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 2.417
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.417:
अशब्दमपरेऽर्थस्य रूपनिर्धारणं विदुः ।
शर्थावभासरूपा हि शब्देभ्यो जायते स्मृतिः ॥ ४१७ ॥aśabdamapare'rthasya rūpanirdhāraṇaṃ viduḥ |
śarthāvabhāsarūpā hi śabdebhyo jāyate smṛtiḥ || 417 ||417. Others think that the meaning (of a sentence) cannot be determined through the word. A remembrance resembling the experience of the object takes place through the words.
Commentary
[Some think that words are not the means of understand-ing the meaning of a sentence which is in the nature of an interconnection (saṃsarga). According to them, this interconnection is understood by means of an integral cognition by the mind, (nirvikalpakaikasamadhigamyam—Puṇyarāja) and not through the meaning of individual words. Individual words do no more than cause a remembrance similar to the experience of objects. Thus they are too far away from the sentence-meaning. This is the gist of Puṇyarāja’s commentary.
The Vṛtti comments on this and the next verse together, more on the next verse than on this one. The only point which it mentions relating to this verse is that the idea which we get of an object from its word is far removed from the real nature of that object. The next verse explains this very point by means of an example: Sarvatrāśabdam arthānāṃ svabhāvāvadhāraṇaṃ, śabdavṛttaṃ tvanupatad dūrībhavati tasmād ityekeṣāṃ darśanam = The understanding of the nature of an object takes place everywhere through other means than the word, what the word brings is far removed from them, such is the view of some. ]