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 2.30
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.30:
यदन्तः शब्दतत्त्वं तु नादैरेकं प्रकाशितम् ।
तदाहुरपरे शब्दं तस्य वाक्ये तथैकता ॥ ३० ॥yadantaḥ śabdatattvaṃ tu nādairekaṃ prakāśitam |
tadāhurapare śabdaṃ tasya vākye tathaikatā || 30 ||30. Others declare the Word (that is, the Sentence) to be the word-Principle which is within and One and is manifested by the sounds. It is that unity which appears in the manifested sentence.
Commentary
The view that the sentence is buddhyanusaṃhṛtiḥ, mentioned in the very first verse of this Kāṇḍa is now explained.
[Read verse 30 above]
[Others emphasize the inner aspect of the word. Its external aspect as jāti or vyakti has already been considered before. The chief characteristic of this inner aspect is that it is one and indivisible and without any inner sequence. It is an inner entity, consisting essentially of cognition or consciousness and an amalgam of word and meaning. When manifested by the sounds, wrongly thought of as its parts, it becomes the external sentence. The Vṛtti points out that this external sentence is like the written symbols (akṣaracihnavat) which are mistaken to be the word. The external sentence is only a symbol of the real sentence which is within and is an indivisible unity.]
It is now stated that not only the sentence but the sentence meaning also is indivisible and manifested by the word meanings.