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 3.11.32
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.11.32:
द्वयेकयोरिति निर्देशात् संख्यामात्रेऽपि सम्भवः ।
एकादीनां प्रसिद्धा तु संख्येयार्थत्वमुच्यते ॥ ३२ ॥dvayekayoriti nirdeśāt saṃkhyāmātre'pi sambhavaḥ |
ekādīnāṃ prasiddhā tu saṃkhyeyārthatvamucyate || 32 ||32. Because of the use of dvyekayoḥ (in P. 1.4.22.) words like eka can denote pure number also. It is on the basis of worldly usage (prasiddhyā) that they are said to denote what is counted.
Commentary
Remark. In this Kārikā the word prasiddhā in my edition should be changed into prasiddhyā, as I have done in the translation.
[As the stem with the case-ending denotes what is numbered and as the pure stem cannot be used, how can one say that words like eka denote pure number? It is like this: In P. 1.4.22. the dual number dvyekayoḥ is used. It is all right because duality and unity, abstracted from the substance, are meant here. Otherwise, what are counted, the substances, would be more important and as two and one make three, the plural number would have to be used. Worldly usage tells us that up to ten, numerals denote primarily what is counted (saṃkheya), not pure number. In the world, it is the word ending in the case-affix which is used and such a word denotes number as secondary to the meaning of the stem. It denotes primarily what is counted. The śāstra speaks about a numeral denoting pure number but that is only by a process of abstraction (apoddhārabuddhyā).]