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 2.13
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.13:
शब्दस्य न विभागोऽस्ति कुतोऽर्थस्य भविष्यति ।
विभागैः प्रक्रियाभेदमविद्वान् प्रतिपद्यते ॥ १३ ॥śabdasya na vibhāgo'sti kuto'rthasya bhaviṣyati |
vibhāgaiḥ prakriyābhedamavidvān pratipadyate || 13 ||13. The word has no division, how can the meaning have any? But the ignorant person sees division through artificial splitting.
Commentary
[The available Vṛtti on the IInd Kāṇda of the Vākyapadīya begins from this verse and goes on till the end, with many gaps big and small, in the middle. On this verse, what it says can be summarised as follows—The sentence, the Vākyasphoṭa, is indivisible. Its meaning, namely, pratibhā, is equally indivisible. This has been stated also later on in verse 145. This artificial division of the sentence and the sentence-meaning is a means to the understanding of the indivisible sentence and the sentence-meaning. To understand the indivisible straightway is as difficult as learning each word of a language separately. As the Vṛtti puts it:—guruprakramā tvatra saṃṣṛṣṭa-rūpasya pratipattir avibhāgena, pratipadaṃ pāṭhavat = “The understanding of the unified word without dividing it is a difficult process. It would be like learning each word of a language as a whole.” A good student, however, knows that division is only a means to an end and that indivisibility is the truth. In any case, doubts sometimes arise as to how the division should be effected. For instance, in the case of words haridru and dustara. Even when it is effected, it is only a means to an end. The word is really indivisible.]