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 3.7.57
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.57:
तानि धात्वन्तराण्येव पचिसिद्ध्यतिवद् विदुः ।
भेदेऽपि तुल्यरूपत्वादेकत्वपरिकल्पना ॥ ५७ ॥tāni dhātvantarāṇyeva pacisiddhyativad viduḥ |
bhede'pi tulyarūpatvādekatvaparikalpanā || 57 ||57. It has been said that they (the different uses of a root) are as different from one another as the root ‘√pac’ and ‘√sidh’. Though they are different, they are imagined to be the same because of the similarity in the sounds.
Commentary
[How can one and the same root denote sometimes a thing which is subordinate to the activity of the main agent and sometimes denote a thing which is not so subordinate but stands, on its own, as in the two following sentences: ‘devadatta odanaṃ pacati’ and ‘pacyata odanaḥ svayam eva’. The fact is that they must be looked upon as two different roots, as different as ‘√pac’ and ‘√sidh’ from each other. Though different, they are looked upon as the same, because they have been so treated. But where there is something to be gained by looking upon them as different, that also has been done. For example, the root ‘√kṣi’ comes in ‘bhvādi’, ‘tudādi’, ‘divādi’ and ‘kṛyādi’ groups of roots.]
The question is now considered according to the view that the word is the same even when it has more than one meaning.