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 3.3.86
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.3.86:
आधारं कल्पयन् बुद्ध्या नाभावे व्यवतिष्ठते ।
अवस्तुष्वपि नोत्प्रेक्षा कस्यचित् प्रतिबध्यते ॥ ८६ ॥ādhāraṃ kalpayan buddhyā nābhāve vyavatiṣṭhate |
avastuṣvapi notprekṣā kasyacit pratibadhyate || 86 ||86. Even if non-existence is imagined to be a substratum, nothing can really exist in it. Nobody can be prevented from imagining totally non-existent things.
Commentary
[When we say śatror abhāve sukham the use of the locative case seems to imply that non-existence can be a substratum. But that is not right. It is a mere fiction. There is nothing which one cannot imagine.]