Sanskrit Guide
learnsanskrit.org November 25, 2012
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About
learnsanskrit.org November 25, 2012
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Sanskrit Seek Govinda, seek Govinda — seek Govinda, you fool! [1] For when you've come to your final hour, grammar will not save you.
Sanskrit is a language of many faces. At one moment, it is the millennia-old language of the authorless Vedas and all the texts in their tradition. At another, it is the supple verses of Kalidasa and Bilhana, or the intricate puzzle boxes of Magha and Bharavi. And in between are its meditations on nearly every part of human life: existence, reality, religion, love, duty, marriage, war,food, sex, purpose, death, violence, laughter, beauty, perception, nature, anatomy, urbanity, ritual, desire, meaning, language, and many more. At once, it is primordial and strikingly modern. So it is appropriate that Sanskrit itself has many names. It was just called "the language" once, but this plain name gave way to loftier ones, like "perfected speech" and "the language of the gods." "Sanskrit" is just one of these many names. The word has been translated in dozens of ways, like "perfected" or "perfectly made" or "put together" or just "assembled." All of these meanings are part of the word "Sanskrit." And lurking in the word "Sanskrit" is the notion of something unnatural. For although Sanskrit spent more than a thousand years as a fluid native language, it "froze" in the 5th century BCE when the grammarian Panini formalized it. He described Sanskrit so comprehensively that it has remained nearly the same for more than two thousand years. To him, Sanskrit was just "the language" spoken by the learned men of his time. But to those that followed him, Sanskrit was the "perfected" language forever protected from the fluidity of human life. When Sanskrit was formalized in this way, it lost some of the vitality that we find in other languages. But in exchange, it became a timeless and placeless language unlike any other. It speaks from a world that has long disappeared from the earth. By learning Sanskrit, we can open our ears to that world and let some of its voices be heard once more.
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The Guide Learning Sanskrit This guide tries to make Sanskrit as easy, simple, and intuitive as possible. To understand this approach, we should start from the beginning.
The hard way When Panini set out to describe Sanskrit comprehensively, he formalized the language into four thousand rules, known together as the Ashtadhyayi. The text is a complex algebraic system with meta-rules, exceptions, counter-exceptions, and many other technical devices. Together they form a complete algorithmic machine, with basic "chunks" of language for its raw material and complete Sanskrit sentences for its results. But although the Ashtadhyayi is clean and efficient, Sanskrit is not. It has plenty of complicated forms, rare idioms, redundant phrases, and ambiguities. These things are inherent to all natural languages. But they can make mastering Sanskrit a long and difficult process. Still, it is possible to master the language. Sanskrit writers had no choice but to do so. They wrote for highly educated audiences who knew Sanskrit already, and in order to be taken seriously, they had to have total mastery of the language. And the best way to gain that mastery was to study the Ashtadhyayi in detail. But if your goal is just to read Sanskrit texts, this approach is slow and wasteful. It's like building a skyscraper from the top down.
The easy way Today, most people who learn Sanskrit do not use the Ashtadhyayi. These days, there are dozens of books and courses available, and to some extent, they all try to make it easier to learn to read Sanskrit texts. But surprisingly, many of these resources have some of the same problems as the Ashtadhyayi: • They assume a strong knowledge of grammar or linguistics. • They use unfamiliar technical terms when simpler terms are available. • They teach concepts in an unintuitive or sub-optimal order. • They illustrate patterns, but not always clearly. • They focus on Sanskrit by itself. • They teach Sanskrit grammar instead of Sanskrit itself.
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To some extent, each of these problems is unavoidable. But it is possible to lessen their effects and make them less difficult. That is what this guide sets out to do: • The guide assumes almost no background knowledge. If you understand English, you know enough to use this guide. • Wherever possible, the guide uses simple English terms to describe concepts. Many of these concepts come with several examples. • The guide teaches the common and powerful parts of Sanskrit early on. Each of the early lessons has a direct and significant impact on your ability to learn Sanskrit. • The guide explicitly identifies patterns wherever possible. • The guide has optional content of all kinds. Digressions, extra lessons, and a large number of footnotes give you a break from Sanskrit while still connecting Sanskrit to a larger universe of ideas and concepts. • The guide tries to treat Sanskrit as as a language, not a rule book. Many lessons have examples from real Sanskrit texts to connect the material to something real and illustrate Sanskrit concepts in an authentic context.
In this guide In this guide, we will study the basic and intermediate parts of Sanskrit and learn enough of the language to read texts like the Bhagavad Gita and the works of the poet Kalidasa. In the future, this guide might also discuss the more advanced parts of Sanskrit and focus on more difficult texts, like commentary and technical literature. In either case, the guide provides a strong Sanskrit foundation that you can extend however you please.
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End matter Footnotes 1. ^ Bhaja Govindam verse 1. This devotional song is attributed to the sage Adi Shankara. The srcinal text and a translation can be found here.
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Sounds
learnsanskrit.org November 25, 2012
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a and ā Almost any language resource will start by describing its language's sounds. This guide will do the same. But unlike most other languages, Sanskrit requires total mastery of its different sounds. They shift, blend, and transform constantly, and unless you are very familiar with them, Sanskrit will be difficult to understand. Fortunately, the Sanskrit sound system is easy to master. It has remained nearly the same for thousands of years, and we know almost exactly how Sanskrit once sounded.
a Let's start with the very first sound in the Sanskrit alphabet. It is a fundamental sound that we can produce effortlessly:
a "u" in "but" When you produce this sound, let your breath flow cleanly through your mouth, without any breaks or stops. Sounds produced in this way are called vowels. As you learn the Sanskrit sounds, study the recordings carefully and consult the knowledgeable people around you. Use the English approximations as a last resort.
ā To get the second sound of the alphabet, we make a twice as long as it was before. The sound of the vowel changes slightly:
ā "a" in "father"
a is called short because it is not as long as ā. ā is called long because it is longer than a. As you pronounce these vowels, try to make ā exactly twice as long asa.
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Blended sounds Background Some languages, such as English, have writing systems that do not match the sounds of the language well. For example, the English word "enough" does not have a "g" sound, but a "g" is added anyway. Other languages, such as Spanish or Italian, have writing systems that match the sounds of the language very well. Even if you do not know either of these languages, you can probably pronounce words likeplaza or numero fairly well. But Sanskrit goes one step further. In almost every text, written Sanskrit is a perfect record of the sounds that appear in spoken Sanskrit. This might be confusing. Let's see some examples.
Examples Here are two simple Sanskrit sentences:
bālāya āha He speaks for the boy.
sā āpnoti
She obtains. Try reading the first sentence out loud ten times. As you might have noticed, it is tiresome to keep stopping after bālāya and keep starting again at āha. That pause is difficult to pronounce, and it takes too much extra time. Because of these pauses, speaking Sanskrit can feel hard and slow. The earliest Sanskrit speakers solved this problem by blending words together. Blended words are easier to say, and it takes much less time to say them. In bālāya āha, for example, it is so much easier to blend a and ā into bālāyāha.
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This is how Sanskrit is usually written down, too. Even if two words are supposed to be separate, they are blended wherever possible: →
bālāya āha → bālāyāha He spoke for the boy.
→
sā āpnoti → sāpnoti
She obtains.
In the wild This blending occurs almost everywhere. Try to blend the words in the sentences below:
pūrṇam eva avaśiṣyate
na anuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ
nityaśabdena atra anityatvasya abhāvaḥ
These sentences are all from real Sanskrit texts, like the Upanishads:
(
)
(pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya) pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate
(Taking the full from the full,) the full itself remains.
— Īśa Upaniṣad the Bhagavad Gita:
(
)
(gatāsūn agatāsūṃśca) nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ
The learned do not grieve (for the dead or the living). — Bhagavad Gita 1.11
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and technical works, like this logical treatise from the 6th century:
)
nityaśabdenātrānityatvasyābhāvaḥ (ucyate)
(
By the word "permanent" here (is meant) the absence of impermanence. — Nyāyapraveśa2.3 So even though blending comes from spoken Sanskrit, it can appear inwritten Sanskrit as well.
