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1879.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by W. D. Whitney in the ofrice
of the Librarian of Congress at Washington D. C.
(The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved .)
Printers : Breitkopf & Hartel, Leipzig.
PREFACE.
It was in June, 1875. as I chanced to be for a day or
two in Leipzig, that I was unexpectedly invited to prepare
the Sanskrit grammar for the Indo-European series projected
by Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel. After some consideration,
and consultation with friends, I accepted the task, and have
since devoted to it what time could be spared from regular
duties, after the satisfaction of engagements earlier formed.
If the delay seems a long one, it was nevertheless unavoid-
able ; and I would gladly, in the interest of the work itself
have made it still longer. In every such case, it is necess-
ary to make a compromise between measurably satisfying a
present pressing need, and doing the subject fuller justice
at the cost of more time; and it seemed as if the call for
a Sanskrit grammar on a somewhat different plan from those
already in use excellent as some of these in many respects
are - - was urgent enough to recommend a speedy com-
pletion of the work begun.
The objects had especially in view in the preparation
of this grammar have been the following:
To make a presentation of the facts of the language
primarily as they show themselves in use in the literature,
and only secondarily as they are laid down by the native
grammarians. The earliest European grammars were by the
necessity of the case chiefly founded on their native prede-
cessors ; and a traditional method was thus established which
has been perhaps somewhat too closely adhered to, at the
expense of clearness and of proportion, as well as of scien-
tific truth. Accordingly, my attention has not been directed
toward a profounder study of the grammatical science of the
Hindu schools : their teachings I have been contented to take
v i PREFACE.
as already reported to Western learners in the existing
Western grammars.
To include also in the presentation the forms and con-
structions of the older language, as exhibited in the Veda
and the Brahmana. Grassmann's excellent Index- Vocabulary
to the Rig- Veda, and my own manuscript one to the Atharva-
Veda (which I hope soon to be able to make public), gave
me in full detail the great mass of Vedic material ; and this,
with some assistance from pupils and friends, I have song] it
to complete, as far as the circumstances permitted, from the
other Vedic texts and from the various works of the Brah-
mana period, both printed and manuscript.
To treat the language throughout as an accented one,
omitting nothing of what is known respecting the nature of
the Sanskrit accent, its changes in combination and inflection,
and the tone of individual words - - being, in all this, ne-
cessarily dependent especially upon the material presented
by the older accentuated texts.
To cast all statements; classifications, and so on, into a
form consistent with the teachiogs of linguistic science. In
doing this, it has been necessary to discard a few of the
long-used and familiar divisions and terms of Sanskrit gram-
mar -- for example, the classification and nomenclature of
"special tenses" and "general tenses" (which is so indefen-
sible that one can only wonder at its having maintained itself
so long), the order and terminology of the conjugation-classes,
the separation in treatment of the facts of internal and ex-
ternal euphonic combination, and the like. But care has been
taken to facilitate the transition from the old to the new;
and the changes, it is believed, will commend themselves
to unqualified acceptance. It has been sought also to help
an appreciation of the character of the language by putting
its facts as far as possible into a statistical form. In this
respect the native grammar is especially deficient and mis-
leading.
Regard has been constantly had to the practical needs
of the learner of the language, and it has been attempted,
by due arrangement and by the use of different sizes of
PREFACE. vii
type, to make the work as usable by one whose object
it is to acquire a knowledge of the classical Sanskrit alone
as those are in which the earlier forms are not included.
The custom of transliterating all Sanskrit words into Euro-
pean characters, which has become usual in European Sans-
krit grammars, is, as a matter of course, retained through-
out; and. because of the difficulty of setting even a small
Sanskrit type with anything but a large European, it is
practiced alone in the smaller sizes.
While the treatment of the facts of the language has
thus been made a historical one, within the limits of the
language itself, I have not ventured to make it comparative,
by bringing in the analogous forms and processes of other
related languages. To do this, in addition to all that was
attempted beside, would have extended the work, both in
content and in time of preparation, far beyond the limits
assigned to it. And, having decided to leave out this ele-
ment, I have done so consistently throughout. Explanations
of the origin of forms have also been avoided, for the same
reason and for others, which hardly call for statement.
A grammar is necessarily in great part founded on its
predecessors, and it would be in vain to attempt an acknowl-
edgment in detail of all the aid received from other schol-
ars. I have had at hand always especially the very schol-
arly and reliable brief summary of Kielhorn, the full and
excellent work of Monier Williams, the smaller grammar of
Bopp (a wonder of learning and method for the time when
it Avas prepared , and the volumes of Benfey and Mtiller.
As regards the material of the language, no other aid, of
course, has been at all comparable with the great Peters-
burg lexicon of Bohtlingk and Roth, the existence of which
gives by itself a new character to all investigations of the
Sanskrit language. What I have not found there or in the
special collections made by myself or by others for me, I
have called below "not quotable*' - a provisional designa-
tion^ necessarily liable to correction in detail by the results
of further researches. For what concerns the verb, its forms
and their classification and uses, I have had, as every one
viii PREFACE .
must have, by far the most aid from Delbruck. in his Alt-
indisches Verb urn and his various syntactical contribu-
tions. Former pupils of my own. Prof. Avery and Dr.
Edgren. have also helped me. in connection with this sub-
ject and with others, in a way and measure that calls for
public acknowledgment. In respect to the important matter
of the declension in the earliest language. I have made great
use of the elaborate paper in the Journ. Am. Or. Soc. (print-
ing contemporaneously with this work, and used by me
almost, but not quite, to the end of the subject) by my
former pupil Prof. Lanman; my treatment of it is founded
on his. My manifold obligations to my own teacher. Prof.
Weber of Berlin, also require to be mentioned : among other
things, I owe to him the use of his copies of certain un-
published texts of the Brahmana period, not otherwise access-
ible to me; and he was kind enough to look through with
me my work in its inchoate condition, favoring me with
valuable suggestions. For this last favor I have likewise to
thank Prof. Delbruck who, moreover, has taken the trouble
to glance over for a like purpose the greater part of the
proof-sheets of the grammar, as they came from the press.
