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 3.14.412
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.412:
गुणे न चोपमानस्थे सापेक्षत्वं प्रकल्पते ।
प्राधान्यस्य (प्रधानस्य) तथा न स्याद् व्याघ्रादौ लिङ्गदर्शनम् ॥ ४१२ ॥guṇe na copamānasthe sāpekṣatvaṃ prakalpate |
prādhānyasya (pradhānasya) tathā na syād vyāghrādau liṅgadarśanam || 412 ||412. If the common attribute refers to the standard of comparison, the main thing would not depend on it and so it would not be possible to see a clue in the mention of vyāghra etc.
Commentary
[There is another reason for concluding that the word expressive of the common property does not refer to the standard of comparison. In the sentence puruṣo'yaṃ vyāghra iva śūraḥ, there cannot be a compound of puruṣa and vyāghra because the word expressive of the common property (śūra) is mentioned in the sentence and P. 2.1.56 prohibits the formation of a compound in such cases. Where both the upamāna and the upameya are mentioned, the former is always the qualifier (viśeṣaṇa) and the latter the viśeṣya (qualified). Here puruṣa is, therefore, the viśeṣya, vyāghra is upasarjana in the wordly sense but not technically because in P. 2.1.56. the word vyāghrādibhiḥ is in the third case-affix. Really speaking, in this sentence, the syntactic connection (sāmarthya) is between puruṣa and śūra and not between puruṣa and vyāghra. For that reason there cannot be a compound of puruṣa and vyāghra. There was no need to prohibit it by saying sāmānyāprayoge = ‘when the word expressive of the common quality is not used’, and yet it has been done. That gives a clue that when the main word in the worldly sense is connected with a word outside the compound, the latter can still be formed. This can be understood as a clue only in the view that the word expressive of the common property (śyāmā) refers to the object of comparison (upameya).