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Simple Vowels Sounds and letters When most people think of written Sanskrit, they think of Devanagari:
May our studies be glorious. — Upanishads (various) But although Devanagari is standard now, it wasn't always. Historically, every Indian script has been used to write Sanskrit:
�
�
�
� �
�
�
�
�
�
This fact is deeply connected to the Sanskrit tradition, which has always valued speech over writing. Even when writing was abundant and widely known, the Vedas and other important texts were learned from the mouth of a teacher and memorized so that they could be taught later on. And although it is weaker now, this tradition has survived to the present day. This emphasis on speech over writing helps to explain why words are blended in so many Sanskrit texts. But it also leads to a more practical matter. If Sanskrit has no script of its own, we can choose whatever script we like.
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Devanagari is an obvious choice. But Devanagari takes some time to learn, especially if you have never learned another Indian script. Moreover, Devanagari was not built for Sanskrit, and it can be awkward and clumsy when used to write it. Instead, we could use romanized Sanskrit. It is almost as common as Devanagari, and it was built to be easy to learn:
tejasvi nāvadhītamastu As a compromise, this guide will use romanized Sanskrit and switch to Devanagari over time. With this approach, we can spend less time on reading and writing and more time on Sanskrit. And speaking of Sanskrit, let us continue with the alphabet.
Seven vowels Four of these vowels have English counterparts:
i
ī
"i" in "bit"
"ee" in "teeth"
u
ū
"u" in "put"
"oo" in "mood"
ṛ
ṝ
(no match)
(no match)
Three do not:
ḷ (no match)
ḷ is extremely rare. Most texts do not have it, and it does not have a long form. Generally, you can pronounce it however you like.
Short and long We have studied 9 vowels so far. Of these, five are short:
aiuṛḷ and four are long:
āīūṝ 13
Together, these nine vowels are called simple vowels.
Blending simple vowels The simple vowels are easy to blend: →
bālāya āha → bālāyāha He spoke for the boy.
→
sā āpnoti → sāpnoti She obtains.
→
gacchati īśvaraḥ → gacchatīśvaraḥ
The lord goes.
→
gacchati madhu udakam → gacchati madhūdakam He goes to the sweet water. In these sentences, the vowels that blend resemble each other. ā blends with ā, i blends with ī, u blends with u, and so on. In each case, the vowels are roughly the same, although they might have different lengths. Let's call such vowelssimilar. For example, ṛ is similar to ṛ and ṝ, but it is not similar to u.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrases below:
na anyadasti iti
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eṣa tu uddeśataḥ These phrases are from the Bhagavad Gita:
nānyadastīti
(The unwise, who delight in the letter of the Vedas and proclaim) "there is nothing else", … — Bhagavad Gita 2.42
eṣa tūddeśataḥ (What I have declared) is just an example (of my many splendors.) — Bhagavad Gita 10.40 These two blends are common all throughout Sanskrit literature.
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Compound Vowels Just as simple tin and copper can combine to make bronze, two vowels can combine to make a compound vowel. Compound vowels vowels are a crucial part of Sanskrit and are used in simple but powerful ways. But for now, let us just pronounce them.
The vowels Sanskrit has four compound vowels. Each is a long vowel. And each is made by a different combination. Since the compound vowels are combinations of two vowels, they are similar to nothing.
a/ā + simple vowel Consider the combinations a + i and a + u. These combine in an obvious way:
a + i → ai a + u → au But it can be tiresome to keep these two sounds separate. So, the early Sanskrit speakers blended the two sounds into something a little easier:
e
o
"a" in "mane"
"o" in "go"
The other combinations (aī, āi, āī, aī, āu, āū) blend in the same way. As you pronounce e and o, try to make the sound "flat" and constant. If you are a native English speaker, this can be hard; English "e" sounds like Sanskrit ei and English "o" sounds like Sanskrit ou. For now, let's ignore combinations withṛ and ṝ.
a/ā + compound vowel Consider the combinations a + e and a + o. These combinations are not obvious. But if we remember that e comes from a + i and that o comes from a + u, they become easy:
a + ai → āi
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a + au → āu But it can be tiresome to spend so much time pronouncing a vowel. So, the early Sanskrit speakers made the ā sound a little shorter:
ai
au
"i" in "fight"
"ow" in "cow"
The other combinations (āe, āo) blend in the same way. Can we combine ai and au with anything? We can try:
a + ai → āi a + au → āu But they shorten back to ai and au, with no changes. The other combinations (ā+ai, ā+au) do the same. As you pronounce ai and au, try to make the "a" part of ai and au sound just like the vowel a. The shorter it is, the better.
Blending compound vowels When two vowels are similar, they blend easily: →
bālāya āha → bālāyāha He spoke for the boy.
→
gacchati īśvaraḥ → gacchatīśvaraḥ
The lord goes. And if they are not similar, they still blend easily. a and ā combine like they do above:
→
sā icchati → secchati She wants.
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→
tasya udakam → tasyodakam his water
→
bālasya odanam → bālasyaudanam the boy's rice
→
tasya aiśvaryam → tasyaiśvaryam his power In the last example, note that a+ai combine with no change. Also, remember that nothing is similar to a compound vowel.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrases below:
paśya etām
hatvā etān
sakhā iti matvā
ca oṣadhīḥ
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na asad āsīn na u sad āsīt These words blend as you would expect:
paśyaitām Look at this (army of the Pandavas, O master). — Bhagavad Gita 1.3
hatvaitān Having killed them, … — Bhagavad Gita 1.36
sakheti matvā
Thinking (of you) as a friend, … — Bhagavad Gita 11.41
cauṣadhīḥ And (I nourish all) the plants. — Bhagavad Gita 15.13
nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt Then there was neither nothing nor anything. — Nāsadīya Sūkta
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Semivowels How do two vowels blend together? If they are similar, they become long: →
bālāya āha → bālāyāha He spoke for the boy. If they are not similar, the blend depends on the first vowel. a and ā, for example, combine to create compound vowels:
→
sā icchati → secchati She wants.
But there are other combinations that are more puzzling:
gacchati aśvaḥ
The horse goes.
sādhu āste
He sits well. To blend the vowels in these sentences, we need a new kind of letter.
Semivowels Consider the combinations i + a and u + a. These combine in an obvious way:
i + a → ia u + a → ua It can be tiresome to keep these two sounds separate. But these sounds do not blend easily. They fight for space, like two wrestlers in the ring. And only one of them can remain. Instead of blending, one of the sounds collapses and becomes shorter. Wherever possible, the first sound is the one that shortens:
i + a → ya
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u + a → va These shortened vowels are called semivowels. And apart from a and ā, every vowel has one:
ya
ra
la
va
"y" in "yellow"
(no match)
"l" in "loose"
"v" in "vase"
Since semivowels can only exist around other vowels, they are all listed with the vowel a. As you pronounce these letters, keep them as short as possible.
Blending vowels When vowels cannot blend or combine, one of them becomes a semivowel:
→
gacchati aśvaḥ → gacchaty aśvaḥ The horse goes.
→
sādhu āste → sādhv āste
He sits well.
With compound vowels This applies to compound vowels, too. We just have to remember where they come from. For example, au comes from a + a + u, or āu. So, we get:
→
→
aśvau icchati → aśvāu icchati → aśvāv icchati
He wants the two horses.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrases below:
bhavati iti anuśuśruma na tu eva ahaṃ jātu na āsam
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tejasvi nau adhītam astu
yadi api ete na paśyanti
These words blend as you would expect:
bhavatīty anuśuśruma (They dwell eternally in hell) — so we have heard. — Bhagavad Gita 1.44
na tv evāhaṃ jātu nāsam Never was I ever not. — Bhagavad Gita 2.12
tejasvi nāv adhītam astu May our studies be glorious. — Upanishads (various)
yady apy ete na paśyanti
But even if they do not see, … — Bhagavad Gita 1.38
Other sounds We can now describe how the Sanskrit vowels blend and interact. This knowledge is highly useful and will be especially important later on. But there are still many other sounds to consider. Let's take a break from the vowels and see what some of these sounds are. These sounds are much simpler, and they will be much easier to learn.
