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 3.7.32
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.32:
प्राङ् निमित्तान्तरोद्भूतं क्रियायाः कैश्चिदिष्यते ।
साधनं सहजं कैश्चित् क्रियान्यैः पूर्वमिष्यते ॥ ३२ ॥prāṅ nimittāntarodbhūtaṃ kriyāyāḥ kaiścidiṣyate |
sādhanaṃ sahajaṃ kaiścit kriyānyaiḥ pūrvamiṣyate || 32 ||32. Some are of the opinion that power is produced in a thing before action through other causes; others say that it is inborn in a thing; others still that action takes place first.
Commentary
Other views on the topic of ‘means’ (sādhana) are now stated.
[Read verse 32 above]
[There are some other views concerning ‘means’. The question of manifesting something arises only when it is already there. As the existence of power is inferred from its effects, it is not known before the action which produces the effects. We conclude, therefore, that the powers of things favourable to action, are produced by the circumstances which must be presumed to have existed before the action. Even When it does exist, there must be something to manifest it and that would be the cause. Things become causes when the accompanying circumstances are present, that is, they lend their powers to one another for producing the effect. By themselves, they cannot produce it. That which produced the substratum of power cannot produce the power also.
Some other circumstance must have done it. Before power is generated and after, the thing remains the same. This is one view. Others believe that the power of a thing is not different from it. It is a thing’s nature to have a certain power or not to have it. Others think that the power of a thing is born with it and thus support the previous view. Others still are of the view that the cause of action is not the same as that of the power of a thing to act but different. The different things which cooperate to produce an action lend their powers to one another. Therefore the powers and action are produced at the same time. In that sense the powers are sahaja. As the powers produce action in the next moment after their own production, the relation of sādhya and sādhana between the two is not impaired.]
How some consider that action pre-exists power is now stated.