak the truth, speak inoffensively. Rama is described as

            Buddhimaan madhurabhaashi purvabhaashi priyamvadah
Rama is not only a person of sweet speech but one initiating the dialogue; he is a smitapurvabhaashitoo: his talk is preluded by a smile. Tennyson’s “kind words are better than coronets” emphasizes this age old truth. The Gita, the Ramayana, Tennyson, and Will Durant underline the significance of sweetness of speech as a must in social dealings. Sweetness of speech is conspicuous by its absence now-a-days. People snarl at each other, use words that are like poisoned barbs. Urbanity in talk will stop half the bickerings in the world. A soft answer turneth away wrath. ­Gandhiji has familiarised us with the figurine of the three monkeys with eyes closed, mouths shut and ears finger-plugged signifying that we should not see evil, speak evil, or hear evil.

A gentleman, as Newman defines him, is one who does not inflict pain on others. We should not speak evil of another because -biting, being censorious, generates bitterness. Further we are not so superior to another as to be privileged to scoff at him. The pot has no business to call the kettle black.

In other men we faults can spy
And blame the mote that dims their eye;
Each little speck and blemish find,
To our own stronger errors blind.

This understanding is achieved when we place ourselves in other men’s positions – a desirable spiritual exercise as Forster terms it in the essay on Tolerance. Sita tells Ravana: “atmanam upamam krutva.”“Suppose somebody kidnapped your wife. How do you feel? Think about it and restore me to my Rama.” This is the very fabric of a civilized way of life – placing yourself in others’ position. Poetry is a powerful force in civilizing man precisely because it enables you to be in the sparrow picking grain or the mouse in the furrow. As C. S. Lewis puts it, “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem I see with a myriad eyes but it is still I who see. Here as in worship, in love, in moral action and in knowing - I transcend myself and am never more myself than when I do.” The great secret of morals, says Shelley, is going out of yourself and poetry effects this going out. Rudeness, abuse, censure, ill-speaking indicate a vulgar mind, an uncultured and immature heart; most people imagine that culture lies in the possession of a car, a frigidaire, a posh bungalow or membership of an exclusive club where you can smoke marijuana or booze or indulge in deeds of darkness. They do not realize that these are status symbols, not culture indicators. Culture lies in not hurting others, in an awareness of our own failings, in the practice of tolerance, in

            Datta, daamyata, dayadhvam

in giving, controlling self, in sympathizing. Moneta in Keats’s Hyperion says profoundly:

None can usurp this height, returned the shade
But those to whom the miseries of the world
Are misery and will not let them rest.

A golden rubric of wisdom and tolerance is Sita’s Nakaschinna­ paradhyati. There is none who has not defaulted. Tara says the same to the enraged Lakshmana – enraged at the lapse of Sugriva lost in revelry and pleasures of the harem. Judge not, says the Bible. Let him cast the first stone that has not sinned. No stone can be cast.

Speaking ill of another is as heinous as speaking well of oneself: both stem from an elephantiasis of the ego.  as Dharmaraja tells the Yaksha. It is people who think too much of  themselves that are a menace to the health and smooth running of society. They would either ruin or rule the roost. When the sage footed Vishnu in scorn, the God felt distressed that the sage’s tender foot might have been pained by the impact on his rough chest. It is the nature of a good man not to retaliate. The sandalwood tree perfumes the edge of the axe that cleaves it:

            Suryabhayati mukham kuthaarasya

The tree does not withdraw its shade from the woodcutter who intends felling it:

            Chaayaam na upasamharati drumah

It is pleasant to know that a great Orientalist commenced the study of Samskrit after coming across a translation of this sloka in English; the culture embodied or imbedded in that sloka made him study the Devabhasha. Cruel unkind words are worse than injuries inflicted on the body. Injuries heal. But there is no medicine for a hurt mind.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
And pluck from memory a rooted sorrow,
Rage out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart.

Purse-proud or power-mad minions of the Government do not hesitate to use very unbecoming or unparliamentary language to their subordinates or clerical staff as if they are scum of the earth: Bacon says in Of Great Place: “For roughness: it is a needless cause of discontent; severity breedeth fear but roughness breadth hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave and not taunting.” By treating others courteously we promote ourselves culturally and raise the subordinates to a higher level. Bitterness in speech is the haalaahalawe should swallow and imprison in our throats; Bhishma in the Santiparva tells Dharmaraja that even the gods shy away from those who indulge in sex and eating, who grab others’ possessions, who are violent of tongue: Vakparushah. . Sweetness of speech does not imply speaking pleasant lies. Untruth is always frowned upon. Truth must be spoken inoffensively: that is the meaning of

            Satyam apriyam na bruyaat

It does not mean, and should not, that unpleasant truth should not be uttered. In the Mahabharata the G. O. M. tells the Kurus those who utter pleasant falsehoods are sycophants and sycophancy is mental leprosy. Sweetness of speech eliminates bickerings, heals up animosities, generates a climate of love in which the lamb and the wolf drink at the same pond, in which the dove and the serpent go picnicking. Let us give up the syntax of the serpents, the oratory of the crows; let there be the cooing of the dove and the purring of the big cats; let us not be lion-passioned and tiger-thoughted. Genuine courtesy is not the sham etiquette among equals or towards superiors. Urbanity is in him who treats his inferiors becomingly. The finest culture is in amaaf ki jiye, when you beg pardon of a beggar to whom you have nothing to give. Culture does not lie in your lick-the-boots approach towards a superior or -slapping attitude towards an equal: one is shaped by fear and the other by Tickle-me-Toby­ and-I-will-tickle-thee expectation. Tit for tat, an eye for an eye show primitiveness or savagery. Achilles’s treatment ofthe dead body ofHector is just barbarity; Rama’s mamapi esha yatha tava to Vibhishana is the very height of magnanimity. Rama tells Vibhishina: “The dead Ravana is to me what he is to you.” Bitterness poisons the springs of life; sweetness overflows with ever-living waters which quench the roaring flames of spite and suspicion. Let us be extra careful about what to speak, when to speak, to whom to speak, and why, and life is a spread of asphodel. Neglect them; the blatant beast is unleashed and let loose. Friendships are disjointed, minds are diseased, hearts fester and there is no medicine for this bitterness except a heroic resolve to hunt down the beast and chain it as Sir Calidore did. Clouds form, earth laps up the waters, flowers laugh, birds sing, men and women come home in a coranto in a world that rings with courtesy and compliments. Let us follow the advice in paraguna paramaanun parvatkrutyai nityam. Take the atom of good‘ness in others, maximise it into a mountain and rejoice in it instead of spitefully reducing a mountain of goodness into a molehill of insignificance and indulge in barracking. Speak no evil of any one. You are the best among men and an example of the highest culture that man is capable of.Make the attempt to be good and kind as in the story of the Man and the Mask; the man becomes the mask of goodness he put on.Otherwise we have to blame the ungirt lion and the unlit lamp. Let us not say with Caliban: you taught me language that I may curse thee. Let us say with good old Gonzalo: The truth you speak: doth lack some gentleness. This is part and parcel of Viduraniti in the Mahabharata. Bhishma’s  is the ideal of speech. Speech which is not is a wolf-whistle or hyena’s laughter.