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 3.14.49
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.49:
अबुधान् प्रत्युपायाश्च विचित्राः प्रतिपत्तये ।
शब्दान्तरत्वादत्यन्तभेदो वाक्यसमासयोः ॥ ४९ ॥abudhān pratyupāyāśca vicitrāḥ pratipattaye |
śabdāntaratvādatyantabhedo vākyasamāsayoḥ || 49 ||49. Many methods are adopted in order to make the ignorant understand. Being different sets of words, the sentence and the compound are quite different from each other.
Commentary
How can there be a difference between the sentence and the compound, considering that the latter comes in place of the former?
[Read verse 49 above]
[Compounds like rājapuruṣa denote a whole, a qualified whole. They are really indivisible. But they are artificially divided for the purposes of grammar. These divisions are like the drawing of an animal. It helps us to understand the real animal. But the drawing is, after all, different from the real object. To identify the two is really a mistake. Similarly the sentence which explains the meaning of a compound is really different from a compound. The relation between its words is vyapekṣā whereas in a compound, it is ekārthībhāva. Where the meaning is different, the word is also different, in spite of resemblance in the sounds of the words. Even this resemblance is reduced when ends of compounds undergo change (samāsānta). ]
If case-endings, seen in a sentence arc elided in a compound, why is the elision of words like yukta also not taught?