Bhartrihari Quotes (7 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Bhartrihari Quotes

Bhartṛhari is a Sanskrit writer to whom are normally ascribed two influential Sanskrit texts:

the Vākyapadīya, on Sanskrit grammar and linguistic philosophy, a foundational text in the Indian grammatical tradition, explaining numerous theories on the word and on the sentence, including theories which came to be known under the name of Sphoṭa; in this work Bhartrhari also discussed logical problems such as the liar paradox and a paradox of unnameability or unsignfiability which has become known as Bhartrhari's paradox, and

the Śatakatraya, a work of Sanskrit poetry, comprising three collections of about 100 stanzas each; it may or may not be by the same author who composed the two mentioned grammatical works.In the medieval tradition of Indian scholarship, it was assumed that both texts were written by the same person.

Modern philologists were sceptical of this claim, owing to an argument that dated the grammar to a date subsequent to the poetry. Since the 1990s, however, scholars have agreed that both works may indeed have been contemporary, in which case it is plausible that there was only one Bhartrihari who wrote both texts.Both the grammar and the poetic works had an enormous influence in their respective fields.

The grammar in particular, takes a holistic view of language, countering the compositionality position of the Mimamsakas and others.

The poetry constitute short verses, collected into three centuries of about a hundred poems each. Each century deals with a different rasa or aesthetic mood; on the whole his poetic work has been very highly regarded both within the tradition and by modern scholarship.

The name Bhartrihari is also sometimes associated with Bhartrihari traya Shataka, the legendary king of Ujjaini in the 1st century. Wikipedia

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Bhartrihari: 7 quotes 1 like

Famous Bhartrihari Quotes

“When I knew but a little, I was blinded by pride as an elephant is blinded by rut from excitement, and my mind was puffed up with the idea that I knew everything. When, however, I gradually gained knowledge through the contact of the wise I found I was a fool; and the pride, which had possessed me like a fever, left me.”

Bhartrihari

Nītiśataka 8; translation of K.M. Joglekar
Śatakatraya

“Life is flowing away like water running out from a leaky vessel.”

Bhartrihari

Vairagyaśatakam 38 https://archive.org/stream/Vairagya.Satakam.of.Bhartrihari#page/n28/mode/1up
Śatakatraya

“In opulence the heart of great men is as soft as that of a lotus flower, but in adversity the same hardens like a rock of a big mountain.”

Bhartrihari

Nītiśataka 65
Śatakatraya

“Those men are good who study the good of others without regarding themselves. Those men are ordinary men who, while they benefit others, do not neglect their own interests. Those men are demons who destroy another's good for their own profit. What shall we call those who aimlessly destroy that which is another's?”

Bhartrihari

Nītiśataka 74; translated by B. Hale Wortham
Śatakatraya

“The maid my true heart loves would not my true love be;
She seeks another man; another maid loves he;
And me another maid her own true love would see:
Oh, fie on her and him and Love and HER and me!”

Bhartrihari

Nītiśataka 2
Variant translation from K.M. Joglekar:
That woman about whom I constantly meditate has no affection for me; she, however, yearns after another who is attached to someone else; while a certain woman pines away for me. Fie on her, on him, on the God of Love, on that woman, and on myself.
Śatakatraya