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 3.3.52
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.3.52:
प्रदेशस्यैकदेशं वा परतो वा निरूपणम् ।
विपर्ययमभावं वा व्यवहारोऽनुवर्तते ॥ ५२ ॥pradeśasyaikadeśaṃ vā parato vā nirūpaṇam |
viparyayamabhāvaṃ vā vyavahāro'nuvartate || 52 ||52. Verbal communication relates only to a part of an aspect of reality or to the determination by means of an external factor or to a reversal of reality or to an absence of it.
Commentary
It is now shown that all words positive or negative are in the same position.
[Read verse 52 above]
[No word expresses reality faithfully. Words like ‘past’ and ‘future’ also express things which do not exist and so do not express reality faithfully. Thus words expressive of positive and negative entities are all in the same position. No word can express the full reality. All words express only a part of it, because everything in this world is only a part or an aspect of the Ultimate Reality. In fact, no word can fully express even that part. A word like ghaṭa cannot express even that part of reality fully. It just expresses a part of that part, namely, the universal in it. Anything else which that thing may possess requires another word to express it. If it is red in colour, the word rakta has to be used to express it. A thing can be expressed in words only through some such property as the universal which exists in it. A thing as such cannot be expressed at all. The One Brahman is presented by words as many on the basis of different limiting factors or they present what is within us as external to us. They are responsible for viparītakhyāti. According to the Śūnyavādins, there is no external reality at all. The different forms which occur in our consciousness cannot have reality. They are mere dreams and it is these unreal forms which words present. In other words, they present what does not exist (abhāva). As words can present only one of these four distortions of reality, as stated by (1) grammarians (2) saṃsargadarśana (3) Vijñānavādins (4) Śūnyavādins, there cannot be an eternal relation between words and the actual reality.]