History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c93.492

v7.c93.492

The doctrine of Vākyabheda plays a very important part in Mīmāṁsā as well as in Dharmaśāstra. Vākyabheda literally means 'split of sentences'. When the sentences are equally independent and one sentence does not require or expect words from the other sentence to complete it, they should be treated as separate sentences. This is one sense of 'Vākyabheda.' Another and more frequent sense of Vākyabheda is as follows: The underlying principle of vākyabheda is that one and the same text cannot be construed as laying down two separate *vidhis* (prescriptions) or that when a certain matter has already been prescribed and then several auxiliary matters are to be prescribed, prescribing²¹²⁸ all the auxiliaries in one sentence would give rise to the fault of vākyabheda (syntactical split of sentence). In Tai. S there is the following passage 'the sacrificial post is to be of *udumbara* tree, the udumbara (tree) is vigour, cattle is vigour; he obtains for him (the sacrificer) by means of vigour ūrj (i. e. by udumbara post) vigour (i. e. cattle) for the attainment of vigour'. This is one syntactical whole (vākya). If it be said that there is a vidhi prescribing the use of udumbara post in a sacrifice and that there is also another vidhi about the fruit viz securing vigour (i e. cattle); this would give rise to vākyabheda Therefore there are no two vidhis in the sentence but only a vidhi and an arthavāda (praise).²¹²⁹ Śaṅkarācārya on V. S. III. 3 57 remarks 'ekam hīdaṁ vākyaṁ Vaiśvānaravidyāviṣayaṁ paurvāparyālocanāt pratīyate ... ekavākyatāvagamau satyām vākyabheda-kalpanasyānyāyyatvāt.' This is said with reference to the first aspect of the idea of Vākyabheda.