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...
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Verse 2.3
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.3:
निघातादिव्यवस्थार्थं शास्त्रे यत् परिभाषितम् ।
साकाङ्क्षावयवं तेन न सर्वं तुल्यलक्षणम् ॥ ३ ॥nighātādivyavasthārthaṃ śāstre yat paribhāṣitam |
sākāṅkṣāvayavaṃ tena na sarvaṃ tulyalakṣaṇam || 3 ||3. With the definition of a sentence given in this śāstra for regulating loss of acute accent etc. the (Mīmāṃsaka) definition does not fully tally.
Commentary
The author now discusses whether the definition given by the author of the Vārttikas and by the Mīmāṃsakas would agree with the above definitions or whether they have a different scope altogether.
[Read verse 3 above]
[Kātyāyana gives the following two definitions of a sentence: ākhyātaṃ sāvyayakārakaviśeṣaṇaṃ vākyam and ekatiṅ vākyam (vā 9, 10. M.Bhā. I, p. 367, 1. 10, 16). The Mīmāṃsaka definition is contained in Mī.Sū. II. 1.42:—arthaikatvād ekaṃ vākyaṃ sākāṅkṣaṃ ced vibhāge syāt. It is referred to in verse 40. In ayaṃ daṇḍo harānena, there is syntactical connection (sāmarthya).
Therefore there should be loss of acute accent (nighāta) in hara by P. 8.2.28 but that is not desired because, according to the definition of Kātyāyana given above, there are here two sentences and nighāta takes place only if both the words, the nimitta and the nimittī are in the same sentence. In nadyāstiṣṭhati kūle, śālīnāṃ ta odanaṃ dāsyāmi, there is no syntactical connection between the first two words and yet nighāta in the first case and substitution of te for tava in the second case take place, because the two words are in the same sentence. To decide whether the two words are in the same sentence, one should know what a sentence is and Kātyāyana tells us what it is in the vārttika quoted above. If we follow the Mī. definition of a sentence, there would be nighāta in hara in the sentence quoted above and that is not desired. So here the two definitions do not tally. In nadyās tiṣṭhati kule, they do.]
The Mīmāṃsaka definition is now referred to.