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Stops and Nasals Other sounds [1] In the Vedic tradition, the Vedas are divine and "otherworldly." And as the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit was seen this way, too. As a result, some saw Sanskrit as a metaphor for a deeper divine truth. Thus Krishna says: Of sounds I am a. Of compounds I am the dual. I alone am unending time, the Founder facing every side. — Bhagavad Gita 10.33 To understand the metaphor, we must think about the vowel a. It is a simple and effortless sound, and it is the sound we make when we breathe out. So when seen in this way, a is the basis of all speech. But we can take that metaphor and apply it to something more practical.
Vowels and semivowels Picture the flow of air that makes the vowel a. It starts in the lungs, moves through the throat, and flows cleanly through the mouth, like a river flowing straight. By changing the shape of this flow, we change the sound of the vowel. This is what the tongue does. It creates simple vowels like i and ī. And if we change from one flow to another, we get the compound vowels, like ai and au. By squeezing this flow tight, we change the sound again. This creates the semivowels, like ya and va. Although the flow of air is pressed tight, it still flows cleanly through the mouth, with no breaks or obstacles. But we can alter this flow in more drastic ways.
Stops and nasals Try pronouncing the vowel a. While pronouncing the vowel, stop the flow of air entirely, then quickly let it flow again. This produces sounds like ka and ta and pa. We can call such sounds stops, since they are made when the air flow stops. Once more, try pronouncing the vowel a. While pronouncing the vowel, stop the flow of air entirely — then redirect it through your nose. Then let the air flow normally. This produces
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sounds like na and ma. We can call such sounds nasals, since they are made with help from the nasal cavity. Let us study these stops and nasals. They are much simpler than the vowels, so they will take much less time. But you might be wondering: do simple sounds like ka and na really need so much introduction? Not quite. But by learning to become aware of how sounds are formed and why they sound the way they do, you will have less trouble learning Sanskrit.
Stopping the flow of air The mouth is a large cavern with a long roof. We can stop the flow of air at many points. Sanskrit uses five of these points, and you can see them below:
In Sanskrit, the flow of air is stopped only in these five places. These five points are: • The soft palate • The hard palate • The hard bump on the roof of the mouth • The base of the teeth
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• The lips Together, we can call these places points of sound. These five are used to create the stops and nasals:
Soft palate We start at the soft palate, at the back of the mouth:
ka
ṅa
"k" in "skill"
"ng" in "lung"
Hard palate Moving forward, we reach the hard palate:
ca
ña
(no match)
(no match)
ca looks and sounds similar to the English "ch" sound. But the two are distinct. The English "ch" is pronounced near the teeth. ca is pronounced much further back. Getting this sound right can take some practice.
Hard bump Further still, we reach thehard bump on the roof of the mouth:
ṭa
ṇa
(no match)
(no match)
For convenience, let us say that these sounds are retroflexed. This word evokes a tongue that has bent ("flex") backward ("retro") to produce the sound. Retroflexed sounds do not exist in English. If you have trouble pronouncing them, try curling your tongue further back.
Base of the teeth A little further, we reach the base of the teeth:
ta
na
"t" in "thumb"
"n" in "nose"
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This is the base of the teeth, not the tip. At the tip, you get the English "th". At the base, you get the Sanskrit ta. The difference is small but still noticeable.
Lips And finally, we reach the lips:
pa
ma
"p" in "spill"
"m" in "mill"
Blending stops and nasals We have seen that vowels blend with each other in several ways. But stops and nasals are much simpler. Here are a few simple sentences:
tat na āsyam
That is not a mouth.
rāṭ naraḥ The king is a man. Try reading the first sentence out loud ten times. As you might have noticed, it is tiresome to shift from t to n when pronouncing tat na. Because of clustered sounds like these, speaking Sanskrit can feel hard and slow. But as you might have guessed, the earliest Sanskrit speakers solved this problem by blending stops and nasals together. Whenever a stop is in front of a nasal, it becomes nasal, too:
→
tat na āsyam → tan nāsyam
That is not a mouth.
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When a stop becomes nasal like this, it keeps its point of pronunciation. It is like a diamond dropped in the mud; it may be dirty, but it is still a gem: →
rāṭ naraḥ → rāṇ naraḥ The king is a man. Still, too much blending can be a bad thing. Letters help to make one word distinct from another. This is the main job of the stop letters. So, stops only blend between words, not inside them.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrases below:
tasmāt na arhā vayaṃ hantum
yac chreyaḥ syāt niścitaṃ brūhi tat me
tvatprasādāt mayā acyuta
These phrases are from the Bhagavad Gita:
tasmān nārhā vayaṃ hantum Thus it is not right that we kill … — Bhagavad Gita 1.37
yac chreyaḥ syān niścitaṃ brūhi tan me Truly, tell me that which would be best. — Bhagavad Gita 2.7
My (delusion is gone, and I've come to wisdom,) by your favor, O Krishna. tvatprasādān mayācyuta — Bhagavad Gita 18.73
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Voice and Aspiration The stop letters are simple sounds produced in a simple way:
ka "k" in "skill" But as with many things in life, these letters become more interesting when they become more complex. For one, we can make a stopvoiced:
ga "g" in "gill" or unvoiced, like ka. These letters are in English, too. You can feel the difference between these two letters by touching your windpipe while you produce them. But Sanskrit complicates the stops letters in a second way. Recall that a stop is produced when the flow of air stops then quickly resumes. In ka, this flow resumes normally, like water from a tap. But this flow can also resume explosively, like water bursting through a dam:
kha "k" in "kill" Sounds like khathese are aspirated and sounds like ka are unaspirated ("not breathy"). And of course, aspirated ("breathy"), letters can be voiced, too:
gha (no match)
The stops and nasals Each of the five points of sound has four stops and one nasal. Together, these give us the following 25 sounds:
ka
kha
ga
gha
ṅa
"k" in "skill"
"k" in "kill"
"g" in "gill"
(no match)
"ng" in "lung"
(no match)
ca ṭa
(no match)
cha ṭha
(no match)
ja ḍa
(no match)
jha ḍha
(no match)
(no match)
(no match)
(no match)
(no match)
(no match)
ña ṇa
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ta
tha
da
dha
na
"th" in "thumb"
(no match)
"th" in "this"
(no match)
"n" in "nose"
pa
pha
ba
bha
ma
"p" in "spill"
"p" in "pill"
"b" in "bill"
(no match)
"m" in "mill"
This arrangement is over 2800 years old. It stands at the beginning of the Indian linguistic tradition.
varga The word varga lets us create a shortcut to refer to certain groups of consonants. The stops and nasals at the soft palate (ka, kha, ga, gha, ṅa) are together called kavarga. And we have names for the other groups of stops and nasals, too:
cavarga ca, cha, ja, jha, ña ṭavarga ṭa, ṭha, ḍa, ḍha, ṇa tavarga ta, tha, da, dha, na pavarga pa, pha, ba, bha, ma We can also refer to the semivowels with the term yavarga.
Blending stops Stops blend very easily, whether with nasals:
tat na āsyam
That is not a mouth.
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rāṭ naraḥ The king is a man. or with most other letters. Stops become voiced in front of any voiced letter, including vowels: →
tat asat → tad asat That is false. →
vāk eva → vāg eva speech itself semivowels:
→
tat yacchati → tad yacchati He restrains it. and other stops: →
sa rāṭ bhavati → sa rāḍ bhavati He becomes a king. but like a diamond in the mud, these stops keep their value: they use the same point of sound. As before, stops only blend between words, not inside them. Otherwise, we would become hopelessly confused:
tan mantram That is a mantra.
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tan mandram That is charming.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrases below:
na asat āsīt na u sat āsīt tadānīm
uta amṛtatvasya īśāno yat annena atirohati [2] These are lines from various Vedic hymns:
nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīm Then there was neither nothing nor anything. — Nāsadīya Sūkta
utāmṛtatvasyeśāno yad annenātirohati And he is the lord of immortality, who grows further by food. — Purusha Sukta The first example is from one of the most popular Vedic hymns. The line had all of its blending undone, but we were able to fully restore it.
