Bhartṛhari (c. 450 – c. 510 CE): key ideas and works

Little is known of Bhartṛhari’s life; the stories told about him are not supported by historical evidence. The dates given here follow T. R. V. Murti’s chronology, which places him after his teacher Vasurata and before the Buddhist logician Dignāga. His work was so widely known that the Chinese traveller Yijing mentioned him in the seventh century, mistaking him for a Buddhist.

Known chiefly as a grammarian, Bhartṛhari turned the analysis of Sanskrit grammar into philosophy. His Vākyapadīya explores the connections between grammar, logic, meaning and reality, and argues that language is the medium of all knowledge and of ultimate truth. His ideas were taken up and answered by Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta and Buddhist thinkers alike.

Key ideas

The Word as ultimate reality (śabda-brahman)

Brahman, the one reality without beginning or end, has the Word as its essence and appears as all objects. Language is not a tool invented by gods or people but the ground of consciousness and of the world itself.

Sphoṭa, the sentence as a whole

The unit of meaning is the sentence, which is single and indivisible. Its meaning bursts forth in the hearer as a flash of intuition (pratibhā); the words, roots and suffixes we pick out are abstractions from it.

All cognition is verbal

Against the Buddhists, who held that pure perception is free of concepts, Bhartṛhari argued that even the most immediate awareness is shaped by language. Without names, objects could not be identified or known.

Grammar as a path to liberation

Bhartṛhari made grammar a philosophical view in its own right. Understanding language correctly leads not only to clear communication but to knowledge of the ultimate reality and the liberation that follows.

Bhartṛhari

Key ideas

Key works

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