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 2.16
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.16:
अशब्दो यदि वाक्यार्थः पदार्थोऽपि तथा भवेत् ।
एवं च सति सम्बन्धः शब्दस्यार्थेन हीयते ॥ १६ ॥aśabdo yadi vākyārthaḥ padārtho'pi tathā bhavet |
evaṃ ca sati sambandhaḥ śabdasyārthena hīyate || 16 ||16. If the sentence-meaning is not derived from the words (but from their interconnection), the meaning of the word would also be in the same position. Thus the relation between the word and the meaning would be destroyed.
Commentary
[The criticism contained in the above verse is answered as follows—After all, a particularised meaning is understood from the sentence. How to account for that? The Mīmām-saka view does not explain it either. If the particularised meaning does not come from the words which cease to exist after conveying the general meaning, it means that it does not come from words. It is aśabda. The same thing can be said about the meaning of the individual word. Because, the phonemes are uttered in a sequence and they disappear. So they do not co-exist and cannot constitute a word. So there cannot be a word-meaning. Thus, the relation of expression and expressed between word and meaning, accepted by the Mīmāṃsaka, would cease to be.
The Vṛtti argues differently to reach the same conclusion.