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Other Consonants Generally, any sound that is not a vowel is called a consonant. Sanskrit has 33 consonants in all: the 25 stops and nasals, the 4 semivowels, and the 4 sounds that we will study in this lesson.
The consonants Like all Sanskrit consonants, these four use the following "points of sound":
In Sanskrit, the flow of air is stopped only in these five places. As you pronounce these letters, be mindful of these five points.
"s" sounds Once more, picture the flow of air that makes the vowel a. It starts in the lungs, moves through the throat, and flows cleanly through the mouth, like a river flowing straight. Normally, the air flows simply and straight. But when this air flow becomes turbulent, we get a "hissing" sound, like the "s" in "snake" or the "sh" in "shore." For convenience, let us call these sounds "s" sounds.
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English has two "s" sounds: the "s" in "snake" and the "sh" in "shore." But Sanskrit has three:
śa
ṣa
sa
(no match)
(no match)
"s" in "snake"
śa uses the hard palate.ṣa is retroflexed. sa is just like the English "s".
ha If you breathe out and make your breath voiced, you'll hear a sound like "haaa." That "h" is our last consonant:
ha (no match)
ha is the same breathy sound that you hear in gha, jha, ḍha, dha, and bha. ha is pronounced with the soft palate, at the back of the mouth.
śavarga Together, these four sounds are called śavarga.
Special combinations Three consonant combinations are pronounced in a distinct way. jña is pronounced more like gña. hma and hna are pronounced like mha and nha. The history of these special pronunciations is uncertain. But this is how Sanskrit is pronounced today.
A new convention The a at the end of a consonant makes the consonant easy to pronounce. But this a can also be confusing sometimes. So let us create a new convention. From now on, this guide will not add a to the end of consonants.
Blending t Of all consonants, t blends the most. Just as water spreads to fill its container, t changes to blend with the letter after it.
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Like other stops, t can become nasal:
→
tat na āsyam → tan nāsyam
That is not a mouth.
→
tat mantram → tan mantram That is a mantra. and voiced: →
tat asat → tad asat That is false. We have seen these changes already. But t can also change its point of sound. If the next sound is a stop that uses the tongue, then it changes: →
tat cāpam → tac cāpam That is a bow. →
tat ṭīkāsu → taṭ ṭīkāsu That is in the commentaries.
tat tanoti He spreads that. even if those sounds are voiced: →
tat jāyate → taj jāyate That is born.
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→
tat ḍamarau → taḍ ḍamarau That is in the drum. →
tat dahati → tad dahati That burns. For other stops (kavarga and pavarga), the point of sound does not change:
tat kaṭhoram That is hard.
→
tat gurum → tad gurum That is heavy.
tat phalam That is a fruit. →
tat bījam → tad bījam That is a seed.
In the wild Try to blend the words in the phrase below:
yat bhūtaṃ yat ca bhavyam This phrase is from thePuruṣa Sūkta, one of the most popular Vedic hymns:
yad bhūtaṃ yac ca bhavyam (He is all of this) which has been and which is yet to be. — Puruṣa Sūkta
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Our Sanskrit alphabet is almost complete. Only two sounds remain.
36
Anusvāra and Visarga The two sounds here are fundamentally different from the others we have studied. They appear only because of blending. They can be pronounced in multiple ways. They must follow vowels. And although they seem to be consonants, the tradition calls them something else. Each sound has its own special term.
anusvāra aṃ
(no match) This sound is called the anusvāra ("after-sound"). It is a "pure nasal" sound that appears only in front of consonants. It is difficult to pronounce a "pure nasal." But the anusvāra is easy to pronounce. Generally, it uses the same point of sound as the sound that follows it:
Written as
Sounds like
śaṃkara
śaṅkara
saṃjaya
sañjaya
saṃskṛta
sanskṛta
saṃbuddha
sambuddha
The anusvāra in different contexts Because of this behavior, saṃskṛta is spelled in English as "Sanskrit."
visarga aḥ (no match) This sound is called the visarga ("release"). Originally, the visarga was probably just like the "h" in "house." We could think of it as an "s" sound pronounced at the soft palate. But today, it is usually pronounced as an echo of the vowel before it: aḥ like aha, and iḥ like ihi.
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Blending the visarga The visarga is a difficult sound. So wherever possible, it blends with the letters around it. In front of unvoiced consonants, thevisarga becomes the "s" sound with the same point of sound: →
naraḥ carati → naraś carati The man walks. →
naraḥ tarati → naras tarati The man crosses. →
tāḥ ṭīkāḥ → tāṣ ṭīkāḥ Those are commentaries. This change also occurs in front of other "s" sounds, like ś and s. But surprisingly, the change is rarely written out:
(
naraḥ śocati (naraś śocati)
)
The man grieves.
naraḥ smarati (naras smarati)
(
)
The man remembers.
The Sanskrit alphabet We have now studied every sound in the alphabet.. Unlike the English alphabet, the Sanskrit alphabet is intuitive and easy to remember:
Vowels We start with the thirteen vowels:
a i
ā ī 38
u ṛ ḷ e o
ū ṝ ai au
anusvāra and visarga Thevowels: anusvāra and visarga are not quite the same as normal consonants, so they are listed with the
aṃ
aḥ
Stops and nasals Next come the stops and nasals:
ka ca ṭa ta
kha cha ṭha tha
ga ja ḍa da
gha jha ḍha dha
ṅa ña ṇa na
pa
pha
ba
bha
ma
Semivowels Then the semivowels:
ya
ra
la
va
sa
ha
"s" sounds and ha And, finally, the "s" sounds and ha.
śa
ṣa
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Syllables We have now studied every sound in later Sanskrit (with one small exception). But although real language is made of sounds chained together, we have studied these sounds in isolation. If we cannot pronounce these sounds together, we will be like those musicians who can play beautiful notes but no songs. So let us spend our last lesson here on meter, the study of how sounds flow together. Even if you can pronounce Sanskrit well already, a good knowledge of meter is vital to understanding certain parts of how Sanskrit behaves. Along with phonetics (śikṣā), meter (chandas) is one of the six vedāṅga, the "limbs" of the Vedas that support the study of its contents. Four of the six vedāṅga focus on language.
Definition We start with the most basic part of meter: the syllable. Syllables are simple. They have exactly one vowel:
i
kā
nau
yo
he they start with consonants wherever possible:
→
-
phalam → pha-lam
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→
iti → i-ti
-
and they end with the anusvāra and visarga wherever possible:
-
→
-
-
naraḥ pacati → na-raḥ-pa-ca-ti
-
→
-
-
taṃ carāmi → taṃ-ca-rā-mi
-
Sometimes, however, a phrase can be divided in multiple ways:
→
-
-,
putraḥ → pu-traḥ, put-raḥ
-
→
-,
dharmaḥ → dha-rmaḥ, dhar-maḥ In these cases, you can divide the phrases however you like. Traditional grammar tries to make syllables end in vowels (dha-rmaḥ). But this makes some parts of Sanskrit more difficult later on. So let us make our own convention:
A syllable should end with a consonant if possible, without breaking the rules above. With this convention, all phrases can be divided in only one way:
→
-
putraḥ → put-raḥ
→
-
dharmaḥ → dhar-maḥ Now we can split any Sanskrit phrase into syllables:
→
--
- --
-
-
anekavaktranayanam → a-ne-ka-vak-tra-na-ya-nam
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Light and heavy A syllable that ends in a short vowel is light. All other syllables are called heavy. Heavy syllables lastexactly twice as long as light syllables. This is the key insight of this lesson. Let's see some examples. In this sentence, every syllable here is heavy:
-
-- - - - -
→
vṛddho vṛkṣas tiṣṭhaty agre → vṛd-dho-vṛk-ṣas-tiṣ-ṭhat-yag-re An ancient tree stands ahead.
