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 2.406
Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 2.406:
啶啶班く啷嬥啶距う啶た啶膏え啷嵿ぇ啶距え啶い啷嵿お啶︵啶粪 啶� 啶掂た啶︵啶い啷� 啷�
啶掂た啶粪く啷� 啶い啶多啷嵿い啶苦い啷嵿さ啶距い啷� 啶� 啶む 啶むい啷嵿ぐ 啶掂啶さ啶膏啶ムた啶む 啷� 啷ウ啷� 啷�prayog膩dabhisandh膩namatpade峁 na vidyate |
vi峁ye yata艣aktitv膩t sa tu tatra vyavasthita岣� || 406 ||406. In such cases, there is no intention beyond utterance. As the power of the word is restricted to a particular meaning, it is attached to it.
Commentary
[In the other view, the intention of the speaker was given as the factor which makes a polysemic word convey a particular meaning in a particular context. In this view, that factor is eliminated. As the form of the word resembles that of others having other meanings, only the context can tell us which meaning is to be understood.
The 痴峁泃迟颈 points out that undue importance should not be given to the speaker鈥檚 intention because, sometimes, meaning is understood from words uttered by children who do not know the many meanings of a word and who cannot, therefore have the intention of conveying one of them: Tath膩 hi b膩len膩pyartham avidu峁Ｄ� prayuktena 艣abden膩nabhisa峁僪iten膩pi bhavati 艣rot峁涐箛膩marthapratipatti岣�. In this view, there is no such thing as one word having many meanings. What looks like the same word is really a different word. So each word has one meaning only which is invariably linked to it: Yasya 艣abdasyayo 惫颈峁测补岣� sa tatr膩vyabhic膩re峁嘺 vyavasthita eva. 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.