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 3.14.458
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.14.458:
विविभक्तिः प्रकृत्यर्थं प्रत्युपाधिः कथं भवेत् ।
विभक्तिपरिणामे च प्रकल्प्यं विषयान्तरम् ॥ ४५८ ॥vivibhaktiḥ prakṛtyarthaṃ pratyupādhiḥ kathaṃ bhavet |
vibhaktipariṇāme ca prakalpyaṃ viṣayāntaram || 458 ||458. How can the word expressive of the condition be in a case-ending different from that of the stem? If one were to change the case-ending, one would have to postulate some other scope for what is being changed.
Commentary
[Why the prakṛtyarthaviśeṣaṇapakṣa is not acceptable is now pointed out. According to this view, the stem ending in the third case-affix would be the thing to be qualified and, therefore, the main thing. How can the word kriyā which denotes action and ends in a different case-affix, namely, the first one be the condition (upādhi)? They are not in apposition to each other. Only that which is in apposition to another can be its upādhi. One sees this apposition in the case of the upādhis mentioned in P. 3.2.25; 4.2.24 and 4.2.57. Here on the other hand, the upādhi, namely, kriyā is in the first case-ending whereas that of which it is the upādhi is in the third case-ending which is not right. Nor can the difficulty be got over by changing the first case-ending to the third one at the time of interpretation, because the use of the first case-ending in the sūtra would become useless. One would have to postulate some scope for it elsewhere, which is not easy.