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...
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Verse 1.29
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.29:
नानर्थिकामिमां कश्चिद् व्ववस्थां कर्तुमर्हति ।
तस्मान्निवध्यते शिष्टैः साधुत्वविषया स्मृतिः ॥ २९ ॥nānarthikāmimāṃ kaścid vvavasthāṃ kartumarhati |
tasmānnivadhyate śiṣṭaiḥ sādhutvaviṣayā smṛtiḥ || 29 ||29. Nobody would establish this system of rules without a purpose. Therefore, this tradition relating to correctness is being composed by the cultured.
Commentary
Which cultured person, even if he has a confused mind (saṃbhinnabuddhiḥ) and no sympathy towards the world,1 would undertake the regulation of the accent and other signs of correctness of the words of the Veda and of the world which are so difficult to know and to learn and which are the very purpose of Grammar? And such a regulation would not be useless. (If it were) such a regulation made by the cultured would be unacceptable to the others. And it would not be authority in the world for scholars. Therefore, this tradition (relating to words) beginningless, handed down from teacher to pupil, the means of inferring who the cultured persons are, infallible, consisting of general rules and their elaborations, is being composed in different ways, through direct statements and by implication.
Notes
1. Saṃbhinnabuddhir api lokaṃ pratyanabhiniviṣṭaḥ. The reasoning behind this expression is not clear. The purpose of this verse is to justify the composition of the science of grammar. Four reasons are put forward justifying its composition: (1) that it is eternal, (2) that it has been handed down from teacher to pupil, (3) that it helps us to infer who is cultured and who is not, (4) that it gives an infallible knowledge of correctness. Those who are confused as to what is right and what is wrong (saṃbhinnābuddhiḥ) and have no sympathy for the world (lokaṃ pratyanabhiniviṣṭaḥ) would not be able to undertake the composition of the science of grammar. Vṛ. seems to have had the reading: lokaṃ pratyabhiniviṣṭaḥ which can mean, according to him, “api nāmāyaṃ lokaḥ khedāyāsābhyāṃ yujyeta iti vyutthitabuddhir abhiniviṣṭaḥ = one who would like the world to be troubled by pain and fatigue. But Vṛ. considers the former reading easier to explain.