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 3.14.127
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.127:
भिन्नस्याभेदवचनात् प्रस्थादिभ्यः शसो विधिः ।
तद्धर्मत्वादभेदात् तु घटादिभ्यो न दृश्यते ॥ १२७ ॥bhinnasyābhedavacanāt prasthādibhyaḥ śaso vidhiḥ |
taddharmatvādabhedāt tu ghaṭādibhyo na dṛśyate || 127 ||127. The suffix śas is taught after words like prastha because they denote the singular number of the individual and have, therefore, that property but it does not come after words like ghaṭa because they express the unity (of the universal).
Commentary
According to P. 5.4.53, the suffix śas is taught after a word expressive of something qualified by the particular number one and not by number one in general which belongs to the universal. Words expressive of measure are of this type. They express their meaning (a particular measure) as qualified by the number one. So we get forms like prasthaśaḥ, khārīśaḥ. Words expressive of the universal are not usually expressive of the particular number one but of the one-ness of the universal.
Where, however, they do express the singular number of the individual, there the suffix śas can be added to them as in—
yo vā imāṃ vācaṃ varṇaśaḥ padaśaḥ akṣvraśo vā vidādhāti, sa ārtvijīno bhavati =
“He who utters every phoneme, every word and every syllable of this speech correctly becomes fit to be an officiating priest (or to have an officiating priest)” (M. Bhā. I. p. 3. 1. 12.)
Though varṇa denotes the universal, yet here the singular number of the individual qualifies it. Hence the suffix śaḥ has been added.]