To Dr. L. Schroder is due whatever use I have been able
to make (unfortunately a very imperfect one) of the import-
ant Matriayani-Sanhita.
Of the deficiencies of my work I am. I think, not less
fully aware than any critic of it. even the severest, is likely
to be. Should it be found to answer its intended purpose
well enough to come to another edition, my endeavor will
be to improve and complete it; and I shall be grateful for
any corrections or suggestions which may aid me in mak-
ing it a more efficient help to the study of the Sanskrit
language and literature.
GOTH A, July 1879.
W. D. W.
INTRODUCTION.
BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE INDIAN LITERATURE.
It seems desirable to give here such a sketch of the
history of Indian literature as shall show the relation to
one another of the different periods and forms of the lan-
guage treated in the following grammar, and the position
of the works there quoted.
The name "Sanskrit" (samskrta, 1087 d, 'adorned, elab-
orated, perfected'), which is popularly applied to the whole
ancient and sacred language of India, belongs more properly
only to that dialect which, regulated and established by the
labors of the native grammarians, has led for the last two
thousand years or more an artificial life, like that of the
Latin during most of the same period in Europe, as the
written and spoken means of communication of the learned
and priestly caste ; and which even at the present day fills
that office. It is thus distinguished, on the one hand, from
the later and derived dialects as the Prakrit, forms of
language which have datable monuments from as early as
the third century before Christ, and which are represented
by inscriptions and coins, by the speech of the uneducated
characters in the Sanskrit dramas (see below), and by a
limited literature ; the Pali, a Prakritic dialect which became
the sacred language of Buddhism in Farther India, and is
x INTRODUCTION.
still in service there as such ; and yet later and more altered
tongues forming the transition to the languages of Modern
India. And, on the other hand, it is distinguished, but
very much less sharply and widely, from the older dialects
or forms of speech presented in the canonical literature,
the Veda and Brahmana.
This fact, of the fixation by learned treatment of an
authorized mode of expression, which should thenceforth be
used according to rule in the intercourse of the educated,
is the cardinal one in Indian linguistic history; and as the
native grammatical literature has determined the form of
the language, so it has also to a large extent determined
the grammatical treatment of the language by European
scholars.
Much in the history of the learned movement is still
obscure, and opinions are at variance even as to points of
prime consequence. Only the concluding works in the devel-
opment of the grammatical science have been preserved to
us; and though they are evidently the perfected fruits of a
long series of learned labors, the records of the latter are
lost beyond recovery. The time and the place of the cre-
ation of Sanskrit are unknown ; and as to its occasion, we
have only our inferences and conjectures to rely upon. It
seems, however, altogether likely that the grammatical sense
of the ancient Hindus was awakened in great measure by
their study of the traditional sacred texts, and by their com-
parison of its different language with that of contemporary
use. It is certain that the grammatical study of those texts
(gakhas, lit'ly 'branches'), phonetic and other, was zealously
and effectively followed in the Brahmanic schools ; this is
attested by our possession of a number of phonetico-gram-
matical treatises, firatigaJchyas (prati $ahham, 'belonging to
each several text 1 ), one having for subject each principal
Vedic text, and noting all its peculiarities of form; these,
both by the depth and exactness of their own researches
and by the number of authorities which they quote, speak
plainly of a lively scientific activity continued during a long
time. What part, on the other hand, the notice of differ-
INTRODUCTION. xi
ences between the correct speech of the learned and the
altered dialects of the vulgar may have home in the same
movement is not easy to determine; hut it is not customary
that a language has its proper usages fixed by rule until
the danger is distinctly felt of its undergoing corruption.
The labors of the general school of Sanskrit grammar
reached a climax in the grammarian Panini, whose text-book,
containing the facts of the language cast into the highly
artful ancl difficult form of about four thousand algebraic-
formula-like rules (in the statement and arrangement of
which brevity alone is had in view, at the cost of distinct-
ness and unambiguousness , became for all after time the
authoritative, almost sacred, norm of correct speech. Re-
specting his period, nothing really definite and trustworthy
is known ; but he is with much probability held to have
lived some time (two to four centuries) before the Christian
era. He has had commentators in abundance, and has under-
gone at their hands some measure of amendment and com-
pletion; but he has not been overthrown or superseded.
The chief and most authoritative commentary on his work
is that called the Mahabhashya, -great comment', in which
Katyayana's strictures on. his rules are examined arid dis-
cussed by Patanjali.
A language, even if not a vernacular one, which is in
tolerably wide and constant use for writing and speaking,
is, of course, kept in life principally by direct tradition, by
communication from teacher to scholar and the study and
imitation of existing texts, and not by the learning of gram-
matical rules; yet the existence of grammatical authority,
and especially of a single one, deemed infallible and of pre-
scriptive value, could not fail to exert a very strong regu-
lative influence, leading to the avoidance more and more of
what was, even if lingering in use, inconsistent with his
teachings, and also, in the constant reproduction of texts,
to the gradual effacement of whatever they might contain
that was unapproved. Thus the whole more modern litera-
ture of India has been Paninized, so to speak, pressed into
the mould prepared by him and his school. What are the
x ii ' INTRODUCTION.
limits of the artificiality of this process is not yet known.
The attention of special students of the Hindu grammar
and the subject is so intricate and difficult that the number
is exceedingly small of those who have mastered it suffi-
ciently to have a competent opinion on such general matters)
has been hitherto mainly directed toward determining what
the Sanskrit according to Panini really is, toward explaining
the language from the grammar. Arid, naturally enough,
in India, or wherever else the leading object is to learn to
speak and write the language correctly that is, as author-
ized by the grammarians that is the proper course to
pursue. This, however, is not the way really to understand
the language. The time must soon come, or it has come
already, when the endeavor shall be instead to explain the
grammar from the language; to test in all details, so far
as shall be found possible, the reason of Panini' s rules
(which contain not a little that seems problematical, or even
sometimes perverse) ; to determine what and how much
genuine usage he had everywhere as foundation, and what
traces may be left in the literature of usages possessing an
inherently authorized character, though unratified by him.
