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.

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.438:

पदार्थे समुदाये वा समाप्तो नैव वा क्वचित् ।
पदार्थरूपभेदेन तस्यात्मा प्रविभज्यते ॥ ४३८ ॥

padārthe samudāye vā samāpto naiva vā kvacit |
padārtharūpabhedena tasyātmā pravibhajyate || 438 ||

438. In reality, it does not rest in the word-meaning or in all of them together or anywhere else. However its essence is differentiated on the basis of the artificial differentiation in word meanings.

Commentary

[The form of the sentence-meaning as distinct from that of the word-meanings cannot be indicated. Its form is determined in terms of the word-meanings. In its own pure form, it is beyond worldly usage.

The Vṛtti points out that when the individual words are used, particularisation of meaning takes place and from this particularisation, one infers that a power, different from the power of individual words to convey their general meaning, exists which is responsible for the particularisation: Tasya tu kevalapadaprayoge yo viśeṣo nirdhāritaḥ tena viśeṣeṇānumānena sambandhāt sā pṛthak śaktiḥ pravibhajyate.]

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