April 02, 2020
At the outset let me declare that I am no expert on Sanskrit and I learnt it from my mother (whose mother tongue is Samskrit) which is not the same as learning from a school teacher.
Besides I have lived in a place for about 60 years where English is the only spoken language and there is none with whom I could converse in Samskrit or another Indian Language. It is more of a memory language for me! Pl. Keep this in mind when you ask me questions.
All sentences are made up of words and all words are made up of letters. Even though this statement applies to all languages, the exception in Sanskrit is that a word formation has to be meaningful otherwise it has to be discarded. So let us consider the word in Sanskrit.
The word in Sanskrit is called पदम्. This word पदम् has been borrowed into Tamil as பதம். This itself shows how ancient is Sanskrit!
मतुप् means ‘one who has’. This मतुप् is used in forming words and when we do so it is called प्रत्यायान्त.
Example of matup pratyayaanta-s are: हनुमान् (One who has chin); श्रीमान् (One who has wealth); बुद्धिमान् (One who has intellect) etc.
Now let’s take the word which literally called पदम्. This word पदम् has been borrowed into Tamil as பதம். This itself shows how ancient is Sanskrit!
सुप्तिङ्गन्तं पदम् saya patanjali. That which ends with a sup or ti~ng pratyaya is a word.
That which ends with a सुप् प्रत्यय is a सुबन्त. Any noun would be called a सुबन्त. They are obtained by adding सुप् pratyaya-s to a प्रातिपदिकम्-s. They will have 7+1 vibhaktis (cases) and 3 vachana-s (numbers).
This gives them 24 forms in their शब्द रूप. There are 3 different linga-s (genders) in सुबन्त-s.
तिङ्ग् प्रत्यय is a तिङ्गन्त . Any verb would be called a तिङ्गन्त. They are obtained by adding तिङ्ग् pratyaya-s to a धातु.
The verbs have 3 puruSha-s (persons) and 3 vachana-s (numbers).
There are 10 different kinds of लकार-s (tenses).
Also, there are two different types धातु categories – आत्मनेपद and परस्मैपद.
The 7+1 vibhakti-s (cases) are – प्रथमा, सम्बोधना प्रथमा, द्वितीया, तृतिया, चतुर्थी, पञ्चमी, षष्टी, and सप्तमी. Note: सम्बोधना प्रथमा is the additional one.
The 3 vachana-s (numbers) are – एकवचनम् (singular), द्विवचनम् (dual) and बहुवचनम् (plural).
The 3 puruSha-s (persons) are – प्रथम पुरुष (Third person in English grammar), मध्यम पुरुष (Second person in English grammar) and उत्तम पुरुष (First person in English grammar).
There are 10 lakaara-s (tenses)
Six of them are कालवाचक-s (indicate tenses) लट् – वर्तमानः (present) – भवति लङ् – अनद्यतनभूतः (past imperfect) – अभवत् लुङ् – भूतः (past) – अभूत् लिट् – परोक्षभूतः (past perfect) – बभूव लुट् – अनद्यतनभविष्यत् (first future) – भविता लृट् – भविष्यत् (second future) – भविष्यति.
Four of them are प्रकार-बोधक-s (indicate moods) लोट् – आज्ञा (imperative) – भवतु विधिलिङ् (potential) – विधिः – भवेत् लाशीर्लिङ् – आशीः (benediction) – भूयात् लृङ् – सङ्केतः (conditional) – अभविष्यत्.
(There is one more lakaara called the लेट् that is used mainly in the vedic literature. Hence it is not accounted in the above 10 lakaara-s that are in usage.)
An easy verse form to remember them – लट् वर्तमाने लेट् वेदे भूते लुङ् लङ् लिटस्तथा । विध्याशिषौ लिङ्लोटौ लुट् लृट् लृङ् च भविष्यतः ॥
Patanjali says: अपदं न प्रयुञ्जेत – Do not use that which is not a word.
PaaNini suggests प्रत्ययलोपे प्रत्यय लक्षणम् – (In the absence of pratyaya, the characteristics of pratyaya apply.)
