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 2.407
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.407:
नानात्वस्यैव संज्ञानमर्थप्रकरणादिभिः ।
न जात्वर्थान्तरे वृत्तिरन्यार्थानां कथञ्चन ॥ ४०७ ॥nānātvasyaiva saṃjñānamarthaprakaraṇādibhiḥ |
na jātvarthāntare vṛttiranyārthānāṃ kathañcana || 407 ||407. From the fact that the meaning is determined with the help of the context (artha and prakaraṇa), one understands that it is a different word. A word which has a certain meaning cannot express another.
Commentary
[...] As the word may look another because of the sameness of the sequence of the phonemes the help of context may be needed to get at the meaning invariably linked with it.
[Read verse 407 above]
[What is pointed out here is that the very fact that one has to have recourse to the context to determine the meaning shows that it is a different word: Tat tu tat svābhāvikam asaṃkīrṇam arthāyattaṃ nityaṃ śabdānāṃ svenārthena nityasambandhān nānātvaṃ tatpratipattāraṃ pratisandehanivṛttyarthaṃ prakarṇādibhiḥ pravibhajyate. The relation between the word and the meaning being eternal and not man-made, a meaning once conveyed by its word, cannot be abandoned nor can a meaning not conveyed by it be ascribed to it: na tu kadācid upāttasya svaśabdena punastyāgo'sti, anupāttasya vopādānam. Apauruṣeyo hyautpattikaḥ śabdārthayoḥ sambandhaḥ.]
If context can determine the meaning of a word and if such a word is different from another having the same sequence of phonemes, the established doctrine of the indivisibility of the sentence and the sentence-meaning seems to be affected. But that doctrine stands.