Even though some of these syllables have short vowels, each syllable lasts the same amount of time. Here is another example. In this sentence, every syllable is light: →
--
-
-
sa śukam api girati → sa-śu-ka-ma-pi-gi-ra-ti
-
-
-
It swallows the parrot, too. Like the previous example, this example has eight syllables. But since every syllable here is light, this example lasts exactly half as long. Finally, consider this example:
→
- -
arjuna → ar-ju-na Arjuna
"ar" and "juna" last for exactly the same amount of time, even though all of these vowels are short. As you read Sanskrit, try to be mindful of these light and heavy syllables. They do more than control how Sanskrit is pronounced; they also give Sanskrit poetry some of its beauty and power.
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Review And that is all! We have learned virtually everything we need to know about pronouncing Sanskrit sounds correctly. We have also learned why and how sounds blend together. Finally, we learned a bit about syllables and meter. This knowledge is extremely useful, and it will make many parts of Sanskrit much easier. In the next unit, we will finally start with real Sanskrit. We will create simple sentences, learn how words are used together, and create new words of our own. But before you go on, take a moment to review the material from this unit.
Sounds Instead of just reviewing the alphabet, we can rearrange the sounds in a more meaningful way:
Vowels Short Soft palate Hard palate Hard bump
Long
a
ā
i
ī
ṛ
ṝ
e
ai
o
au
ḷ
Teeth
u
Lips
ū
Consonants Stops Soft palate Hard palate
Nasals
kak
ha
ga
gha
ṅa
ca
cha
ja
jha
ña
Semivowels
"s"
ha
ha ya
śa
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Hard bump Teeth Lips
ṭa
ṭha
ḍa
ḍha
ṇa
ra
ṣa
ta
tha
da
dha
na
la
sa
pa
pha
ba
bha
ma
va
Blending Sometimes, it can be tiresome to pronounce certain sounds next to each other. The earliest Sanskrit speakers solved this problem byblending words together.
Blending vowels It is easy to blend vowels. Simple vowels are the easiest: →
bālāya āha → bālāyāha He spoke for the boy.
→
sā → sāpnoti Sheāpnoti obtains.
→
gacchati īśvaraḥ → gacchatīśvaraḥ
The lord goes.
→
gacchati madhu udakam → gacchati madhūdakam He goes to the sweet water. Otherwise, vowels can blend in several ways. They cancombine:
→
sā icchati → secchati She wants.
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→
tasya udakam → tasyodakam his water
→
bālasya odanam → bālasyaudanam the boy's rice
→
tasya aiśvaryam → tasyaiśvaryam his power or one can become a semivowel:
→
gacchati aśvaḥ → gacchaty aśvaḥ The horse goes.
→
sādhu āste → sādhv āste
He sits well.
tejasvi nāv adhītam astu
May our studies be glorious. — Upanishads (various)
Blending consonants It is easy to blend consonants, too. Stops canbecome nasals:
→
tat na āsyam → tan nāsyam
That is not a mouth.
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→
rāṭ naraḥ → rāṇ naraḥ The king is a man. or they can just become voiced: →
vāk eva → vāg eva speech itself
→
tat yacchati → tad yacchati He restrains it. →
sa rāṭ bhavati → sa rāḍ bhavati He becomes a king. →
na asat āsīt na u sat āsīt tadānīm → nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīm Then there was neither nothing nor anything. — Nāsadīya Sūkta
t, especially, blends very easily: →
tat cāpam → tac cāpam That is a bow. →
tat ṭīkāsu → taṭ ṭīkāsu That is in the commentaries. →
tat jāyate → taj jāyate That is born.
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→
tat ḍamarau → taḍ ḍamarau That is in the drum.
Blending the visarga Just like t, the visarga blends often and easily: →
naraḥ carati → naraś carati The man walks. →
naraḥ tarati → naras tarati The man crosses. →
tāḥ ṭīkāḥ → tāṣ ṭīkāḥ Those are commentaries.
Meter We studied Sanskrit syllables and learned how they affect the way Sanskrit is spoken.
47
End matter Footnotes 1. ^ alaukika "not of (this) world" or apauruṣeya "not of mankind". 2. ^ Like most all Vedic Sanskrit, the lines here are open to some interpretation.
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Basics
learnsanskrit.org November 25, 2012
49
How Sanskrit Works Learning Sanskrit is like building a massive house. Our materials are the various Sanskrit sounds, which we combine and blend to make new materials. Our techniques are the rules of grammar, which start out quite simply but soon become much more subtle and interesting. And our approach is a practical one: build a basic shelter before expanding further. But without a steady foundation, the house cannot stand. If we have even a basic understanding of how Sanskrit generally works, we can greatly reduce our problems later on. Moreover, this basic understanding will also help us put Sanskrit's different parts in perspective. So before we begin with Sanskrit itself, let's quickly discuss what the language is like.
Word order Here is a basic English sentence: Elephants eat fruits. Let's see how this sentence appears in Sanskrit:
gajāḥ phalāni khādanti Elephants fruit eats. ("Elephants eat fruits.")
As you can see, the came concepts appear in different orders in both languages. But surprisingly, the word order does not matter much in Sanskrit:
gajāḥ khādanti phalāni
Elephants eat fruits. ("Elephants eat fruits.")
phalāni khādanti gajāḥ
Fruits eat elephants. ("Elephants eat fruits.")
khādanti phalāni gajāḥ Eat fruits elephants. ("Elephants eat fruits.")
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Inflection Sanskrit is so flexible because its words carry extra information with them. We take a basic word, like gaja ("elephant"), and somehow mark it to show two things: • There are multiple elephants. • These elephants are eating (but the fruits are not). And likewise for phala ("fruit"): • There are multiple fruits. • These fruits are being eaten (but the elephants are not). We add this extra information by changing part of the word: gaja becomes gajāḥ, and phala becomes phalāni. When we change a word to add information like this, we say that we inflect the word. Words are inflected in English, too, but not very much. For example, we say "I play" and "you play," but we say "he plays," not "he play." If we see just the word "plays," we can guess that the person doing the playing is "he" or "she," but probably not "I" or "you." This is because the word has been inflected to show who is doing the playing. As another example, we say "I play" and "I will play," but we say "I played." The word "play" changes to show that the playing has already happened. We can work backward from the word "played" and figure that out. Sanskrit words are inflected much more than English words. Even complex ideas can be represented as single words:
grāmān bālau jigamayiṣanti
They want to make the two boys go to the villages. There are also uninflected words, which always remain the same:
sa eva gacchati
Only he goes.
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Making words One of Sanskrit's richest and most rewarding features is the ability to make your own words . Starting from basic sounds and syllables, we can quickly create words of great subtlety and nuance: →
→
→
bhaj → bhaga → bhagavat → bhāgavata →
→
adore, love theadoration, love concerning blessed Lord →
→
glorious, fortunate; the blessed one, Lord
→
yuj → yoga → yogin connect, bind, prepare→ concentration, exertion (yoga) → yogin Just as many branches grow from the same trunk, many words can grow from the same basic elements. By learning these elements and some basic rules, we can quickly understand thousands of new words.
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Present Tense Verbs Actions Generally, every Sanskrit sentence is just some action. The simplest sentences are just actions and nothing else:
gacchati He goes. Words that describe actions are called verbs. gacchati is a verb. So is the word below:
gacchataḥ The two of them go.
gacchati and gacchataḥ both start the same way, with gaccha. This part of the verb is called the stem; just as many flowers bloom from the same plant stem, many verbs are formed from the same verb stem. We add an ending to a stem to make a complete word:
+
→
gaccha + ti → gacchati He goes.
+
→
gaccha + taḥ → gacchataḥ The two of them go.
+
→
gaccha + nti → gacchanti They go.
+
+
→
tiṣṭha + ti → tiṣṭhati He stands. →
tiṣṭha + taḥ → tiṣṭhataḥ The two of them stand.
53
+
→
tiṣṭha + nti → tiṣṭhanti
They stand.
+
+
→
paśya + ti → paśyati He sees.
→
paśya + taḥ → paśyataḥ The two of them see.
+
→
paśya + nti → paśyanti
They see. And of course, we can talk about other sorts of people. We can talk about you:
gacchasi You go.
gacchathaḥ The two of you go.
gacchatha You all go.
tiṣṭhasi
You stand.
tiṣṭhathaḥ
The two of you stand.
