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 2.452
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.452:
देवदत्तादिषु भुजिः प्रत्येकमवतिष्ठते ।
प्रतिस्वतन्त्रं वाक्यं वा भेदो न प्रविभज्यते ॥ ४५२ ॥devadattādiṣu bhujiḥ pratyekamavatiṣṭhate |
pratisvatantraṃ vākyaṃ vā bhedo na pravibhajyate || 452 ||452. The action of eating relates to Devadatta etc. separately. Or the sentence itself is applied, to each agent (pratisvatantram) separately.
Commentary
[In the sentence Devadatta-Yajñadatta-Viṣṇumitrā bhojyantām the meaning of the sentence is the action of feeding which is connected with Devadatta etc. separately. That is what the first half of the verse says. The second says that alternatively, the sentence itself is split up into three different sentences, each having one of the three agents as the subject and the verb bhojyatām as the predicate. According to the second alternative, one verb becomes many verbs and therefore, one sentence becomes many sentences. As the Vṛtti puts it—Pratikartṛ ca vākye bhidyamāne bahavaḥ kriyāśabdā upaplavante. Tasmādekopanibandhanāni bahūni vākyānyupajāyante:—If a separate sentence is made for each agent, many verbs would arise and thus many sentences based on one sentence would come into existence.]