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 1.84
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.84:
नादैराहितबीजायामन्त्येन ध्वनिना सह ।
आवृत्तपरिपाकायां बुद्धौ शब्दोऽवधार्यते ॥ ८४ ॥nādairāhitabījāyāmantyena dhvaninā saha |
āvṛttaparipākāyāṃ buddhau śabdo'vadhāryate || 84 ||84. The word is grasped in the (final) cognition the seeds of which have been sown by the sounds including the final one and which has gradually attained maturity.1
Commentary
The sounds, while they manifest the word, leave impression-seeds2 progressively clearer and conducive to the clear perception (of the word). Then, the final sound brings to the mind which has now attained maturity or a certain fitness by the awakening of the impressions of the previous cognitions, the form of the word as coloured by itself?
Notes
1. Verses 82, 83 and 84 are quoted in the Sphoṭasiddhi (p. 132), (Madras University Sanskrit Series 6).
2. Vyaktaparicchedānuguṇasaṃskārabhāvanābījāni. Saṃskāra, bhāvanā and bīja denote the same thing. They stand, according to Vṛ., for three aspects of the same thing. The previous somewhat vague cognitions of the sphoṭā leave their impressions in the mind. Vṛ. says that they are called saṃskāras because, they, in a way, perfect the mind; they are called bhāvanā because they give them the form of consciousness (bhāvayanti) and, finally, they are called seeds (bījāni) because they are the causes of the later clear cognition.
3. Upagraheṇa. Vr. explains this by ‘svīkāreṇa’. This is probably a reference to the fact that the sound colours the sphoṭa with its own form.