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tiṣṭhatha
You all stand.
paśyasi You see.
paśyathaḥ The two of you see.
paśyatha You all see. And we can talk about me:
gacchāmi I go.
gacchāvaḥ The two of us go.
gacchāmaḥ We all go.
tiṣṭhāmi
I stand.
tiṣṭhāvaḥ
The two of us stand.
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tiṣṭhāmaḥ
We all stand.
paśyāmi I see.
paśyāvaḥ The two of us see.
paśyāmaḥ We all see. In this way, Sanskrit lets us talk about some action and the people who perform it.
The present tense The verbs above let us describe what is happening right now. In English, these verbs are called present tense verbs.
gacchati He goes.
paśyāvaḥ The two of us see.
tiṣṭhasi
You stand.
paśyāmaḥ We all see.
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gacchataḥ The two of them go.
tiṣṭhatha
You all stand.
tiṣṭhathaḥ
The two of you stand.
gacchanti They go.
paśyāmi I see. These Sanskrit verbs have a broader meaning than their English counterparts:
gacchati He is going.
tiṣṭhataḥ
The two of them are standing.
paśyanti
They are seeing. And they have many others too. As much as possible, we should focus on Sanskrit words and sentences, not their counterparts in English. The more we rely on English, the less we learn about Sanskrit itself. The forms of this verb are often presented in a table, like the one below:
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[3s] [2s] [1s]
[3d] [2d] [1d]
[3p] [2p] [1p]
But we have seen all of these forms already, and there is no need to linger on a table like this.
In the wild Our goal is to read Sanskrit texts. So along the way, we will study many examples of real Sanskrit. As we read these examples, we see new concepts in a real setting. And we can measure how much we have learned so far. So consider the text below. We know enough to pronounce it correctly. But how much can we understand?
aprāpya yogasaṃsiddhiṃ kāṃ gatiṃ kṛṣṇa gacchati If he has not attained perfection in yoga, Krishna, on which path does he go?— Bhagavad Gita 6.37 Focus on the highlighted words above; the rest of the example is too difficult right now. But even this difficult example teaches us something about Sanskrit. Note that gacchati appears at the end of the sentence. Most verbs do. Note, too, that the anusvāra appears in yogasaṃsiddhim without a space after it. This indicates that the anusvāra can appear within a word, not just at the end of it. We can also recognize some familiar words, like yoga and kṛṣṇa. These words appear throughout the Bhagavad Gita, and we will see them many times.
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Ātmanepada The verbs we just studied are called parasmaipada verbs. The verbs we will study below are called ātmanepada verbs. But what makes one verb different from another? And just what do parasmaipada and ātmanepada mean, anyway? Both questions have roughly the same answer. Traditionally, ātmanepada verbs are used when the action benefits the person who performs it ( ātmane, "for the self"; pada just means "word"), and parasmaipada verbs are used everywhere else ( parasmai, "for another"). We show this difference in meaning by using different verb endings:
pacati He cooks.
pacate He cooks for himself. (He's cooking himself a meal.)
pacataḥ The two of them cook.
pacete The two of them cook for themselves.
pacanti They cook.
pacante
They cook for themselves. The stem is the same, but the endings are different. Just as two different flowers can sometimes grow from the same stalk, so too can parasmaipada and ātmanepada forms grow from the same verb stem.
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Endings The ātmanepada endings are closely related to the parasmaipada endings. They follow similar patterns:
pacati He cooks.
pacate He cooks for himself. (He's cooking himself a meal.)
pacanti They cook.
pacante
They cook for themselves.
pacasi You cook.
pacase You cook for yourself. Even when these patterns are not immediately clear:
pacataḥ The two of them cook.
pacete The two of them cook for themselves.
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pacathaḥ You two cook
pacethe You two cook for yourselves.
pacāvaḥ The two of us cook.
pacāvahe The two of us cook for ourselves.
pacāmaḥ We all cook.
pacāmahe We all cook for ourselves. But in two instances, there is no pattern at all:
pacatha You all cook.
pacadhve
You all cook for yourselves.
pacāmi I cook.
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pace I cook for myself.
Weak distinctions The distinction between parasmaipada and ātmanepada is not always strong. Some ātmanepada verbs act just like the ones we have seen so far, without any strong sense of acting "for the self":
labhate He obtains.
labhete The two of them obtain.
labhante
They obtain.
labhase You obtain.
labhethe The two of you obtain.
labhadhve
You all obtain.
labhe I obtain.
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labhāvahe The two of us obtain.
labhāmahe We all obtain. But generally these verbs do describe things that affect us, like being born, enjoying something, dying, or simply thinking:
manyate He thinks.
manyāvahe The two of us think.
manyadhve You all think.
manyete The two of them think.
manyethe The two of you think.
manyāmahe We all think.
manyase You think.
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manye
I think.
manyante
They think. Traditionally, verbs are presented in a table, like the one below: [3s] [2s] [1s]
[3d] [2d] [1d]
[3p] [2p] [1p]
But we have already seen all of these forms, and there is no need to linger on a table like this.
64
Nouns in Case 1 Generally, every Sanskrit sentence is just some action. The simplest sentences are just actions and nothing else:
paśyati He sees.
labhethe The two of you obtain.
manyāmahe We all think.
tiṣṭhasi
You stand. Unfortunately, these sentences tell us very little. If we see just paśyati, how can we tell who sees, or what is seen? And how and where does this "seeing" happen? To fill these gaps, we use nouns. Nouns describe ideas as simple as elephants and fruits, and as complex as places and concepts. Just like verbs, nouns areinflected:
gajaḥ paśyati
The elephant sees.
gajau paśyataḥ
The two elephants see.
gajāḥ paśyanti The elephants see.
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And just like verbs, nouns have a stem. Here, the stem is gaja. Just as many flowers bloom from the same plant stem, many nouns are formed from the same noun stem. And as with verbs, we add an ending to a noun to make a complete word:
gajaḥ paśyati
The elephant sees.
gajau paśyataḥ
The two elephants see.
gajāḥ paśyanti
The elephants see.
naraḥ pacate The man cooks for himself.
narau pacete The two men cook for themselves.
narāḥ pacante
The men cook for themselves.
aśvas tiṣṭhati (aśvaḥ tiṣṭhati)
(
(
)
The horse stands.
aśvau tiṣṭhataḥ The two horses stand.
aśvās tiṣṭhanti (aśvāḥ tiṣṭhanti)
)
The horses stand.
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Note the blending that occurs in aśvas tiṣṭhati and aśvās tiṣṭhati. Now that our sentences have multiple words, we have to be mindful of how the sounds in the two words affect each other.
Noun roles In each example above, the noun defines what performs the verb action. But nouns can define other parts of the action, too. With paśyati, for example, we can define what is seen:
gajaḥ paśyati sees naram The elephant the man. Or where the elephant sees:
grāme gajaḥ paśyati
The elephant sees in the village. Or what the elephant sees with:
nayanena gajaḥ paśyati
The elephant sees with his eye. Here, the role of the noun changes when we change the noun ending. So in addition to showing the number of items involved, the noun ending shows the noun's role. Generally, these roles are calledcases. Still, roles and cases are not quite the same thing.
Case 1 Case 1 usually defines what performs the action:
gajaḥ paśyati
The elephant sees.
gajau paśyataḥ
The two elephants see.
67
gajāḥ paśyanti
The elephants see.
paśyati implies that only one thing sees. gajaḥ implies that only one elephant performs the action. Each word implies the same number of things (one), so they are used together. A verb and a word in case 1 must always imply the same number of things.
Blended sounds Recall that visarga blends with the sounds that follow it:
aśvaścarati The horse walks.
aśvau carataḥ The two horses walk.
aśvāścaranti
The horses walk.
gajastiṣṭhati
The elephant stands.
gajau tiṣṭhataḥ
The two elephants stand.
