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 3.7.64
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.64:
सदृशादिषु यत्कर्म कर्तृत्वं प्रतिपद्यते ।
आपत्त्यापादने तत्र विषयत्वं प्रतिक्रिये ॥ ६४ ॥sadṛśādiṣu yatkarma kartṛtvaṃ pratipadyate |
āpattyāpādane tatra viṣayatvaṃ pratikriye || 64 ||64. In words like ‘sadṛśa’ where a ‘former’ object becomes the agent, ‘becoming’ and ‘causing to become’ are the two actions involved (when something becomes) the object (of the action of seeing).
Commentary
[In this section devoted to a consideration of the topic of karma (object), something was said about the object sometimes becoming an agent. That led to a consideration of P. 1.3.67, because that is also connected with the idea of the object becoming the agent. The sūtra “tyadādiṣu drśo ‘nālocane kañ ca’ (P. 3.2.60) is also connected with the same idea. Words like ‘tādṛk’ formed according to this sūtra, express the idea of similarity and not the agent of the action of seeing and yet that is what they should express, because they have the suffix ‘kañ’, which being a Kṛt, denotes the agent. Nor can such forms come under ‘ive pratikṛtau’. (P. 5.3.96) as suggested by the Vārttikakāra, The Bhāṣyakāra. explains it as karmākartā. It can be so according to the principle enunciated in stanza 56. For this, it is. necessary to look upon the root dṛś as expressive of an action,involving āpatti and āpādanam. In the sentence, ghaṭam paśyati, āpatti ‘becoming’ is the activity of the jar and ‘causing to become’ āpādana, the activity of the person who sees. The sentence really means: helps something which becomes the object of seeing to become it. When caus- ing to become’ is not meant to be conveyed, becoming becomes the chief thing. In other words, the jar becomes the objectagent (karmakartā). Applying the same principle to the word ‘tādṛk’ the word would mean: tamivemaṃ paśyanti janāḥ so'yam sa iva dṛśyamānas tam ivātmānaṃ paśyati iti tādṛk—‘people see him as the other; he, being seen as the other, sees himself as the other (thus, he is) tādṛk—that-like.]
It is now being shown that this way of explaining it is not right.