By the term "classical'' or "later" language, then, as
constantly used below in the grammar, is meant the lan-
guage of those literary monuments which are written in con-
formity with the rules of the native grammar : virtually, the
whole proper Sanskrit literature. For although parts of this
are doubtless earlier than Panini, it is impossible to tell
just what parts, or how far they have escaped in their style
the levelling influence of the grammar. The whole, too,
may be called so far an artificial literature as it is written
in a phonetic form (see grammar, 103) which never can
have been a truly vernacular and living one. Nearly all of
it is metrical : not poetic works only, but narratives, histories
(so far as anything deserving that name can be said to exist),
and scientific treatises of every variety, are done into verse ;
a prose and a prose literature (except in the commentaries)
hardly has an existence. Of linguistic history there is next
to nothing in it all; but only a history of style, and this
INTRODUCTION. xiii
for the most part showing a gradual depravation, an increase
of artificiality and an intensification of certain more unde-
sirable features of the language such as the use of pas-
sive constructions and of participles instead of verbs, and
the substitution of compounds for sentences.
This being the condition of the later literature, it is of
so much the higher consequence that there is an earlier
literature, to which the suspicion of artificiality does not
attach, or attaches at least only in a minimal degree, which
has a truly vernacular character, and abounds in prose as
well as verse.
The results of the very earliest literary productiveness
of the Indian people are the hymns with which, when they
had only crossed the threshold of the country, and when
their geographical horizon was still limited to the river-
basin of the Indus with its tributaries, they praised their
gods, the deified powers of nature, and accompanied the
rites of their comparatively simple worship. At what period
these were made and sung cannot be determined with any
approach to accuracy: it may have been as early as 2000
B.C. They were long handed down by oral tradition, pre-
served by the care, and increased by the additions and
imitations, of succeeding generations; the mass was ever
growing, and, with the change of habits and beliefs and
religious practices, was becoming variously applied sung
in chosen extracts, mixed with other material into liturgies,
adapted with more or less of distortion to help the needs
of a ceremonial which was coming to be of immense elab-
oration and intricacy. And, at some time in the course
of this history, there was made for preservation a great col-
lection of the hymn-material, mainly its oldest and most
genuine part, to the extent of over a thousand hymns and
ten thousand verses, arranged according to traditional author-
ship and to subject and length of hymn : this collection is
the Rig-Veda, -Veda of verses (re) or hymns'. Other col-
lections were made also out of the same general mass of
traditional material : doubtless later, although the inter-
relations of this period are as yet too unclear to allow of
x iv INTRODUCTION.
our speaking with entire confidence as to anything concern-
ing them. Thus, the Sama- Veda. 'Veda of chants (saman}\
containing only about a sixth as much, its verses nearly all
found in the Rig-Veda also, but appearing here with nume-
rous differences of reading; these were passages put together
for chanting at the soma-sacrifices. Again, collections called
by the comprehensive name of Yajur-Veda, 'Veda of sac-
rificial formulas (yajusV: these contained not verses alone,
but also numerous prose utterances, mingled with the former,
in the order in which they were practically employed in
the ceremonies; they were strictly liturgical collections. Of
these, there are in existence several texts, which have their
mutual differences: the Vajasaneyi-Samhita (in two slightly
discordant versions, Madhyandina and Kanvd , sometimes
also called the White Yajur-Veda ; and the various and
considerably differing texts of the Black Yajur-Veda. namely
the Taittirlya-Samhita, the Maitrayam-Samhita, and the
Kathaka (the two last not yet published). Finally, another
historical collection, like the Rig-Veda, but made up mainly
of later and less accepted material, and called (among other
less current names) the Atharva-Veda, 'Veda of the Ath-
arvans (a legendary priestly family)'; it is somewhat more
than half as bulky as the Rig- Veda, and contains a certain
amount of material corresponding to that of the latter, and
also a number of brief prose passages. To this last col-
lection is very generally refused in the orthodox literature
the name of Veda; but for us it is the most interesting of
all. after the Rig -Veda, because it contains the largest
amount of hymn-material (or mantra, as it is called, in
distinction from the prose brahmana], and in a language
which, though distinctly less antique than that of the other,
is nevertheless truly Vedic. Two versions of it are extant,
one of them only in a single known manuscript.
A not insignificant body of like material, and of various
period (although doubtless in the main belonging to the
latest time of Vedic productiveness, and in part perhaps
the imitative work of a yet more modern time), is scattered
through the texts to be later described, the Brahmanas and
INTRODUCTION. xv
the Sutras. To assemble and sift and compare it is now
one of the pressing needs of Vedic study.
The fundamental divisions of the Vedic literature here
mentioned all have had their various schools of sectaries,
each of these with a text of its own. showing some differ-
ences from those of the other schools : but those mentioned
above are all that are now known to be in existence; and
the chance of the discovery of others grows every year
smaller.
The labor of the schools in the conservation of their
sacred texts was extraordinary, and has been crowned with
such success that the text of each school, whatever may
be its differences from those of other schools, is virtually
without various readings, preserved with all its peculiarities
of dialect, and its smallest and most exceptional traits of
phonetic form, pure and unobscured. It is not the place
here to describe the means by which, in addition to the
religious care of the sectaries, this accuracy was secured:
forms of text, lists of peculiarities and treatises upon them,
and so on. When this kind of care began in the case of
each text, and what of original character may have been
effaced before it, or lost in spite of it, cannot be told. But
it is certain that the Vedic records furnish, on the whole,
a wonderfully accurate and trustworthy picture of a form of
ancient Indian language (as well as ancient Indian beliefs
and institutions) which was a natural and undistorted one,
and which goes back a good way behind the classical San-
skrit. Its differences from the latter the following treatise
endeavors to show in detail.
