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 2.444
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.444:
तिङन्तान्तरयुक्तेषु युक्तयुक्तेषु वा पुनः ।
मृगः पश्यत यातीति भेदाभेदौ न तिष्ठतः ॥ ४४४ ॥tiṅantāntarayukteṣu yuktayukteṣu vā punaḥ |
mṛgaḥ paśyata yātīti bhedābhedau na tiṣṭhataḥ || 444 ||444. In sentences like mṛgaḥ paśyata, yāti = ‘Look! the deer is going’. Where there is more than one verb one being connected with another which is already connected, there cannot be unity and difference.
Commentary
According to some, even where there are many verbs, there may or may not be difference in sentence depending upon circumstances.
[Read verse 444 above]
[The sentence mṛgaḥ paśyata yāti is understood differently by different people. First mṛgaḥ is connected with yāti and that makes one sentence, meaning ‘the deer goes’. Then paśyata is connected with mṛga, changed to mṛgam with the meaning of yāti transformed into an adjective. That makes the second sentence yāntaṃ mṛgaṃ paśyata look at the deer that is going. In each sentence there is a verb with its own accessory, agent in the first sentence and object in the other. This is one way of understanding this sentence.
The other way is: mṛgo yāti makes one sentence and that sentence becomes the object of the verb paśyata and as yāti and paśyata require one another, the whole thing remains one sentence. Thus, in the first view there is bheda and in the other view there is abheda. In spite of this, one can hold the view that there is no difference of opinion between the sūtrakāra and the Vārttikakāra. When the author of the vārttikas says that there should be one verb in a sentence, all that he means is that there should be only one main verb. The presence of other subordinate verbs will not lead to Vākyabheda = plurality of sentences.
All that the Vṛtti does here is to say that there would be loss of accent (nighāta) if the whole thing is looked upon as one sentence and that there would be no nighāta if one sees two-sentences in it.]
The point now to be discussed is: when is a meaning to-be considered complete and when incomplete.