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 3.3.74
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.3.74:
न ह्यभावस्य सद्भावे भावस्यात्मा प्रहीयते ।
न चाभावस्य नास्तित्वे भावस्यात्मा प्रसूयते ॥ ७४ ॥na hyabhāvasya sadbhāve bhāvasyātmā prahīyate |
na cābhāvasya nāstitve bhāvasyātmā prasūyate || 74 ||74. When non-existence is brought about, existence cannot be destroyed nor can existence be brought when non-existence is destroyed (if non-existence is also a separate category).
Commentary
The author now says something about non-existence as understood by the Vaiśeṣikas.
[Read verse 74 above]
[So far, all reasoning has been going on on the basis of the view that non-existence is something intangible. But, for the Vaiśeṣikas, it is a separate category. That means that it is something tangible. If that is so and it is different from ‘bhāva’, how can bhāva be destroyed when abhāva is produced and how can bhāva be produced when abhāva is destroyed?]