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 2.56
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.56:
नित्यत्वे समुदायानां जातेर्वा परिकल्पने ।
एकस्यैकार्थतामाहुर्वाक्यस्याव्यभिचारिणीम् ॥ ५६ ॥nityatve samudāyānāṃ jātervā parikalpane |
ekasyaikārthatāmāhurvākyasyāvyabhicāriṇīm || 56 ||56. The sentences, looked upon as collections of words, being eternal or when the sentence-universal is postulated, it is the one sentence which expresses an inalienable meaning.
Commentary
The sphoṭa view is now stated.
[Read verse 56 above]
[The sentence may be looked upon as one unit. As uttered by different persons, it is something different and yet it is recognised to be the same. The different sounds uttered by the different speakers ultimately manifest the same sentence. Or the sentence may be looked upon as a universal which inheres in the different utterances of it by different persons. In whatever way it is looked at, it is one and it expresses a meaning in the nature of intuition (pratibhā) and is indivisible.]