In pursuit of formation of words, now let us consider the combining of alphabets.
क, का, कि, की, कु, कू, कृ, कॄ, कॢ, कॣ, के, कै, को, कौ
(I included the long vowel कॣ (kḹ) for the sake of being complete, but it is never used in real Sanskrit.)
anusvaara, visarga, candrabindu, and viraama
The anusvaara and visarga are written as follows:
कं
kaṃ
कः
kaḥ
The candrabindu (“moon dot”) shows that a sound is pronounced nasally. It is usually used for nasal vowels:
कँ
ka̐
Finally, the viraama (“cessation”) blocks the default a sound that a consonant has otherwise:
क्
k
The above letters of the क varga are combinations of consonants (व्यञ्जन) and vowels (स्वर ) for example क् + अ = क; क् + आ = का; and so on.
A consonant cluster is a group of consecutive consonants with no vowel sounds between them. Consonant clusters are common in Sanskrit, so they are common when we write Sanskrit in Devanagari.
Let us take an example कर्म and consider the letter र्म. It is a combination of the letters र् + म् + अ = र्म . The semi-circle over the line found in र्म is called रेप .
Another example is in the word हृषीकेश where हृ is a combination of ह् + ऋ.
Now, let’s consider the other consonant clusters. Notice that most Devanagari consonants have a single vertical line running from top to bottom. Usually, this line is on the right side of the consonant:
त; ण; स
In many consonant clusters, the first consonant loses this line and attaches to the consonant that follows it as given in the examples given below:
त्स; ण्ड; स्त
If ra is second, we add a small tick to the first consonant:
प्र; क्र; त्र
But consonants with a “hoop” shape (like ट, ठ, and ढ) use a different symbol instead:
ट्र; ठ्र; ढ्र;
If na is second, we write it in the same way as ra:
प्न; क्न; त्न
If ha or da is first and ya or ma is second, we get these combinations:
द्य; द्म; ह्य; ह्म;
If śa is first, it becomes a smaller form that sits on top of the second consonant:
श्र (śra); श्व (śva); श्च (śca);श्ल (śla);
If ṣa is first, it often stacks vertically on top of the consonants that follow it:
ष्ट (ṣṭa); ष्ठ (ṣṭha); ष्ठ्व (ṣṭhva);
Voiced aspirated consonants that follow da usually “dangle” off the bottom of the da:
द्घ(dgha); द्ध(ddha); द्भ (dbha);
‘ta'( combines in various ways that are hard to predict:
क्त (kta); त्त (tta);
And if three or more consonants are in a cluster, we sometimes get more complex combinations but the way we write and the fonts used in the computer differ so I am not dealing with them (may be I should have written on a piece of paper, taken a picture and posted!)
Punctuation
Modern Sanskrit texts make use of various English punctuation marks, including exclamation points (!), commas (,), and quotation marks (“”).
But traditionally, Devanagari uses only a small set of punctuation marks. You can see all of them below:
।; ॥; ऽ;
The first is called the daṇḍa (“stick”), which marks the end of a sentence or the middle point of a verse:
रामो गच्छति।
rāmo gacchati.
Rama goes.
The second is sometimes called a double daṇḍa, and it marks the end of a paragraph or verse:
रामो लङ्कां गच्छति। रामो रावणं हन्ति॥
rāmo laṅkāṃ gacchati. rāmo rāvaṇaṃ hanti.
Rama goes to Lanka. Rama kills Ravana.
The last is called the avagraha, and it is sometimes used to show that a vowel was removed due to a sound change rule:
श्वेतः अश्वः → श्वेतो ऽश्वः
śvetaḥ aśvaḥ → śveto ‘śvaḥ
white horse
ते अश्वाः → ते ऽश्वाः
te aśvāḥ → te ‘śvāḥ
They are horses.
An avagraha may even be repeated if the vowel removed was long:
सा आस्ते → सा ऽऽस्ते
sā āste → sā ”ste
She sits.
The discussion on word formatation will continue.
Next Topic: SANSKRIT LESSON – 4
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