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.

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.11:

वर्णान्तरसरूपं च वर्णभागेषु दृश्यते ।
पदान्तरसरूपाश्च पदभागा अवस्थिताः ॥ ११ ॥

varṇāntarasarūpaṃ ca varṇabhāgeṣu dṛśyate |
padāntarasarūpāśca padabhāgā avasthitāḥ || 11 ||

11. Just as one sees in phonemes parts resembling other phonemes, in the same way, one sees (in a sentence) parts which resemble other words.

Commentary

[Just as the abstracted parts of diphthongs like ai, au seem to resemble independent phonemes like a, ā, i, u etc., in the same way, the abstracted parts of a sentence seem to resemble independent words. But that is not true because these parts have no real existence.]

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