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| m k harikumar |
Authorlessness – A New Desolation
The condition of lacking an author, or akarthrithwam, is a profound tradition in India. There is no single definitive name that can be attributed as the author of the Vedas and the Upanishads. One might say they were composed by sages (rishis). However, it is more appropriate to describe them as intellectuals endowed with deep contemplation and profound philosophical engagement. The idea of not claiming ownership over what is written is not merely for stylistic appeal; rather, it stems from the very nature of the unadorned, immutable cosmic consciousness and the sacrificial intellectual effort that these texts seek to elevate. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad succinctly describes this as Sarvaswa Atmanah—meaning, the Self is everywhere. If the Self resides everywhere, all that is human, material, and sensory becomes insignificant. The profound realization of total renunciation (sarva-tyaga) arises from the anguish of watching everything one sought to acquire through the senses slip away fruitlessly.
One who understands that the dimension of material destruction coexists with us thinks of the transcendental. The endeavor is to give meaning to a transient life. Therefore, the sages never thought that what they wrote belonged to them, nor did they feel it needed to be associated with their names. The notion that the written thoughts were too vast to be tethered to an individual name is the external manifestation of a universal concept. This is why the Upanishads evolved into a state of authorlessness.
We Are Spectators
Now, once again, in the 21st century, in this post-postmodern era, a trend devoid of authors is emerging in both life and expression. It is a philosophy that views inquiries like "Who designed this?", "Who made this?", or "Who imagined this?" as absurd. Once a book is written, an author or creator comes into existence. The epic Meghadūta was written by Kalidasa; he is its author. Had he not existed, Meghadūta would never have happened. Meghadūta is an absolute manifestation. It did not predate history, nor will anything quite like it ever happen again. Just as the individual named Kalidasa exists only once in history, Meghadūta is unique. This uniqueness constitutes its authorship.
We have no right to remove a single line or word from Meghadūta, nor do we have the right to add anything to it. We are merely its appreciators or readers. We must maintain this stance throughout our lives. Everyone is an audience to Meghadūta. Authorship belongs solely to Kalidasa. That authorship is as firm as the Himalayas. We, as readers, are mere spectators of the Himalayas. We may offer our opinions if we wish; yet, no matter how much we say, it is entirely insufficient to shake or even scratch that Himalayan peak. Through our opinions, we may present subjective assumptions about the Himalayas, but authorship remains unchanged.
The French theorist Roland Barthes famously declared, "The author is dead; the reader now decides." He meant this in the sense that once a book is written, the author can no longer claim the ultimate authority on its meaning. It is the reader who experiences it, and meaning is generated and sustained according to the reader's experience. The author's work does not establish anything by itself; through multiple readings and interpretations of the words used, diverse cultural implications can be generated. Thus, the infinite possibilities of meaning within the written work come to life.
Apps in Queue
However, that is not the primary point being made here. In this post-modern digital age, the concept of authorship is crumbling. It is not just Artificial Intelligence that is generating this authorlessness. Today's products in television, digital, and cyber domains appear without any visible owner. We see an advertisement on TV or in a newspaper, and no one asks who designed it. We hear a ringtone on our mobile phone, and who composed it? Countless designs circulate on Instagram and Facebook. There are apps that generate posters and book covers; if we give instructions to these apps, they produce what we need. They have no author. Hundreds of templates are created, yet none have an individual owner. In place of human creators, we often find digital marketing companies. As users, apps stand in a queue to generate whatever objects we desire according to our preferences. Today, the traditional relationship, experience, and reality between a creation and its creator are slowly fading away. This does not mean that people who write books are disappearing.
In most dimensions of life, the presence of an author is absent. Authorlessness is the hallmark of today. If you ask who wrote Macbeth, the answer is Shakespeare. But a product in a digital format has no author. Music can be composed using algorithms—a data system—without an author. Models programmed in computers that mimic the neural networks found in the human brain and skull are called artificial neural networks. Using such neural networks, one can paint, design paintings, and create sculptures, yet there is no author. In the future, museums might display paintings generated through neural networks instead of human-made art. Even if spectators complain that they cannot establish an emotional connection with these paintings due to the absence of an author, such complaints hold no ground; there is simply no room for them. It is often difficult to distinguish whether such images were created using a network. Therefore, one might call them works of an unknown artist, or take comfort in the thought that God Himself is directly painting through the artificial network.
The Artist Is Not Drawing
Films can now have their scripts written using AI, yet the screenwriter is not a human individual. A series of upcoming e-books will serve educational purposes and information gathering. If we instruct AI to prepare a book on Mahatma Gandhi, it will do so. Clothing and furniture designs can be generated using network models. We must realize that the beautiful floral patterns and intricate designs on fabrics are not the work of any single individual. The charming figures of birds and plants seen on glassware and utensils are not drawn by an artist. This means we have already arrived at an authorless state.
Remarkably, this does not disturb us at all. Instead of a human artist enduring complex inner anguish to create a painting, a computer draws without any suffering. Our culture and aesthetic sense are shifting in a way that strips value from human consciousness, history, and emotional pain. Even if it is a computer-generated image, we happily enjoy it. Textile prints, vitrified tile patterns, and photo-editor filter shades on mobile phones are effortlessly produced by AI.
Life has become deeply artificial, and this artificiality will continue. When we feel like laughing, we don't actually need to laugh—we just display a laughing emoji, and people interpret it as us laughing. This is the authorlessness of life. We do not need to be the authors of anything; internet emojis fulfill it all. Our minds are spaces devoid of an author; they are desolate. The wind blows in from one side and passes out through the other. We are not authors, nor do we need one. I am reminded of a telefilm I saw years ago called Peruvazhiyile Karikalal (Dry Leaves on the Way). It had an author. But today, similar products are readily available without any author. Videos explaining plots to audiences are constantly being created without an author. To send personal emails and maintain customer relations for marketing, an author is no longer needed. Even in interpersonal relationships, authorless messages, thoughts, and symbols are being used.
A sense of authorlessness is constructing our forgetfulness. The more we remember, the more we forget. When we have the convenience of watching a movie twenty times, we do not watch it because we remember it; we watch it because forgetfulness is being systematically produced. Each viewing refreshes the memory, which is immediately followed by the production of forgetfulness. This means the author within the mind is vanishing.
The vow given by Dasharatha is used like an axe, enabling them to send Rama to the forest for 14 years. Rama is ready to go because he firmly stands by dharma. He was not prepared to enjoy palace life by overriding his father's weakness or Kaikeyi's cunningness. Rama did not deviate from his own dharma. He adorns life with values such as sacrifice, paternal love, and fraternal love. Rama values the minds of others far more than his own suffering. As Krishnachaitanya points out in his work Sanskritile Sahitya Tatvachinthana (Literary Philosophy in Sanskrit), this suits an existential hero.
*m k harikumar, new philosophy, authorlessness, textual, post postmodernism, social media, no author, live, new thinking, new era, time ans space