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gajāstiṣṭhanti
The elephants stand. In these examples, the consonant that comes after the visarga is not voiced. What if the consonant is voiced instead?
naraḥ labhate The man obtains.
narāḥ labhante
The men obtain. Try repeating these entences ten or twenty times. Eventually it will become tiresome to transition between the unvoiced visarga in naraḥ and narāḥ and the voiced l in labhate and labhante. It is much easier to blend the two words. For the first sentence, this blending is against all of our intuitions. It is the sort of change we must just accept. →
naraḥ labhate → naro labhate The man obtains. The -aḥ ending became o. This happens in front of voiced consonants of any kind. For the second sentence, the blending is much more reasonable: →
narāḥ labhante → narā labhante
The men obtain.
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Here the troublesome visarga is simply removed. Sometimes the best solution to a problem is the easiest one. With these changes in mind, we can now write many more sentences:
naro manyate
The man thinks.
narau paśyataḥ The two men see.
narā manyante
The men think.
gajo labhate The elephant obtains.
gajau labhete The two elephants obtain.
gajā labhante The elephants obtain.
aśvo gacchati
The horse goes.
aśvau tiṣṭhataḥ The two horses stand.
aśvā gacchanti
The horses go.
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Case 2 Using the Sanskrit we know already, we can write a variety of sentences:
tiṣṭhanti
They stand.
manye
I think.
pacadhve
You all cook. By using nouns, we can describe the things involved with this action. We just learned about case 1, which generally describes who performs the action:
gajaś carati The elephant walks.
narau labhete The two men obtain.
aśvā gacchanti
The horses go. Meanwhile, case 2 usually defines the "object" of the action:
gajaṃ labhadhve You all obtain an elephant. (m blends with p to form ṃ.)
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gajau paśyasi
You see two elephants. (gajau is the same in case 1 and case 2!)
gajān paśyathaḥ The two of you see elephants. With verbs that imply movement (like "go" and "walk"), case 2 also defines thedestination:
naraṃ gacchatha You all go to the man.
narau carāmi I walk to the two men.
aśvān gacchāvaḥ The two of us go to the horses. And of course, we can use multiple cases at once:
vīro gajaṃ rakṣati The hero protects the elephant.
vīrau narān gacchataḥ The two heroes go to the men.
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vīr You see two elephants.
Ambiguity Above, we saw that gajau appears in case 1 and case 2. This can create ambiguities in Sanskrit, where multiple meanings are possible:
gajau labhete (a) The two of them obtain the two elephants. (b) The two elephants obtain.
vīrau narau rakṣataḥ
(a) The two heroes protect the two men. (b) The two men protect the two heroes These ambiguities disappear if we know more about this sentence's context. If we do not have enough context, then there is nothing we can do. But fortunately, these sorts of ambiguities are also quite rare. They go away if the verb changes even slightly:
gajau labhethe The two of you obtain the two elephants.
gajau labhante
They obtain the two elephants.
Table of forms No Sanskrit textbook is complete without putting the different noun forms in a table: [1s] [2s]
[1d] [2d]
[1p] [2p]
But we have already seen all of these forms, and there is no need to linger on a table like this.
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Cases 3 and 4 By using nouns, we can describe the things involved with an action. We have just learned about case 1 and case 2
naro vīraṃ paśyati The man sees the hero. Case 1 and case 2 define very basic relationships between nouns and verbs. But the next few cases are more interesting.
Case 3 Case 3 has two important senses. More commonly, case 3 defines how something is done: [1]
gajena gacchāmi grāmam
I go by means of the elephant to the village.
gacchatho grāmān aśvābhyām
The two of you go by means of the two horses to the villages.
aśvaṃ labhante naraiḥ They obtain a horse by means of the men. Less commonly, case 3 defineswho is with the performer:
aśvena tiṣṭhāvaḥ
The two of us standwith the horse.
vīrābhyāṃ manyete
The two of them thinkwith the two heroes.
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bālaiḥ pacadhve
You all cook with the boys. This second sense can be reinforced by using saha, an uninflected word:
gajena saha gacchāmi grāmān I go with the elephant to the villages.
sahāśvābhyāṃ tiṣṭhanti
They stand with the two horses. And it can be reversed by vinā. It shows who isnot with the performer:
icchanti vinā vīraiḥ
They want without the heroes.
saha and vinā should be very close to the word in case 3. Usually, they appear right after.
Blended sounds In the examples above, notice the visarga in naraiḥ, bālaiḥ, and vīraiḥ. Each visarga follows a vowel that is neither a nor ā. When this occurs, the visarga becomes r in front of voiced sounds.
→
gajaiḥ labhadhve → gajair labhadhve You all obtain with the elephants.
→
vīraiḥ gacchataḥ → vīrair gacchataḥ The two of them go with the heroes. →
bālaiḥ icchatha → bālair icchatha You all want with the boys.
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This change is against all of our intuitions. It is the sort of change we must just accept. Note, though, that the result sounds a little prettier than before. In all other circumstances, these sorts ofvisargas act normally.
bālaiś corayāmaḥ We steal with the boys.
gajais tiṣṭhāmi I stand with the elephants.
vīraiḥ paśyanti
We see with the heroes.
Case 4 Case 4 expresses two important ideas. The first is purpose, as in "I broke the coconut for [2] some water":
bālaś corayatyaśvaṃ narāya
The boy steals the horse for the man.
gacchato narau grāmaṃ gajābhyām The two men walk to the village for (two) elephants.
bālaḥ pacati gajebhyaḥ The boy cooks for elephants. The second defines the person meant to benefit from the cation, as in "I broke the coconut for a friend" or "I gave the money to my brother":
vīrā narāya siṃhaṃ paśyanti
The heroes look at the lion for the man.
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aśvaṃ bālaścorayati narābhyām
The boy steals the horse for the two men.
corayāmi grāmebhyaḥ
I steal for the villages. Compared to the other noun cases, case 4 is uncommon.
bālāya gajaṃ pace I cook the elephant for the boy. Oh, the poor elephant! But this is just an example sentence, not real life.
vīrābhyām aśvābhyāṃ grāmaṃ gacchathaḥ The two of you go with (two) horses to the village for the two heroes.
siṃho narebhyo grāmaṃ gacchati The lion goes to the village for men.
Stem-ending blending: n to ṇ Consider the examples below.
narena with the man
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vīrena with the hero Try repeating the first word ten or twenty times. Eventually it will become tiresome to pronounce the retroflex r right before shifting to the non-retroflex n. It is much easier to blend the two sounds by using the same point of pronunciation for both: →
narena → nareṇa with the man →
vīrena → vīreṇa with the hero With this in mind, we can understand the sentences below:
saha nareṇāśvān paśyāmi I see the horses with the man.
vīreṇa vinā tiṣṭhasi
You stand without the hero.
nareṇecchati gajam They want the elephant with the man. Note the blending in the last example: nareṇa ṛcchati becomes nareṇarcchati.
Ambiguities Recall that gajau, narau, and other such words areambiguous:
gajau labhete (a) The two of them obtain the two elephants. (b) The two elephants obtain. 78
Words like gajābhyām and narābhyām are ambiguous, too:
narābhyāṃ pacanti
(a) They cook for the two men. (b) They cook with the two men. Usually, common sense is enough to tell what a word should mean.
gajābhyāṃ pacanti They cook for the two elephants. It is unlikely that an elephant would be cooking.
Table of forms [1s] [2s] [3s] [4s]
[1d] [2d] [3d] [4d]
[1p] [2p] [3p] [4p]
We have already seen all of these forms, and there is no need to linger on a table like this.
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Cases 5 and 6 After studying case 1 and case 2, we studied two more interesting cases: case 3 and case 4. Now let's study two more cases. After these two, there are two more to go!
Case 5 Case 5 represents the abstract idea of movement away from something.
[3]
grāmād gacchāmi gṛham I go from the village to the house.
grāmābhyāṃ gacchasi gṛhān You go from the two villages to the houses.
gacchanti naraṃ grāmebhyāḥ They go from the villages to the man. When used in verbless sentences, case 5 defines part of a comparison. If you like, you can imagine that the noun in case 5 is left behind because it is less beautiful, less black, less white, and so on.
naraḥ siṃhāt sundaraḥ The man is more beautiful than the lion.
aśvau gajābhyāṃ kṛṣṇaḥ
The two horses are blacker than the two elephants.
