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 2.18
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.18:
तेषां तु कृत्स्नो वाक्यार्थः प्रतिभेदं समाप्यते ।
व्यक्तोपव्यञ्जना सिद्धिरर्थस्य प्रतिपत्तृषु ॥ १८ ॥teṣāṃ tu kṛtsno vākyārthaḥ pratibhedaṃ samāpyate |
vyaktopavyañjanā siddhirarthasya pratipattṛṣu || 18 ||18. According to them, the whole of the sentence-meaning is concentrated in each word. Hearers understand the meaning all the better when all the expressions are uttered.
Commentary
[Nor can one object that if the very first word conveys the meaning of the whole sentence, the other words would be useless. The first word conveys the sentence-meaning only vaguely. The others make it clearer. But this view is not accepted because the utterance of the other words would be either for the sake of restriction or restatement. Neither is necessary if the very first word or any word in the sentence can convey the meaning of the whole sentence. As a matter of fact, neither the first word (padant ādyam) nor any word separately (pṛthak sarvapadam) can convey the meaning of the whole sentence. If the other words are uttered at all, no matter for what purpose, the anvitābhidhāna view falls.
What the Vṛtti says on this verse amounts to this: According to those who accept the use of many words to express one meaning, all the particulars, the whole of the indivisible sentence-meaning is concentrated on each word and on each phoneme.
As the Vṛtti puts it—
teṣām evamupagṛhītasarvaviśeṣa ekasminnarthe bahuśabdānabhyupagacchatām avikalpaḥ kṛtsno vākyārthaḥ pratipadaṃ prativarṇaṃ vā samāpyate.
Thus, when all the expressions are actually uttered, the sentence-meaning becomes clear to the hearer and not by its mere existence before all the words are uttered.]