Vakyapadiya of Bhartrihari
by K. A. Subramania Iyer | 1965 | 391,768 words
The English translation of the Vakyapadiya by Bhartrihari including commentary extracts and notes. The Vakyapadiya is an ancient Sanskrit text dealing with the philosophy of language. Bhartrhari authored this book in three parts and propounds his theory of Sphotavada (sphota-vada) which understands language as consisting of bursts of sounds conveyi...
This book contains Sanskrit text which you should never take for granted as transcription mistakes are always possible. Always confer with the final source and/or manuscript.
Verse 1.154
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.154:
दैवी वाग्व्यतिकीर्णेयमशक्तैरभिधातृभिः ।
अनित्यदर्शिनां त्वस्मिन् वादे बुद्धिविपर्ययः ॥ १५४ ॥daivī vāgvyatikīrṇeyamaśaktairabhidhātṛbhiḥ |
anityadarśināṃ tvasmin vāde buddhiviparyayaḥ || 154 ||154. This Divine Speech has been mixed up (with the corrupt forms) by incapable speakers. Those who consider words to be transitory are mistaken in this matter.
Commentary
It is heard that, in the old days, the word of those whose body itself was light was free from all corrupt forms as it was free from falsehood. But it became contaminated and through the persistence of the tendency towards contamination by the repetition of the first corruptions, it became, for those speakers, the original and the convention. Upholders of non-eternality, on the other hand, do not believe that correct words lead to merit and look upon the rules relating to correctness as similar to the rules among wrestlers and consider the whole collection of correct words as prākṛta, i.e. derived from prakṛti (the original, i.e. the corrupt forms). The form which is settled by some narrow minded persons by regulating accent, correctness and so on is a modification and established later.