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 2.245
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.245:
नियमद्योतनार्था वा अनुवादोऽथवा भवेत् ।
कश्चिदेवार्थवांस्तत्र शब्दः शेषास्त्वनर्थकाः ॥ २४५ ॥niyamadyotanārthā vā anuvādo'thavā bhavet |
kaścidevārthavāṃstatra śabdaḥ śeṣāstvanarthakāḥ || 245 ||245. Or (the particles) would only suggest a restriction or they would restate (meanings expressed by other words). Only one word (in a sentence) would possess a meaning and the rest would be meaningless.
Commentary
[If the view that the particles (nipāta) are only manifestors (of the meanings of other words) and not expressive of their own meaning is adopted, then in the present case, in vṛkṣo na the word itself would denote the object and its negation and the negative particle would only manifest that negation. What merely manifests the meaning of another word is useless. It would do no more than restrict the object to be negated to the tree. To interpret a word as merely restrictive is not satisfactory. Nor would it do to say that one of the two words denotes both the object and its negation and the. other word only restates it (anuvāda), because restatement is a kind of repetition. All this is the result of looking upon the sentence and its meaning as divisible. Therefore, it is better to look upon it as indivisible.]