Along with the verses and sacrificial formulas and
phrases in the texts of the Black Yajur-Veda are given
long prose sections, in which the ceremonies are described,
their meaning and the reason of the details and the accom-
panying utterances are discussed and explained, illustrative
legends are reported or fabricated, and various speculations,
etymological and other, are indulged in. Such matter comes
to be called brahmana (apparently 'relating to the brahman
or worship';. In the White Yajur-Veda. it is separated into
xv i ' INTRODUCTION.
a work by itself, beside the samhitci or text of verses and
formulas, and is called the Catapatha-Brahmana, 'Brahmana
of a hundred ways'. Other similar collections are found, be-
longing to various other schools of Vedic study, and they
bear the common name of Brahmana, with the name of the
school, or some other distinctive title, prefixed. Thus, the
Aitar ey a and Kamhitaki- Brahmanas, belonging to the
schools of the Rig- Veda, the Pancavinqa and Shadvin$a-
Brahmanas and other minor works, to the Sama-Veda; the
Gopatha-Brahmana, to the Atharva-Veda ; and a Jaimini-
Brahmana, to the Sama-Veda, has just (Burnell) been dis-
covered in India; the Taittirlya-Brahmana is a collection
of mingled mantra and brahmana, like the samhita of the
same name, but supplementary and later. These works are
likewise regarded as canonical by the schools, and are learn-
ed by their sectaries with the same extreme care which is
devoted to the samhitas, and their condition of textual
preservation is of a kindred excellence. To a certain
extent, there is among them the possession of common
material: a fact the bearings of which are not yet fully
understood.
Notwithstanding the inanity of no small part of their
contents, the Brahmanas are of a high order of interest in
their bearings on the history of Indian institutions; and
philologically they are not less important, since they re-
present a form of language in most respects intermediate
between the classical and that of the Vedas, and offer spe-
cimens on a large scale of a prose style, and of one which
is in the main a natural and freely developed one the
oldest and most primitive Indo-European prose.
Beside the Brahmanas are sometimes found later ap-
pendices, of a similar character, called Aranyakas ('forest-
sections'): as the Aitareya-Aranyaka, Taittirtya-Aranyaka,
Brhad-Aranyaka, and so on. And from some of these, or
even from the Brahmanas, are extracted the earliest Upa-
nishads ('sittings, lectures on sacred subjects') which,
how r ever, are continued and added to down to a compara-
tively modern time. The Upanishads are one of the lines
INTRODUCTION. xvii
by which the Brahmana literature passes over into the later
theological literature.
Another line of transition is shown in the Sutras ( -lines,
rules'). The works thus named are analogous with the
Brahmanas in that they belong to the schools of Vedic
study and are named from them, and that they deal with
the religious ceremonies: treating them, however, in the
way of prescription, not of dogmatic explanation. They,
too, contain some mantra or hymn-material, not found to
occur elsewhere. In part ($rauta or kalpa-sutras\ they take
up the great sacrificial ceremonies, with which the Brah-
manas have to do ; in part (grhya-sutras), they teach the
minor duties of a pious householder; in some cases (sa-
mayacarika-sutras) they lay down the general obligations of
one whose life is in accordance with prescribed duty. And
out of the last two, or especially the last, come by natural
development the law-books (dharma-$astras), which make
a conspicuous figure in the later literature : the oldest and
most noted of them being that called by the name of
Manu (an outgrowth, it is believed, of the Manava Vedic
school); to which are added that of Yajnavalkya. and many
others.
Respecting the chronology of this development, or the
date of any class of writings, still more of any individual
work, the less that is said the better. All dates given in
Indian literary history are pins set up to be bowled down
again. Every important work has undergone so many more
or less transforming changes before reaching the form in
which it comes to us, that the question of original con-
struction is complicated with that of final redaction. It is
so with the law-book of Manu, just mentioned, which has
well-founded claims to being regarded as one of the very
oldest works of the proper Sanskrit literature, if not the
oldest (it is variously assigned, to periods from six centuries
before Christ to soon after Christ). It is so, again, in a
still more striking degree, with the great legendary epic of
the Mahdbharata. The ground-work of this is doubtless of
very early date; but it has served as a text into which
b
xv iii INTRODUCTION.
materials of various character and period have been inwoven,
until it has become a heterogeneous mass, a kind of cyclo-
pedia for the warrior-caste, hard to separate into its con-
stituent parts. The story of Nala, and the philosophical
poem Bhagavad-Glta, are two of the most noted of its
episodes. The Ramayana, the other most famous epic,
is a work of another kind: though also worked over and
more or less altered in its transmission to our time, it is
the production, in the main, of a single author (Valmiki);
and it is generally believed to be in part allegorical, re-
presenting the introduction of Aryan culture and dominion
into Southern India. By its side stand a number of minor
epics, of various authorship and period, as the Raghuvah$a
(ascribed to the dramatist Kalidasa), the Maghakavya, the
Bhattikavya (the last, written chiefly with the grammatical
intent of illustrating by use as many as possible of the
numerous formations which, through taught by the gram-
marians, find no place in the literature).
The Purdnas. a large class of works mostly of immense
extent, are best mentioned in connection with the epics.
They are pseudo-historical and prophetic in character, of
modern date, and of very small value. Real history finds
no place in Sanskrit literature, nor is there any conscious
historical element in any of the works composing it.
Lyric poetry is represented by many works, some of
which, as the Meghaduta and Gitagovinda, are of no mean
order of merit.
