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Lesson Text

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Grammar

6 Nominal stems in -a.

Nouns and adjectives with stems in -a (masculine and neuter), and -ā (feminine), occur more frequently than any others. In the first lesson text the nouns bhúvana (n) 'being, existence', sū́rya (m) 'sun' and the names Mitra and Varuna all belong to this group, as do the adjectives vaiśvānará 'for all men' and satyá 'true'. In the second lesson text devá (m) 'divine, god', vā́rya 'precious', 'precious thing' (n), ásura (m) 'divine lord', ukthyà 'worthy of praise', prajā́ (f) 'creature' and vratá (n) 'holy law', among others, belong to this declension. Past participles, like jātá 'born', pr̥ṣṭá 'invoked', hitá 'placed', also follow this inflection. Participles are verbal adjectives, and agree with their subject. The table gives the forms that would occur if made from devá 'divine, god' and prajā́ 'creature', to illustrate the usual masculine and feminine endings.

The declension of neuter nouns in -a follows the masculine declension, with the exception of the nominative singular which has the same form as the accusative, vratám, and the endings of the nominative/accusative/vocative dual and plural, which are the same in all three cases: dual vraté (vocative vráte, with the accent shifted to the first syllable), plural vratā́ and vratā́ni (vrátā, vrátāni).

7 Present active participles in -ant.

The inflection of past participles in -a, like jātá 'born', was mentioned above. Present participles, like finite verbs, are formed in both the active and middle voice. Those formed in the middle voice also follow the inflection of nouns in -a, and will be discussed in the next lesson. Present active participles have stems in -ant, as in Latin ferens, ferent- 'bearing'. The second lesson text is notable for the present active participles that it contains describing the influence of Savitar on the world, all of which are nominative and masculine, agreeing with their subject: ā-pr̥ṇán 'filling', pra-suván 'rousing', and the causative forms pratháyan 'causing to spread' and ni-veśáyan 'bringing to rest'. The table gives the masculine endings that would occur if formed from the verbal root √arc, árcati 'praise'. Note that the ablative/genitive singular and accusative plural have the same form.

The neuter endings differ only in the nominative/accusative/vocative, again the same in all three cases: singular árcat, plural árcanti (the noun jágat in the third verse of the lesson text is in form a neuter participle, as explained in the gloss). All dual neuter forms are rare in the Rigveda; as mentioned in Lesson 1 deities are often in pairs, but they are either masculine or feminine, and although eyes are neuter, other paired parts of the body -- ears, arms, hands and feet -- are all masculine. The only examples of neuter duals from present active participles are yatī́ 'going', and adjectival br̥hatī́, from br̥hánt -- see below. The feminine endings of present active participles are secondary, adding the suffix ī to the stem, and will be treated in Lesson 4.

Some verbs, primarily those that reduplicate their root in the present tense like √dā, dá-dā-ti 'give', do not show the distinguishing n of the masculine singular, and the nominative is the same as the neuter, dádat, with the accusative dádatam, nominative plural dádatas. Intensives, like pracā́kaśat 'overseeing' in verse 4 of the lesson text, are also formed by reduplication, and are characterised by the same masculine endings.

7.1 Adjectives participial in form: mahánt and br̥hánt.

Some adjectives that have lost the participial sense remain participial in form, like mahánt 'mighty' in the first and last lines of the first verse, and br̥hánt 'lofty', the first element of the compound br̥hát-sumna in the last verse. br̥hánt follows the declension given above, but mahánt lengthens the vowel of the suffix in some nominative and accusative forms: the masculine nominative singular, which occurs in the last line of the first verse, is mahā́n, accusative mahā́ntam, but neuter nominative and accusative mahát. Where the accent of the present active participle falls on the suffix rather than the stem, as with mahánt and br̥hánt, it moves to the ending in some cases: dative singular br̥haté, genitive plural br̥hatā́m.

The following lines illustrate the use of some present active participial forms. Commas in the text indicate poetic line ends.

