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 1.103
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 1.103:
अल्पे महति वा शब्दे स्फोटकालो न भिद्यते ।
परस्तु शब्दसन्तानः प्रचयापचयात्मकः ॥ १०३ ॥alpe mahati vā śabde sphoṭakālo na bhidyate |
parastu śabdasantānaḥ pracayāpacayātmakaḥ || 103 ||103. Whether the sound in question is short or long, the time of the sphoṭa is invariable. The series of sounds which follows is susceptible of greater or lesser duration.1
Commentary
Smallness and bigness are attributed to the word2 on the basis of the common feature consisting of covering a certain amount of space. Or it is due to worldly usage. Everywhere usage is the basis for determining the nature of objects. Determining the nature of objects on the basis of reason and tradition would be unreliable because it would result in different views. As both the sounds which are effects and those which are causes are produced and perish without distinction, there is not the slightest difference between a big and a small sound, as there is none between the cognitions of an elephant and a mosquito. Due to difference in circumstances, however, the power of a sound to produce effects differs. The succession of effects of a sound like the one produced by the impact of the drum and the stick reaches far. Another sound like the one produced by striking on iron or bronze causes a succession of sounds which can be heard only from near, but reverberates without a break.
Notes
[1. This verse is meant to describe in greater detail the process of the manifestation of sphoṭa according to the view that the first sound produced by contacts and separations is the sphoṭa and the later sounds produced by the first one are the dhvanis.
2. If one looks upon sound as a quality, one can object to its being described as ‘small’ or ‘big’ because smallness or bigness are qualities and they can reside only in substances and not in the sound which is itself a quality. If one looks upon sound as a substance, even then one can object that only material substances can be big or small and not immaterial substances like sound. To meet this objection, it is pointed out that these two expressions are used for sound by courtesy (upacaryate).]