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 1.42
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.42:
हस्तस्पर्शादिवान्धेन विषमे पथि धावता ।
अनुमानप्रधानेन विनिपातो न दुर्लभः ॥ ४२ ॥hastasparśādivāndhena viṣame pathi dhāvatā |
anumānapradhānena vinipāto na durlabhaḥ || 42 ||42. Fall is not unlikely in the case of one who relies on reasoning, as in the case of a blind man who walks along a difficult path by groping with the hands.
Commentary
Just as one, who, after seeing a sample, accepts the rest according to the maxim of the rice in the cooking pot (sthālīpulākanyāya)1 is like a blind man who goes hurriedly on a difficult hilly path without the help of one who can see, understands a part of the path by groping with his hands, traverses it, and, on that basis, takes the rest of the path also to be similar and comes to grief, in the same way, one who, without the help of the eye of Tradition, relies on reasoning and, after having attained confidence in some matters through inference only, proceeds, without the help of tradition, to perform acts having visible and invisible results, inevitably incurs great sin.
Notes
1. Sthālīpulākanyāya. See Jacob—A Handful of Popular Maxims—1, p. 53.