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 3.14.274
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.274:
आराच्छब्दवदेकस्य विरुद्धेऽर्थे स्वभावतः ।
शब्दस्य वृत्तिर्यद्यस्ति नञः श्रुतिरनर्थिका ॥ २७४ ॥ārācchabdavadekasya viruddhe'rthe svabhāvataḥ |
śabdasya vṛttiryadyasti nañaḥ śrutiranarthikā || 274 ||274. If the same word can, like the word ārāt, be applied in its own right to opposite things, the use of the negative particle is useless.
Commentary
[If it is argued that, just as the word ārāt means both far and near, in the same way, the word brāhmaṇa would mean both a brāhmaṇa and a kṣattriya in its own right. If that is so, even without the negative particle, it would denote the kṣattriya from the context. What then is the use of the particle and what is the use of teaching the derivation of the negative compound? The meaning in a particular context, of a word having more than one meaning, does not necessarily depend upon the use of another specifying word. This is what the M. Bhā means by saying: Yadi svābhāvikī nivṛttiḥ kim nañ prayujyamānaḥ karoti,? (Vol, I, p. 411, 1. 4-5).]