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gajā aśvebhyaḥ śvetāḥ
The elephants are whiter than the horses. Case 5 is usually used for places and fixed objects:
gṛhāc carati siṃhaḥ The lion walks from the house.
narābhyāṃ caranti
They walk from the two men.
gṛhebhyo grāmaṃ vīrāvṛcchataḥ The two heroes go from the houses to the village. Note the many sandhi changes in the examples above. We have seen all of these before.
Case 6 Each of the cases we have seen so far define a part of the verb action:
naraścarati The man walks.
gajaṃ carati He walks to the elephant.
bālaiścarati He walks with the boys.
vīrāya carati He walks for the hero.
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grāmāc carati He walks from the village.
Case 6 does not. Instead, case 6 shows that there is a connection between one noun and another:
narasya putras tiṣṭhati The man's son stands.
grāmayor vīrau manyete
The two heroes of the two villages think.
vīrāṇām putrā bhavāmaḥ We are sons of heroes. Note the sandhi change in vīrāṇām. vīrānām becomes vīrāṇām for the same reason that vīrena becomes vīreṇa — because vīrāṇāṃ is easier to say. Case 6 has a special meaning when used in a verbless sentence:
narasya putraḥ The man has a son.
grāmayoḥ sundarā gajā vartante The village has beautiful elephants.
kṛṣṇā bālānām aśvā bhavanti
The boys have black horses. Remember, verbless sentences optionally have verbs like vartante and bhavanti. Notice what varte does in the second example.
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Sandhi review We have seen and used so many kinds of sandhi so far that the process is starting to feel more natural. But sometimes it is good to review.
Review of visarga sandhi Here we review only the changes involved for words like narayoḥ and naraiḥ:
gajaiḥ paśyasi
You see with the elephants.
gajayoḥ putro bhavati The two elephants have a son.
bālaiścaratha You all walk with the boys.
narayoścorayāmi gajān I steal the two men's elephants.
vīraistiṣṭhāvaḥ
The two of us stand with the heroes.
vīrayostiṣṭhataḥ putrau
The sons of the two heroes stand.
aśvairgacchathaḥ The two of you go with the horses.
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narayoraśvo vartate
The two men have a horse. But remember what happens when the next word ends inr:
narai ramate He enjoys with the men.
Review of t sandhi This sandhi is easy. t matches the voice of the letter that comes next:
grāmādṛcchasi
You go from the village. And it matches the point of pronunciation, too:
grāmāccarāmi
I walk from the village.
aśvājjāyante
They are born from the horse.
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Cases 7 and 8 Now we bring our study of the eight cases to a close, for the time being. The Sanskrit cases are powerful and expressive, and we will learn more about them later on.
Case 7 Case 7 defines the location of the action.
grāme tiṣṭhanti gajā bālābhyām
The elephants stand with the two boys in the village.
grāmayor bhavanti siṃhāḥ Lions are in the two villages.
grāmeṣu carantyaśvāḥ sundarāḥ The beautiful horses walk in the villages. When the case 1 noun refers to just one entity, the sense of case 7 changes slightly:
gṛhayos tiṣṭhanti śūrau
The two warriors stand in the two houses.
gṛhayos tiṣṭhati śūraḥ
The warrior stands between the two houses.
gṛheṣu tiṣṭhanti śūrāḥ
The warriors stand in the houses.
gṛheṣu tiṣṭhati śūraḥ
The warrior stands among the houses.
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e sandhi The letter e is simple enough:
gṛhe pacadhve
You all cook for yourselves in the house
gṛhe jāyete narasya putrau The man's two sons are born in the house.
gṛhe manyāmahe We are thinking in the house. Still, what happens when e is near vowels? This, too, is familiar to us already: a sentence like grāme icchanti will become grāmayicchanti. But when this blending occurred between two words, Sanskrit speakers went one step further. They thought y was a tiresome letter to have to say between these two words, so they removed it entirely: →
They want in the village.
grāme icchanti → grāma icchanti
→
grāme ṛcchanti → grāma ṛcchanti They go (while being) in the village.
But recall a sentence like kṛṣṇaḥ aśvaḥ, which becomes kṛṣṇo 'śvaḥ. Just as aḥ overwhelms the a in aśvaḥ and destroys it entirely, leaving the avagraha as a reminder of what used to be there, e does the same.
→
grāme aśvāḥ tiṣṭhanti → grāme 'śvās tiṣṭhanti
Horses stand in the village.
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→
gṛhe aśvaḥ bhavati → gṛhe 'śvo bhavati A horse is in the house. These changes make sense. But here is a devious change that is difficult to explain:
If the e is at the end of a word implyingtwo things, no blending occurs.
→
grāme aśvaḥ carati → grāme 'śvaś carati A horse walks in the village.
→
labhate aśvān → labhate 'śvān He obtains horses.
→
labhete aśvān → labhete aśvān
The two of them obtain horses. This change is unusual and against our Sanskrit intuition. In part, it occurs because it reduces ambiguity. We will see examples of this soon.
Case 8 Apart from case 6, the cases we have seen so far all define different parts of a given action. But case 8 steps beyond this action and defines the person who hears the sentence. We could also say that it defines the person we refer to with the word "you."
putra vīro bhavasi Son, you are a hero.
narau siṃhaṃ paśyāmi Oh you (two) men, I see a lion.
bālāḥ śūrasya gajo grāme carati
Oh boys, the warrior's elephant is walking in the village. 87
The forms of case 8 are largely identical to the forms of case 1. But instead of naraḥ, we have nara. This means that nara can blend with the words that follow it:
narāśvaṃ corayati Hey man, he is stealing a horse.
The 24 forms of gaja Over the course of the past few lessons, we have seen all of the forms of the nouns whose stems end in a, like gaja, nara, and bāla. These forms appear in eight cases. Apart from case 6 and case 8, these cases define the roles that certain nouns play in the verb action:
śūrā gacchanti gṛhād aśvair grāmān bālāya The heroes go with their horses from the house to the villages for the boy. Case 6 connects two nouns.
narasya gajam paśyāmaḥ We see the man's elephant. And case 8 addresses the listener.
nara paśyāmi bālam Hey man, I see a boy. Usually, these forms are assembled in a table, like so: [1s] [2s] [3s] [4s] [5s] [6s]
[1d] [2d] [3d] [4d] [5d] [6d]
[1p] [2p] [3p] [4p] [5p] [6p]
[7s] [8s]
[7d] [8d]
[7p] [8p]
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You know all of these forms already. But for the sake of practice, learn to recite these forms in order, from gajaḥ and gajau all the way to gajāḥ in case 8. Doing so will fix these forms in your mind.
Ambiguity Tables are not a fun way to study Sanskrit, but they can make certain trends very clear. Here, for example, we see all of the forms that are used multiple times:
gajau (a) The two elephants (case 1) (b) The two elephants (case 2) (c) The two elephants (case 8)
gajāḥ (a) The elephants (case 1) (b) The elephants (case 8)
gajābhyām
(a) With the two elephants (case 3) (b) For the two elephants (case 4) (c) From the two elephants (case 5)
gajebhyaḥ (a) For the elephants (case 4) (b) From the elephants (case 5)
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gajayoḥ (a) Of the two elephants (case 6) (b) In the two elephants (case 7) As always, we should rely on context and common sense to help us:
grāma ṛcchati
He goes in the village. It makes no sense for a village to "go", so it is likely that we are "in the village."
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Neuter Nouns
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Adding Emphasis
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The tatpuruṣa
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Review
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End matter Footnotes 1. ^ Ashtadhyayi 1.4.42 : sādhakatamaṃ karaṇam "What is most useful is calledkaraṇa," or "instrument." This is one of the roles that case 3 expresses. 2. ^ Ashtadhyayi 1.4.32 : karmaṇā yam abhipraiti sa saṃpradānam"What the agent has in mind when performing the action is calledsaṃpradāna," or "presentation." This is one of the roles that case 4 expresses. 3. ^ Ashtadhyayi 1.4.24 : dhruvam apāye 'pādānam"When moving away, the fixed point is called apādāna," or "separation." This is the most important role of case 5.
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