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 2.445
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.445:
इतिकर्तव्यताऽर्थस्य सामर्थ्याद्यस्य काङ्क्ष्यते ।
अशब्दलक्षणाकाङ्क्षं समाप्तार्थं तदुच्यते ॥ ४४५ ॥itikartavyatā'rthasya sāmarthyādyasya kāṅkṣyate |
aśabdalakṣaṇākāṅkṣaṃ samāptārthaṃ taducyate || 445 ||445. Where the mode of performance of the action (denoted by the sentence is desired to be known because of its very nature (sāmarthyāt), that sentence containing no verbal incompleteness is said to be complete in meaning.
Commentary
[The point here is that the incompleteness must come out of the words themselves before the sentence can be considered incomplete. When one says: ‘Devadatta cooks’, the sentence is complete, though how and what he cooks is not mentioned. From the word ‘cooks’ an average listener will understand a complete meaning. But when one says ‘Devadatta cooks his’, one feels at once that the words themselves are incomplete.
The Vṛtti gives the sentence vrīhayo'vahanyantām as an example of a complete sentence though no details are mentioned in it. It is complete because there is no verbal incompleteness: śabdalakṣaṇāpekṣāyogād iti, as Puṇyarāja says.]