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 3.3.64
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.3.64:
तस्मान्नाभावमिच्छन्ति ये लोके भाववादिनः ।
अभाववादिनो वापि न भावं तत्त्वलक्षणम् ॥ ६४ ॥tasmānnābhāvamicchanti ye loke bhāvavādinaḥ |
abhāvavādino vāpi na bhāvaṃ tattvalakṣaṇam || 64 ||64. Those who believe in a positive reality do not accept non-existence and those who believe in nonexistence only do not accept any positive entity.
Commentary
[The sages hold the view that birth and death are nothing more than the manifestation and the hiding of the real. What is called non-existence is not something distinct from existence. It is nothing more than the previous and later conditions of existence. The previous non-existence of a jar is clay and its later non-existence is potsherds (kapāla). The Śūnyavādins consider non-existence alone to be the truth. But even they have to admit existence at the worldly level. Thus through ‘saṃvṛti’ or hiding of reality at the worldly level, everything can be explained.]
How the distinction between existence and non-existence arises, is now explained.