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 2.443
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.443:
एकतिङ् यस्य वाक्यं तु शास्त्रे नियतलक्षणम् ।
तस्यातिङ्ग्रहणेनार्थो वाक्यभेदान्न विद्यते ॥ ४४३ ॥ekatiṅ yasya vākyaṃ tu śāstre niyatalakṣaṇam |
tasyātiṅgrahaṇenārtho vākyabhedānna vidyate || 443 ||443. According to him who holds that the fixed definition of the sentence is that it should have only one verb, there would be a different sentence if there were more than one verb and, therefore, the mention of atiṅaḥ would be useless.
Commentary
[ According to the author of the Vārttikas, there should'be only one verb in a sentence. More than one verb would result in more than one sentence. So the other words in the sentence should be non-verbs. In P. 8.1.28, a verb coming after a nonverb is said to lose its udātta accent. Loss of udātta accent can take place only if the non-verb and the verb are both in the same sentence. If the sentence can have only one verb, there is no need to say coming after a non-verb (atiṅaḥ) in P. 8. 1. 28, because the other words in the sentence are necessarily nonverbs. So the verb would come necessarily after a non-verb or after nothing at all if it happens to be the first word in the sentence. If there is another verb in the sentence, there cannot be loss of accent at all. Thus the mention of atiṅaḥ in P. 8.1. 28 serves no purpose according to this view. ]
According to some, even where there are many verbs, there may or may not be difference in sentence depending upon circumstances.