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 3.8.48
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.8.48:
बन्धुता भेदरूपेण बन्धुशब्दे व्यवस्थिता ।
समूहो बन्ध्ववस्था तु प्रत्ययेनाभिधीयते ॥ ४८ ॥bandhutā bhedarūpeṇa bandhuśabde vyavasthitā |
samūho bandhvavasthā tu pratyayenābhidhīyate || 48 ||48. In the word bandhutā, the fact of being kinsmen is expressed as something distinct by the element bandhu but the kinsmen’s state of being a collection is expressed (in terms of identity) by the suffix.
Commentary
The author now gives an illustration to show that one and the same word can express two different things.
[Read verse 48 above]
[In the word bandhutā, the suffix tal expresses the idea of collection (samūha) and the stem that of being kinsmen. And yet the collection is not something apart from the kinsmen. It is a collection of kinsmen. The stem and the suffix express the same meaning in terms of distinction and identity respectively.]