The drama is a still more noteworthy and important
branch. The first indications of dramatical inclination and
capacity on the part of the Hindus are seen in certain
hymns of the Veda, where a mythological or legendary
situation is conceived dramatically, and set forth in the
form of a dialogue well-known examples are the dialogue
of Sarama and the Panis, that of Yama and his sister Yami,
that of Vasishtha and the rivers, that of Agni and the other
gods but there are no extant intermediaries between these
and the standard drama. The beginnings of the latter date
from a period when in actual life the higher and educated
INTRODUCTION. xix
characters used Sanskrit, and the lower and uneducated used
the popular dialects derived from it, the Prakrits; and their
dialogue reflects this condition of things. Then, however,
learning (not to call it pedantry) intervened, and stereotyped
the new element; a Prakrit grammar grew up beside the
Sanskrit grammar, according to the rules of which Prakrit
could he made indefinitely on a substrate of Sanskrit; and
none of the existing dramas need to date from the time of
vernacular use of Prakrit, while most or all of them are
undoubtedly much later. Among the dramatic authors,
Kalidasa is incomparably the chief, and his Cakuntala as
distinctly his masterpiece. His date has been a matter of
much inquiry and controversy; it is doubtless some cen-
turies later than our era. The only other work deserving
to be mentioned along with Kalidasa' s is the Mrchakafl of
Cudraka, also of questionable period, but believed to be
the oldest of the extant dramas.
A partly dramatic character belongs also to the fable,
in which animals are represented as acting and speaking.
The most noted works in this department are the Panca-
tantra, which through Persian and Semitic versions has made
its way all over the world, and contributes a considerable
quota to the fable-literature of every European language,
and, partly founded on it, the comparatively recent and
popular Hitopade$a ('salutary instruction').
Two of the leading departments of Sanskrit scientific
literature, the legal and the grammatical, have been already
sufficiently noticed; of those remaining, the most important
by far is the philosophical. The beginnings of philosophic-
al speculation are seen already in some of the later hymns
of the Veda, more abundantly in the Brahmanas and Aran-
yakas, and then especially in the Upanishads. The evo-
lution and historic' relation of the systems of philosophy,
and the age of their text-books, are matters on which much
obscurity still rests. There are six systems of primary rank,
and reckoned as orthodox, although really standing in no
accordance with approved religious doctrines. All of them
seek the same end, the emancipation of the soul from the
b*
xx INTRODUCTION.
necessity of contiiiuing its existence in a succession of
bodies, and its unification with the All -soul; but they
differ in regard to the means by which they seek to attain
this end.
The astronomical science of the Hindus is a reflection
of that of Greece, and its literature is of recent date; but
as mathematicians, in arithmetic and geometry , they have
shown more independence. Their medical science, although
its beginnings go back even to the Veda, in the use of
medicinal plants with accompanying incantations, is of little
account, and its proper literature by no means ancient.
CONTENTS.
Chap.
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
I. ALPHABET
II.
SYSTEM OF SOUNDS : PRONUNCIATION .
Vowels, 8; Consonants, 11; Quantity, 26; Accent, 27.
HI. RULES OF EUPHONIC COMBINATION . .
Introductory, 33 ; Principles, 36 ; Rules of Vowel Com-
bination, 41; Permitted Finals, 46; Deaspiration, 50;
Surd and Sonant Assimilation, 51 ; Combinations of
Final s and r, 53 ; Conversion of s to s, 57 ; Con-
version of n to n, 60 ; Conversion of Dental Mutes to
Linguals and Palatals, 62; Combinations of Final n,
63 ; Combinations of Final m, 65 ; the Palatal Mutes
and Sibilant, and h, 66 ; the Lingual Sibilant, 71 ;
Extension and Abbreviation, 72; Strengthening and
Weakening Processes, 73; Guna and Vrddhi, 74;
Vowel-lengthening, 76 ; Vowel-lightening, 77 ; Nasal
Increment, 78; Reduplication, 79.
IV. DECLENSION
Gender, Number, Case, 80: Uses of the Cases, 81;
Endings of Declension, 92; Variation of Stem, 95;
Accent in Declension, 97.
V. NOUNS AND ADJECTIVES
Classification etc., 99; Declension I., Stems in a, 100;
Declension II., Stems in i and u, 104; Declension
III., Stems in Long Vowels (a, I, u): A. Root-words
etc., Ill; Stems in Diphthongs, 116; B. Derivative
Stems etc. 117; Declension IV., Stems in r or ar,
123; Declension V., Stems in Consonants, 127;
A. Root-stems etc., 129; B. Derivative Stems in as,
is, us, 138; C. Derivative Stems in an, 140; D.,
in in, 145; E., in ant or at, 146; F. Perfect Par-
ticiples in vans, 152; G. Comparatives in yas, 155;
Comparison, 156.
Page.
V
ix
18
832
3379
8098
99159
xx ii CONTENTS.
Chap.
VI. NUMERALS 160167
Cardinals, 160; Ordinals etc., 166.
VIE. PRONOUNS 168 181
Personal, 168 ; Demonstrative, 171 ; Interrogative,
176; Relative, 177; Emphatic, 179; Nouns used pro-
nominally, 179; Pronominal Derivatives, Possessives
179; Adjectives declined pronominally, 181.
VIII. CONJUGATION 182 206
Voice, Tense, Mode, Number, Person, 182; Verbal
Adjectives and Nouns, 185; Secondary Conjugation,
185; Personal Endings, 186 ; Subjunctive Mode, 191 ;
Optative, 193 ; Imperative, 195 ; Uses of the Modes,
196 ; Participles, 201 ; Augment, 201 ; Reduplication,
202; Accent of the Verb, 203.
IX. THE PRESENT-SYSTEM . ;. [ ,,, .T.~ ^ J-rt^ > 207 255
General, 207; Conjugations and Conjugation Classes,
208; I. Root-class (second or ad-class), 211; II. Re-
duplicating Class (third or ftu-class), 221 ; III. Nasal
Class (seventh or rwd/i-class), 229; IV. Nu and w-Classes
(fifth and eighth, or su and tan-classes), 232; V. Na-
Class (ninth or fcrz-class), 238; VI. a-Class (first or
6ftu-classj, 241 ; VII. Accented d-Class (sixth or tud-
class), 245; VIII. Fa-Class (fourth or diu-elass), 248;
IX. Accented yd-Class or Passive Conjugation, 252;
Uses of the Present and Imperfect, 254.
