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 3.7.7
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.7:
व्यक्तौ पदार्थे शब्दादेर्जन्यमानस्य कर्मणः ।
साधनत्वं तथा सिद्धं बुद्धिरूपप्रकल्पितम् ॥ ७ ॥vyaktau padārthe śabdāderjanyamānasya karmaṇaḥ |
sādhanatvaṃ tathā siddhaṃ buddhirūpaprakalpitam || 7 ||7. According to the view that the meaning of the word is the particular, the character of being the means of sounds and the like yet to be produced becomes possible on the basis of the idea thereof.
Commentary
Another advantage in looking upon ‘means’ as a matter of the speaker’s intention is now stated.
[Read verse 7 above]
[In the sentence ‘ghaṭam karoti’, ‘ghaṭa’ is a ‘means’ in the process of making it. But how can it be so considering that it is not there yet? It was said in the jātisamuddeśa, 27, that the jāti aspect in the ‘means’ (sādhana) and the ‘vyakti’ aspect of it is the object to be brought about (nirvartya karma). But the expression can be explained from the point of view of the vyaktivāda also, the view that the meaning of a word is the particular. The particular ghaṭa can come into existence only after it is made. How then can it be a ‘means’ in the process of its being made? The answer is that the idea of the ghaṭa to be made is already in the mind of the maker and that is the ‘means’ (sādhana). The ghaṭa which is actually made becomes the object accomplished (nirvartya karma).]