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 3.14.490
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.490:
ब्राह्मणाध्ययने वृत्तिर्यदि स्याद् ब्राह्मणश्रुतेः ।
वक्तव्यं केन धर्मेण तुल्यत्वं क्रिययोरिति ॥ ४९० ॥brāhmaṇādhyayane vṛttiryadi syād brāhmaṇaśruteḥ |
vaktavyaṃ kena dharmeṇa tulyatvaṃ kriyayoriti || 490 ||490. If the word brāhmaṇa denotes only the act of studying of a brāhmaṇa, then one would have to say on the basis of which attribute there is resemblance between the two acts.
Commentary
[If the word brāhmaṇa denotes the act of studying only, then the relation of upamāna and upameya would be between the two acts of studying and not between the two persons who study. One would then have to state the common property like excellence of the two acts of studying. Once that is done, the act of studying would cease to be an action it would become a thing, capable of being referred to by a pronoun. Then the condition for the addition of the suffix vati, namely, that the stem should be expressive of action and end in the third caseaffix would remain unfulfilled.]
The author now states his own view which is the accepted one.