X. THE PERFECT-SYSTEM 255 270
Perfect Tense, 255; Perfect Participle, 266; Modes
of the Perfect, 267; Pluperfect, 269; Uses of the
Perfect, 270.
XI. THE AORIST-SYSTEMS 271 299
Classification, 271; I. Simple Aorist: 1. Root-aorist,
273 4 ; Passive Aorist 3d sing., 277; 2. the a-Aorist,
278; II. 3. Reduplicated Aorist, 281; III. Sibilant
Aorist, 285; 4. the s-aorist, 286; 5. the is- Aorist,
290; 6. the >-aorist, 293; 7. the sa-Aorist, 294;
Precative, 296; Uses of the Aorist, 298.
XII. THE FUTURE-SYSTEMS 299 307
I. The s-future, 300; Modes of the 5-future, 302;
Participles of the s-future, 302; Preterit of the s-
future: Conditional, 303; II. The Periphrastic Future,
303 ; Uses of the Futures and Conditional, 305.
CONTENTS. xxiii
Chap. Page.
XIII. VERBAL ADJECTIVES AND NOUNS : PARTICI-
PLES, INFINITIVES, GERUNDS 307 321
Passive Participle in ta or nd, 307 ; Past Active Par-
ticiple in tavant, 310; Future Passive Participles:
Gerundives, 310; Infinitives, 313; Uses of the Infini-
tives, 315; Gerunds, 319; Adverbial Gerund in am,
321.
XIV. DERIVATIVE OR SECONDARY CONJUGATION . 321 347
I. Passive, 322; II. Intensive, 323; Present-System,
325; Perfect. Aorist, Future, etc., 329; III. Desider-
ative, 331; Present-System, 334; Perfect, Aorist,
Future, etc., 335; IV. Causative, 337; Present-System,
339; Perfect, Aorist, Future, etc., 340; V. Denomi-
native, 343.
XV. PERIPHRASTIC AND COMPOUND CONJUGATION 347 357
The Periphrastic Perfect, 347; Participial Periphras-
tic Phrases, 349 ; Composition with Prepositional
Prefixes, 350; Other Verbal Compounds, 355.
XVI. INDECLINABLES 357 370
Adverbs, 358 ; Prepositions, 366 ; Conjunctions, 369 ;
Interjections, 369.
XVH. DERIVATION OF DECLINABLE STEMS . . . 370 424
A. Primary Derivatives, 373; B. Secondary Deriva-
tives, 403.
XVIII. FORMATION OF COMPOUND STEMS .... 424 456
Classification, 425; I. Copulative Compounds, 428;
II. Determinative Compounds, 431 ; A. Dependent
Compounds, 432; B. Descriptive Compounds, 437;
III. Secondary Adjective Compounds, 443; A. Pos-
sessive Compounds, 443; B. Compounds with Governed
Final Member, 452; Adjective Compounds as Nouns
and as Adverbs, 453; Anomalous Compounds, 455;
Stem-finals altered in Composition, 455 ; Irregular
Construction with Compounds, 456.
APPENDIX 457 460
A. Examples of Varines Sanskrit Type 457 ; B. Exam-
ple of Accentuated Text, 459.
SANSKRIT INDEX 461 475
GENERAL INDEX 476485
XXIV
ABBREVIATIONS.
ABBREVIATIONS.
AB. Aitareya-Brahmana.
APr. Atharva-Prati^akhya.
AV. Atharva-Veda.
BB. Bohtlingk and Roth (Petersburg
Lexicon).
9 or ak. Qakuntala.
$B. $atapatha-Brahmana.
QGS. Qankhayana-Grihya-Sutra.
GB. Gopatha-Brahmana.
H. Hitopade$a.
K. Kathaka.
KB. Kaushitaki-Brahmana.
KSS. Katha-Sarit-Sagara.
M. Mann.
MBh. Mahabharata.
Megh. Meghadiita.
MS. Maitrayani-Sauhita.
PB. Pancavin^a-Brahmana.
R. Ramayana.
Ragh. Raghuvan^a.
RPr. Rigveda-Prati^akhya.
RV. Rig- Veda.
SB. Shadvin^a-Brahmaua.
SV. Sama-Veda.
TA. Taittiriya-Aranyaka.
TB. TaittirTya-Brahmana.
TPr. Taittiriya-Prati^akbya.
Tribh. Tribhashyaratna.
TS. TaittirTya-Sanhita.
V. Veda.
VPr. Vajasaneyi-Prati^akhyj
VS. Vajasaneyi-Sanhita.
CHAPTER I.
ALPHABET.
1. THE natives of India write their ancient and sacred
language in a variety of alphabets generally, in each
part of the country, in the same alphabet which they use
for their own vernacular. The mode of writing, however,
which is employed throughout the heart of Aryan India, or
in Hindustan proper, is alone adopted by European scholars :
it is called the devanagari.
This name is of doubtful origin and value. A more comprehensive name
is nagarl (perhaps, 'of the city'); and deva-nagarl is 'nagarl of the gods,'
or 'of the Brahmans.'
2. Much that relates to the history of the Indian alphabets is still
obscure. The earliest written monuments of known date in the country are
the inscriptions containing the edicts of A^oka or Piyadasi, of about the
middle of the third century B. C. They are in two different systems of
characters, of which one shows distinct signs of derivation from a Semitic
source, while the other is also probably, though much less evidently, of the
same origin (Burnell). From the latter, the Lath, or Southern Acoka cha-
racter (of Girnar), come the later Indian alphabets, both those of the northern
Aryan languages, and those of the southern Dravidian languages. The
nagari, devanagari, Bengali, Guzerati, and others, are varieties of its northern
derivatives; and with them are related some of the alphabets of peoples
outside of India as in Tibet and Farther India who have adopted Hindu
culture or religion.
