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 1.86
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.86:
भेदानुकारो ज्ञानस्य वाचश्चोपप्लवो ध्रुवः ।
क्रमोपसृष्टरूपा वाग् ज्ञानं ज्ञेयव्यपाश्रयम् ॥ ८६ ॥bhedānukāro jñānasya vācaścopaplavo dhruvaḥ |
kramopasṛṣṭarūpā vāg jñānaṃ jñeyavyapāśrayam || 86 ||86. The appearance of diversity in knowledge and the Word is surely an illusion. The word is coloured by sequence and knowledge is coloured by the known.
Commentary
Even though knowledge is undifferentiated and formless, it appears to be differentiated because it takes on the form of all the things which are to be known, as when one says five trees, twenty cows. The inner word in which, all the seeds are merged, appears, at the time of its manifestation, to follow the differentiation and sequence of the manifesting sounds. Therefore, the indivisible word-principle, called Word-Mind, being affected by the appearance of difference belonging to something else, is understood differently from what it is. It has been said:—
“Knowledge, without the thing to be known, does not enter into usage. And nothing can be expressed through the word which has not assumed sequence.”