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 3.7.158
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.7.158:
निमित्तनियमः शब्दात् संबन्धस्य न गृह्यते ।
कर्मप्रवचनीयैस्तु स विशेषेऽवरुध्यते ॥ १५८ ॥nimittaniyamaḥ śabdāt saṃbandhasya na gṛhyate |
karmapravacanīyaistu sa viśeṣe'varudhyate || 158 ||158. The particular (action which is the) cause of the relation is not understood from the words. The post-positions (karmapravacanīyas) relate it to a particular (action).
Commentary
From the relation which is the result, one can infer in a general manner that it must have been preceded by the relation of action and accessory. But how to understand which particular action and accessory?
[Read verse 158 above]
[In some expressions denoting relation but not mentioning any action, the latter can be understood from the nature of the things related, as in pituḥ putraḥ = ‘the father’s son’, But from the expression rājñaḥ puruṣaḥ = ‘the king’s man’ it is not easy to understand the particular action which has brought about the relation of master and servant. When there is karma-pravacanīya, the particular action which brought about the relation can be understood. For example, in the sentence śākalyasya saṃhitām anu prāvarṣat = ‘it rained after the recitation of Saṃhitā by Sākalya’, thert is the relation of cause and effect between the recitation and rain and this relation is due to the action of hearing. The post-position ‘anu’ tells us that it is due to this action because this postposition is seen elsewhere associated with the action of hearing as in ‘anu- niśamya’. ‘Anu’ cannot suggest a verb here in the same way as vi suggests the verb vimāya in prādeśaṃ viparilikhati. Here the word prādeśam has a case-ending belonging to a kāraka and so vi can bring a verb expressive of action to the mind. But in śākalyasya saṃhitām anu prāvarṣat, the case-ending is not expressive of kāraka, but of śeṣa. Nor can anu directly expresses the relation of cause and effect, because that is done by the second case-affix which takes the place of the sixth case-affix. The real function of anu is, therefore, to delimit the relation, to say that it is brought about by the particular action of hearing.]
Why are P. 2.3.51 and the following sūtras given considering that the sixth case-affix can come in all the cases mentioned in these sūtras by P. 2.3.50?