• niveśáyan prasuvánn aktúbhir jágat (lesson text, verse 3) 'bringing-to-rest, rousing the moving world (accusative) with twilight rays' [29]
• pátiḥ síndhūnām bhávan (IX, 15, 5) 'he being (nom sing masc, from √bhū, bhávati) the lord of rivers' [30]
• mahā́m̐ [mahā́n] asi sūrya (VIII, 101, 11) 'You are mighty, O sun' [31]
• janáyan prajā́ [prajā́s] bhúvanasya rā́jā (IX, 97, 40) 'he, begetting (nom sing masc causative, from √jan, jánati) creatures, the king of existence' [32]
• páśyema nú sū́ryam uccárantam [ut-cárantam] (VI, 52, 5; X, 59, 4) 'now we would see (1 pl optative of √paś, páśyati, accented as first word in the line) the sun rising (acc sing masc, from car, cárati 'move' with preverb út 'up')' [33]
• bhávā [bháva] várūthaṃ gr̥ṇaté (I, 58, 9) 'be (2 sing imperative of bhū, again accented as first word in the line) protection for-the-one-singing (dative singular, from √gr̥, gr̥ṇā́ti)' [34]
• árcantas tvā havāmahe (V, 13, 1) 'we, praising (nom pl masc), call upon (from √hū, hávate) you' [35]
• janáyanto [janáyantas] daívyāni vratā́ni, āpr̥ṇánto [ā-pr̥ṇántas] antárikṣā (VII, 75, 3) '(the lights of dawn) begetting (nom pl masc causative) divine laws, filling the atmospheres' [36]
• śr̥ṇvántā vām ávase johavīmi (I, 34, 12) 'we entreat (an intensive form of √hū) you two listening (acc dual masc from √śru, śr̥ṇóti) for help (dat sing neut of ávas 'help')' [37]
• mahád [mahát] adyá mahatā́m ā́ vr̥ṇīmahe, ávo [ávas] devā́nām br̥hatā́m (X, 36, 11) 'we accept today the mighty help of the mighty, lofty gods' [38]

8 Nominal stems in -tr̥.

8.1 Agent nouns.

There are two main classes of stems in -tr̥. The 'agent' nouns (the English word derives from another Latin present participle, agens, agent- 'acting, doing something') relate closely to their verbal root: from √dā 'give' dātŕ̥ 'giver', like Greek δωτήρ; with vowel gradation netŕ̥ 'leader, guide' from √nī 'lead', stotŕ̥ 'praiser' from √stu 'praise'; and, with connecting -i-, janitŕ̥ 'male parent' from √jan 'produce, bear', avitŕ̥ 'helper' from √av 'help, favour' and jaritŕ̥ 'singer' from √jar 'sing, sing praise'. The name Savitar is an agent noun, 'enlivener', from √sū 'generate', and the lesson text plays on the name with related words, as described in the Textual Analysis. The majority of the agent nouns in -tr̥ are masculine, like dhartŕ̥ 'upholder', from √dhr̥ 'hold fast', one of the epithets of Savitar, and accented on the suffix. The table gives the forms that would occur if made from dhartŕ̥. The feminine endings are again secondary, and formed in the same way as the feminines of participles; see Lesson 4.

8.2 Nouns of relationship.

The declension of an important group of nouns of relationship is similar. pitŕ̥ 'father', mātŕ̥ 'mother', bhrā́tr̥ 'brother', and duhitŕ̥ 'daughter' are ancient words with clear parallels in other Indo-European languages. The masculine declension differs from that of the agent nouns only in having a short vowel in the second syllable of some forms of the nominative and accusative, as shown below:

In addition, the dual genitive and locative form pitarós is also regularly found in the Rigveda.

Feminine nouns of relationship in -tr̥ decline like the masculines, with the single difference of the accusative plural, which ends in -s not -n, so mātr̥̄́s (compare the feminine accusative plural of the -i and -u stems, -īs and -ūs, not -īn and ūn, described in section 3 in the first lesson). svásr̥ 'sister', the stem of which is without the t as in Latin, pater, mater, frater, but soror, shows the long a of the agent nouns in the nominative and accusative: svásāram, svásārā, svásāras (accusative plural svásr̥̄s). The word sūnú, which declines like mánu 'man', like English 'son' does not belong to this family group.

• yó no [yás nas] dātā́ sá naḥ pitā́ (VIII, 52, 5) 'He who (is) a giver to us (is) a father to us' [39]
• avitā́ jaritr̥̄ṇā́m (IV, 31, 3) 'the helper of the singers' [40]
• yā́ dhartā́rā rájaso [rájasas] rocanásya (V, 69, 4) 'who (are) the two upholders of airy space, of the sphere of light' [41]
• áprathatam pr̥thivī́m mātáraṃ ví (VI, 72, 2) 'you two spread out (imperfect, from √prath with preverb ví 'out') mother earth' [42]
• ápa svásur uṣáso [uṣásas] nág jihīte (VII, 71, 1) 'Night withdraws (√hā, jíhīte 'move' with preverb ápa 'away') from sister dawn' [43]
• tváṣṭā duhitré vahatúṃ kr̥ṇoti (X, 17, 1) 'Tvashtar ('the artificer') arranges (√kr̥, kr̥ṇóti 'make, do') a bridal (vahatú, masculine) for the daughter' [44]
• ví uchā [ucha] duhitar divaḥ (I, 48, 1; V, 79, 3; V, 79, 9) 'shine out (imperative, from √vas, ucháti, with preverb ví 'out' and the second syllable metrically lengthened), O daughter of heaven' [45]
• víśvasya sthātúr jágataś [jágatas] ca mántavaḥ (X, 63, 8) 'arbiters (nom pl masc of mántu) of all the standing and moving world' [46]
• saptá svásāro [svásāras] abhí sáṃ navante (I, 164, 3) 'seven sisters implore together (√nū, návate 'call out' with preverbs abhí 'towards' and sám 'together')' [47]

