A quotation from Bhartrhari
Quotation
Brahman is without beginning or end, the imperishable essence of the Word, which unfolds as the world.
Bhartrhari
He argued that language is not how we describe reality but how reality exists. The word and the world are one.
Bhartrhari was a Sanskrit grammarian who arrived at metaphysics by the path of grammar. His central teaching, developed in the Vakyapadiya, is that the ultimate reality is Brahman: but Brahman is identical with the Word, the shabda-Brahman. Language is not a vehicle for conveying thoughts about the world; it is the very structure through which consciousness and world coexist. The unit of meaning is not the individual sound or syllable but the sphota, an indivisible flash of linguistic awareness that illuminates a whole sentence at once, the way a lamp illuminates a room rather than lighting it corner by corner. This is not mysticism dressed as grammar; Bhartrhari works through close argument about how meaning is possible at all, and his conclusions challenge both the Buddhist nominalists and the Nyaya realists. He is also credited with the Satakatraya, a set of three hundred-verse poems on human conduct, love, and renunciation, which suggest he tested his philosophy in living.
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More from Bhartrhari→Understanding This Quotation
What does Bhartrhari mean by this quotation?
He argued that language is not how we describe reality but how reality exists. The word and the world are one. Bhartrhari was a Sanskrit grammarian who arrived at metaphysics by the path of grammar. His central teaching, developed in the Vakyapadiya, is that the ultimate reality is Brahman: but Brahman is identical with the Word,…
What was the context or school of thought behind this idea?
Bhartrhari articulated this thought in Vakyapadiya. The masterwork of the grammarian tradition: three books arguing that language is not a label pasted onto a ready-made world but the very medium in which reality discloses itself. Brahman itself is the…