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 3.14.37
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.37:
वृत्तौ विशेषवृत्तित्वाद् भेदे सामान्यवाचिता ।
उपमानसमासादौ श्यामादीनमुदाहृता ॥ ३७ ॥vṛttau viśeṣavṛttitvād bhede sāmānyavācitā |
upamānasamāsādau śyāmādīnamudāhṛtā || 37 ||37. A word like śyāmā in a compound involving comparison is given as an illustration of a word which in a sentence (bhede) stands for a universal property as it stands for the particular in a compound.
Commentary
[P. 2.1.55 runs as follows “upamānāni sāmānyavacanaiḥ = “words expressive of the standard of comparison are compounded with words expressive of the common property,” Śastrīśyāmā = ‘dark like a dagger’ is given as the example. It has been objected that the word śyāmā here refers either to the standard of comparison, the dagger or to the object of comparison (upameya) say, a person like Devadatta. Both are particular objects. How can it then be said to be sāmānyavacana, expressive of a common property? To this, the answer given is that before entering the compound, that is, in a sentence like śastrīva śyāmā, it was expressive of a common property. As the Bhāṣya puls it:—
Prāg abhisambandhād yaḥ sāmānyavacanaḥ =
‘What was expressive of the common property before the joining of the two words’.
Before the formation of the compound, that is, in the sentence, the word śyāmā stands for śyāmatva = ‘darkness’, the common property found in both the standard and the object of comparison.]
Another illustration is now given.