9 Prepositions and preverbs.

Prepositions, used regularly in English to express direction or place ('we go to Italy', 'he is in the garden'), occur infrequently in Sanskrit, because many of the relations that they express are conveyed by the oblique cases. For example, in the sentence "The cat sat on the mat", "mat" in Sanskrit would simply appear in the locative case; there is no need for a preposition. So far we have encountered only one example, ápi in passage number 7 in the first lesson: tvé ápi krátu máma 'in you (locative) my power (krátu, masculine, a word that describes mental rather than physical ability)'. Such 'prepositions' in Sanskrit usually follow the word that they govern, as in this example, and are therefore more correctly called postpositions. Even here ápi is not required by the grammar and could have been omitted; it is supplied for poetic reasons.

However, the use of preverbs, prepositional prefixes with verbs, is very common in the Rigveda, and continues into the later language, when preverbs and verbs are compounded. In the group of sample passages given to illustrate the last grammar section most of the verbs are accompanied by preverbs, which may, like prepositions, follow the verb: áprathatam pr̥thivī́m mātáraṃ ví 'you two spread out mother earth' (42). The extensive use of preverbs enables the meaning of the verb to be modified in a rich variety of ways. They are listed here together with an indication of their underlying sense. However, as the examples that we have so far encountered show, this is only a loose guide to the way in which preverbs can shape and extend the meaning of the verb. Some preverb/verb combinations remain similar in meaning to the basic verb, but others have a very different sense, and ā́, for example, can reverse the meaning of verbs of motion: √gam 'go', ā́ √gam 'come'. Two preverbs may be used together with the verb, as in the last example above, saptá svásāro abhí sáṃ navante 'seven sisters implore together' (47).

Preverbs with verbs in subordinate clauses (which are therefore accented) combine if the preverb immediately precedes the verb, and similarly combine with active and middle present participles. The preverbs then lose their accent, as in the examples in the lesson text: ni-veśáyan, pra-suván, pra-cā́kaśat, and the forms ā-pr̥ṇántas and ut-cárantam from examples in section 7: āpr̥ṇánto antárikṣā 'filling the atmospheres' (36), páśyema nú sū́ryam uccárantam 'now we would see the sun rising' (33).

10 Simple nominal compounds.

Early Sanskrit combines pairs of nouns, a noun and an adjective, or a nominal form with a prefix, to form simple compounded words, usually singly accented, very much as English does: tea-pot, black-bird, in-appropriate. Many of these, as in English, become established as words in their own right, like the adjective dhr̥tá-vrata 'firm-command(ed)' in verse 4 of the lesson text, or the noun su-matí 'good-opinion' from the first lesson. A large number of the compounds in the Rigveda however occur once only in the text, like br̥hát-sumna 'lofty-favour(ed)' in verse 6 of the lesson text, which is a familiar feature of sophisticated poetry.

Some compounds of two nouns, like prájā́-pati 'creature-lord' in the lesson text, have an internal grammatical relationship, here 'lord of creatures', that can be determined by common sense, or by observing the usage. The same applies in English. A tree-top, for example, is the top of a tree, but a tree-house is used to mean a house in a tree, and a tree-surgeon is a surgeon for a tree. The Rigveda constructs compounds in a similar manner. The adjectival compound áśva-pr̥ṣṭha 'horse-back(ed)', which occurs in a simile at VIII, 26, 24, means 'on the back of a horse'; the god of wind is invited to come to men as if on horseback. But a parallel animal + body part formation, mayū́ra-roman 'peacock-hair(ed)' at III, 45, 1, means 'with the hair of a peacock'; in this passage the compound itself constitutes the metaphor. The meaning is usually clear from the elements making up the word, and the context.

Compounding was to become, over time, enormously complex and artificial in the later language, and is one of the notable features of Classical Sanskrit. Compounds of more than two elements are rare in the Rigveda, as in English, but in Classical Sanskrit compounds of as many as 30 elements are prized, and the rules laid down for their analysis are complicated. Dr. Seuss can serve to illustrate how such compounds are built up (quoted by Tom McArthur in his article on compounds in The Oxford Companion to the English Language 1992; I have supplied the hyphens for clarity): "When tweetle-beetles fight, it's called a tweetle-beetle-battle. And when they battle in a puddle, it's a tweetle-beetle-puddle-battle. AND when tweetle-beetles battle with paddles in a puddle, they call it a tweetle-beetle-puddle-paddle-battle..." (from Fox in Socks 1960). This multi-element compounding is a commonplace of the later language. It is however unknown to the Rigveda, where the compounds are similar in style and frequency to those found in Homer.

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