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 2.15
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.15:
सामान्यार्थस्तिरोभूतो न विशेषेऽवतिष्ठते ।
उपात्तस्य कुतस्त्यागो निवृत्तः क्कावतिष्ठताम् ॥ १५ ॥sāmānyārthastirobhūto na viśeṣe'vatiṣṭhate |
upāttasya kutastyāgo nivṛttaḥ kkāvatiṣṭhatām || 15 ||15. The general meaning, having disappeared, cannot lead to the particular. How can what has already been conveyed be abandoned and where can what is already gone rest?
Commentary
[The Mīmāṃsaka view is that it is the individual words themselves which constitute the sentence and not anything beyond them. This is not sound. Words are uttered in a sequence. When the second word is uttered, the first one has already vanished. So its meaning which is of a general nature cannot become particularised in association with the meanings of the later words because it is not there at all. Even if it has an existence in memory, how can the general meaning which was first conveyed be abandoned? To do that would go against the eternal relationship between the word and the meaning, which the Mīmāṃsaka would not accept. In any case, if the word gives it up, where would it rest? The Vṛtti points out that a word which, at the time of its utterance, conveys the general cannot denote the particular after its disappearance. Nor can the speaker mean to convey the general and the particular at the same time: na ca sāmānya-viśeṣayor vivakṣā yugapat sambhavati.]