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 3.3.54
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.3.54:
आकृत्स्नविषयाभासं शब्दः प्रत्ययमाश्रितः ।
अर्थमाहान्यरूपेण स्वरूपेणानिरूपितम् ॥ ५४ ॥ākṛtsnaviṣayābhāsaṃ śabdaḥ pratyayamāśritaḥ |
arthamāhānyarūpeṇa svarūpeṇānirūpitam || 54 ||54. Words are based on cognitions which do not reveal the full reality and so present things in another form, not determined by their real form.
Commentary
[Effects correspond to their causes. The cause of words is our cognitions of things (nirūpaṇāpratyaya). Cognitions are in the nature of mental constructs (vikalpa) which never perceive things in all their aspects. How they present only a part of reality was mentioned before (verse 52). Due to the relation of causality, the cognition which arises from a word is a vikalpa. Our determinate cognitions are based on words and vice versa. Therefore, due to a certain incapacity born of avidyā, our determinate cognitions are not capable of seeing things as they are. They see them in an unreal form according to all thinkers and words convey these unreal forms. All words do this, words which convey positive things like ghaṭa and those which convey negative things like ‘past’, ‘future’ (atīta, anāgata.)]