Verse 2.431-433

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.431-433:

आराद् वृत्तिषु सम्बन्धः कदाचिदभिधीयते ।
आश्लिष्टो योऽनुपश्लिष्टः स कदाचित् प्रतीयते ॥ ४३१ ॥
संसृष्टानां विवेकित्वं संसर्गश्च विवेकिनाम् ।
नानात्मकानामेकत्वं नानात्वं च विपर्यये ॥ ४३२ ॥
सर्वात्मकत्वादर्थस्य नैरात्म्याद्वा व्यवस्थितम् ।
अत्यन्तयतशक्तित्वाच्छब्द एव निबन्धनम् ॥ ४३३ ॥

ārād vṛttiṣu sambandhaḥ kadācidabhidhīyate |
āśliṣṭo yo'nupaśliṣṭaḥ sa kadācit pratīyate || 431 ||
saṃsṛṣṭānāṃ vivekitvaṃ saṃsargaśca vivekinām |
nānātmakānāmekatvaṃ nānātvaṃ ca viparyaye || 432 ||
sarvātmakatvādarthasya nairātmyādvā vyavasthitam |
atyantayataśaktitvācchabda eva nibandhanam || 433 ||

431. Sometimes objects which are far from one another are presented as being connected and those which are near one another are presented as being apart.

432. Separation of what is united and union of what is separated; what are many are presented as one and what is one as many.

433. Because every object is everything (as it has all powers) or because it has no essence at all. This can be explained. In all this, the word, the power of which is extremely restricted, is the basis.

Commentary

[Read verse 431-432 above]

How the same thing is presented in different ways is now explained.

[Read verse 433 above]

[In the previous verses, the author has been speaking about the great variety and the consequent lack of fixity in the way in which objects are presented by words. It has been pointed out that much depends upon the intention of the speaker and his ability to make use of the capacity of words to present the same thing in different ways. In this verse, two alternative ways of looking at the matter are mentioned. In the first way, the object is endowed with all powers, it is sarvātmaka but the speaker, urged by his own purposes and intentions, cognises and determines some aspect of it and presents it through words which have the capacity to express that aspect. In the alternative way, the object has no essence of its own (nairātmyāt). It is as the speaker cognises it and expresses it through words whose expressive power is fixed. This is the gist of what Puṇyarāja says.

He is only putting in his own words what the Vṛtti had already said before in what is to us to-day a more obscure language. It begins by saying that the sentence-meaning is very comprehensive and includes everything that the speaker might want to convey and has all powers. Or it might be looked upon as having no essence at all. The Vṛtti says much about the speaker’s intelligence and intention in all this, but what it says is not too clear].