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 3.14.369
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.369:
अशब्दवाच्यो यो भेदः श्याममात्रे न वर्तते ।
श्यामेषु केषुचिद् वृत्तिर्यस्यसोऽत्र व्यपेक्ष्यते ॥ ३६९ ॥aśabdavācyo yo bhedaḥ śyāmamātre na vartate |
śyāmeṣu keṣucid vṛttiryasyaso'tra vyapekṣyate || 369 ||369. The peculiarity which does not exist in darkness in general but only in some dark objects and for which there is no special word is what is required here (for effecting comparison).
Commentary
Remark. For the above translation, I have changed the sa of the first line of the stanza into na, found in I and P.
[The quality of darkness, with some peculiarity, due to the difference in the two substrata, becomes the object of comparison. The particular substratum, therefore, becomes important. From the very compound śastrīśyāmā= ‘dagger-dark’, one understands the dark colour as existing in the particular standard of comparison and the object of comparison and not as existing anywhere. Any dark object does not serve as the standard of comparison.]