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 2.167
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.167:
यत्र चाव्यभिचारेण तयोः शक्यं प्रकल्पनम् ।
नियमस्तत्र न त्वेवं नियमो नुट्शबादिषु ॥ १६७ ॥yatra cāvyabhicāreṇa tayoḥ śakyaṃ prakalpanam |
niyamastatra na tvevaṃ niyamo nuṭśabādiṣu || 167 ||167. The meaning of a particular part of a word (stem or suffix) is to be taken as settled only if these (agreement and difference) can be applied without fail. That is not the case (for instance) in nuṭ and śap.
Commentary
[The last point in this verse can be illustrated as follows—In bhavatām (genitive plural of bhavat) there is no nuṭ, still it expresses the sense of the genitive plural just as well as devānām where, nuṭ is present. Can we say, therefore, that nut has a meaning? In the same way, in atti, third person singular form of the root ad, there is no śap. But in pacati, there is śap. Can we say that śap has any meaning of its own? All that we can say is that it just helps the other elements to express their meaning.]