There is reason to believe that writing was first employed in India for
practical purposes for correspondence and business and the like and
only by degrees came to be applied also to literary use. The literature, to
a great extent, and the more fully in proportion to its claimed sanctity and
authority, ignores all written record, and assumes to be kept in existence by
oral tradition alone.
3. Of the devanagari itself there are minor varieties, depending on
differences of locality or of period, as also of individual hand (see examples
Whitney, Grammar. 1
I. ALPHABET.
in Weber's catalogue of the Berlin Sanskrit MSS., in Rajendralala Mitra's
notices of MSS. in Indian libraries, in the published fac-similes of in-
scriptions, and so on); and these are in some measure reflected in the type
prepared for printing, both in India and in Europe. But a student who
makes himself familiar with one style of printed characters will have little
difficulty with the others, and will soon learn, by practice, to read the manu-
scripts. A few specimens of types other than those used in this work will
be given in an Appendix.
On account of the difficulty of combining them with the smaller sizes
of our Roman and Italic type, the devanagari characters will be used below
only in connection with the first or largest size. And, in accordance with
the laudable usage of recent grammars, they will, wherever given, be also
transliterated in italic letters; while the latter alone will be used in the
other sizes.
4. The student may be advised to try to familiarize himself
from the start with the devanagarl mode of writing. At the same
time, it is not necessary that he should do so until, having
learned the principal paradigms, he comes to begin reading and
analysing and parsing ; and many will find the latter the more
practical, and in the end equally or more effective, way.
5. The characters of the devanagarl alphabet, and the
European letters which will be used in transliterating them,
are as follows :
short. long.
Vowels :
simple
palatal
labial
lingual
dental
diph- ( palatal
thongs I labial
Visarga
Anusvara
$ l
3 u
^rd *
FT I
^ e
37 o
u
f
1}
ai
au
, n or m (see 73)
Mutes
surd
guttural
palatal
lingual
dental
labial
q p
surd asp.
is 1^ kh
23 3T Ch
2S % th
33 5T th
ss Cfi ph
sonant
19 *T g
24 Sf j
29 3" d
34 $ d
39 ST b
son. asp.
o q gh
5 3T jh
nasal
26 3T n
dh 31 HI n
dh se ^ n
bh 4i IT m
palatal
42 T y
lingual
43 ^ r
dental
44 ^T /
labial
4S Sf V
[ palatal
lingual
1 dental*"
47 ^ s
9] THEORY OF THIS MODE OF WRITING.
Semivowels
Sibilants
Aspiration 49 ^T h
To these may be added a lingual I "3o , which in some of
the Vedic texts takes the place of 3 d when occurring between
two vowels (54).
6. A few other sounds, recognized by the theories of the
Hindu grammarians, but either having no separate characters to
represent them, or only very rarely and exceptionally written,
will be noticed below (71, 230). Such are the guttural and
labial breathings, the nasal semivowels, and others.
7. The order of arrangement given above is that in
which the sounds are catalogued and described by the native
grammarians ; and it has been adopted by European scholars
as the alphabetic order, for indexes, dictionaries, etc. (to
the Hindus, the idea of an alphabetic arrangement for such
practical uses is wanting).
In some works (as the Petersburg lexicon), a visarga which is regarded
as equivalent to and exchangeable with a sibilant (172) is, though written
as visarga, given the alphabetic place of the sibilant.
8. Tbe theory of the devanagari, as of the other In-
dian modes of writing, is syllabic and consonantal.
That is to say, it regards as the written unit, not the simple
sound, but the syllable (aksara); and further, as the sub-
stantial part of the syllable, the consonant (or the consonants)
preceding the vowel - - this latter being merely implied,
or. if written, being written by a subordinate sign attached
to tbe consonant.
9. Hence follow these two principles:
A. Tbe forms of the vowel-characters given in the
4 I. ALPHABET.
alphabetic scheme above are used only when the vowel
forms a syllable by itself, or is not combined with a pre-
ceding consonant: that is, when it is initial, or preceded
by another vowel. In combination with a consonant, other
modes of representation are used.
B. If more consonants than one precede the vowel,
forming with it a single syllable, their characters must be
combined into a single compound character.
Ordinary Hindu usage does not divide the words of a sen-
tence, any more than the syllables of a word ; a final consonant
is combined into one syllable with the initial vowel or conso-
nant of the next following word.
10. Under A, it is to be noticed that the modes of
indicating a vowel combined with a preceding consonant
are as follows:
a. The short ^ a has no written sign at all: the con-
sonant-sign itself implies a following T a, unless some other
vowel-sign is attached to it (or else the virama: 11). Thus
the consonant-signs as given above in the alphabetic scheme
are really the signs of the syllables ka, kha, etc. etc. (to ha].
b. The -long ^T a is written by a perpendicular stroke
after the consonant: thus, 5fiT ka, EfT dha, ^T ha.
c. Short ^ i and long ^ e, by a similar stroke, which
for short i is placed before the consonant and for long I is
placed after it, and in either case is connected with the
consonant by a hook above the upper line: thus, f^R ki,
3ft ki', Pr bhi, Ht bhi ; ft m', jft nl.
The hook above, turning to the left or to the right, is historically the
essential part of the character, having been originally the whole of it; the
hooks were only later prolonged, so as to reach all the way down beside
the consonant. In the MSS., they almost never have the horizontal stroke
drawn across them above, though this is added in all the printed forms of
the characters*.
* Thus, originally dfi W, ofj it; in the MSS., jcfj, effj ; in print,
12] WRITING OF VOWELS. 5
d. The w-sounds, short and long, are written by hooks
attached to the lower end of the consonant-sign: thus, Sfj
ku, 3\ ku; I du, I du. On account of the necessities of
6\ O SX
combination, du and du are somewhat disguised: thus, If.
