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 3.7.80
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.80:
अहितेषु यता लौल्यात् कर्तुरिच्छोपजायते ।
विषादिषु भयादिभ्यस्तथैवासौ प्रवर्तते ॥ ८० ॥ahiteṣu yatā laulyāt karturicchopajāyate |
viṣādiṣu bhayādibhyastathaivāsau pravartate || 80 ||80. Just as, through greed, one (that is, a sick man) has the desire (to eat) what is not good, similarly, through fear one acts in regard to poison etc.
Commentary
The author now considers cases like: viṣam bhakṣayati = he eats poison.
[Read verse 80 above]
[Tn sentences like viṣam bhakṣayati, coram paśyati, it is not really according to P. 1.4.50 that poison and thief becomes objects, but by the main sūtra itself (P. 1.4 49). In certain circumstances, one may wish to take poison. All one’s actions are not the result of careful consideration. A sick man may want to eat what is not good for him through greed. In such cases, īpsita would only mean becoming the object of the action of eating and that happens in the case of poison. Similarly, a thief is ‘īpsita’ in the same sense. The grass which one treads on while going to the village is also īpsita in the same sense. Thus everything can become an object by the main sūtra, including such cases as akṣān dīvyati = he throws the dice, rāmam abhikrudhyati = ‘he gets angry with Rāma.’]
The author now states what happens when a thing becomes the object of two actions in the same sentence,