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 2.344
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.344:
न लोके प्रतिपत्तॄणामर्थयोगात् प्रसिद्धयः ।
तस्मादलौकिको वाक्यादन्यः कश्चिन्न विद्यते ॥ ३४४ ॥na loke pratipattṝṇāmarthayogāt prasiddhayaḥ |
tasmādalaukiko vākyādanyaḥ kaścinna vidyate || 344 ||344. In the world, traditions of men are not always based on reality. Therefore, there is nothing beyond the sentence which is not a mere creation of the world.
Commentary
[The point is that when we are trying to understand the truth, we cannot rely on the practice of the world. In the world, one sometimes reaches the real through the unreal. We can understand what kind of animal a cow is by looking at a picture of it. That does not mean that the picture of a cow is a real cow. Similarly, we sometimes act on the basis of wordmeanings but that does not mean that they are real. ]