^; and the forms with ^ r and ^T h are still more irre-
gular : thus, "^\ ru, % ru ; <^T hu, f^ 1 hu.
e. The r- vowels, short and long, are written by a sub-
joined hook, single or double, opening toward the right:
thus, ^\ kr, Sfj kf ; dr, ^ dr. In the /j-sign, the hooks
are usually attached to the middle: thus, ^ hr, ^ hr.
As to the combination of r with preceding r, see below, 14.
f. The /-vowel is written with a reduced form of its
full initial character: thus, efi kl: the corresponding long
has no real occurrence (23), but would be written with a
similar reduced sign.
g. The diphthongs are written by strokes, single or
double, above the upper line, combined, for Jt o and ETF
aUj with the #-sign after the consonant : thus. 3ft ke, fi
kai; ^t ko,
In some devanagari MSS. (as in the Bengali alphabet), the single stroke
above, or one of the double ones, is replaced by a sign like the a-sign
before the consonant : thus, (off fee, \fi\ feat, fofil feo, |cftl feaw.
11. A consonant -sign, however, is capable of being
made to signify the consonant-sound alone, without an
added vowel, by having written beneath it a stroke called
the virama ('rest, stop'): thus, fi k^ < d, ^ h.
Since, as was pointed out above, the Hindus write the words of a
sentence continuously, like one word (9, end), the virama is in general called
for only when a final consonant occurs before a pause. But it is also occasion-
ally resorted to by scribes, or in print, in order to avoid an awkward or
difficult combination of consonant-signs; and it is used freely in published
texts which for the convenience of beginners have their words printed sepa-
rately.
12. Under B, it is to be noticed that the consonant
combinations are for the most part not at all difficult to
6 I. ALPHABET. [12
make or to recognise for one who is familiar with the
simple signs. The characteristic part of a consonant-sign
that is to be added to another is taken (to the exclusion
of the horizontal or of the perpendicular framing-line, or
of both), and they are put together according to conveni-
ence, either side by side, or one above the other: in some
combinations either arrangement is allowed. The consonant
that is to be pronounced first is set before the other in the
one order, and above it in the other order.
Examples of the side-by-side arrangement are : ITf gga,
ST jja, C?j pya, ZTJ nma, f^T tiha, ^T bhya, F^I ska, STU ma,
f3T tka.
Examples of the above-and-below arrangement are :
^T Ma, sf cca, ^ nja, ^ dda, H pta, ^ tna.
13. In some cases, however, there is more or less
abbreviation or disguise of the independent form of a con-
sonant-sign in combination.
Thus, of 3\ k in "^7 kid, ^\ Ida; and in ^HT kna etc.;
of rT t in fF tta;
of ^ d in "% dga, ^ dna, etc.;
of *T m and ZT y, when following other consonants :
thus, ^T kya, 3R krna, ^ nma, 2T nya, ^ dma, t% dya, ^T
hma, ^T hya. "5T chya, ^ dhya ;
of 5T p, which generally becomes $T when followed
by a consonant: thus, 31 pea, W praa, ^j $va, V3J $ya. The
same change is usual when a vowel-sign is added below:
thus, 5T pw, 5T cr.
O (.
Other combinations, of not quite obvious value, are
ST nna, ^T //a, ^ ddha, ^ dbha, ^ sta, Tg stha; and the
compounds of ^ h: as ^r 7m, ^ A^a.
In a case or two, no trace of the constituent letters is
recognisable : thus, ^ ksa, ^ jfia.
14. The semivowel ^ r, in making combinations with
16] COMBINATIONS OF CONSONANTS. 7
other consonants, is treated in a wholly peculiar manner,
analogous with that of the vowels. If pronounced before
another consonant (or consonant-combination), it is written
with a hook above, opening to the right (like the subjoined
sign of r: 10 e): thus. R rka, ^ rsa (fP rtsna). If pro-
nounced after another consonant (alone or in combination),
it is written with a slanting stroke below: thus, El gra,
Pf pra, T sra (and CET grya, T srva); and, with modifica-
tions of the preceding consonant-sign like those noted above,
"5T tra, "5T pr, ?T dra.
When }T r is to be combined with a following 5fJ r, it
is the vowel which is written in full, with its initial char-
acter, and the consonant in subordination to it: thus,
ft rr.
15. Further combinations, of three, or four, or even
five consonant-signs, are made according to the same rules.
Examples are:
of three consonants, f[ ttva, 1ST ddhya, $3 dvya, ^
dry a, SET dhrya, t3 psva, 5JT 9^ya, ^J sty a, ^1 hvya;
of four consonants, ^J ktrya, ^T nksya, ^J strya,
rF?I tsmya;
of five consonants, fF^U rtsnya.
The manuscripts, and the type-fonts as well, differ from one another
more in their management of consonant combinations than in any other
respect, often having peculiarities which one needs a little practice to under-
stand. It is quite useless to give in a grammar the whole series of possible
combinations (many of them excessively rare) which are provided for in any
given type-font, or even in all. There is nothing which due familiarity
with the simple signs and with the above rules of combination will not enable
the student to analyse and explain.
16. A sign called the avagraha ('separator') namely,
vl - - is used in the manuscripts, sometimes in the manner
of a hyphen, sometimes as a mark of hiatus, sometimes to
mark the elision of initial 51 a after final ^ e or sqj o (135).
In printed texts, especially European, it is ordinarily limited
I. ALPHABET. [16
to the use last mentioned: thus. ?t ^^f^ te l bruvan, HT
so 'bravit, for te abruvan, so abramt.
The sign is used to mark an omission of something.
In some texts, it has also the value of a hyphen.
Signs of punctuation are I and II.
17. The numeral figures are
1 1, ^ 2, \ 3, 9 4, H 5, | 6, b 7. TT 8. $ 9, 0.
In combination, to express larger numbers, they are
used in precisely the same way with European digits : thus,
^H 25, ^0 630, <(000 1000, ^T7b 1879.
18. The Hindu grammarians call the different sounds, and
the characters representing them, by a kara ('maker') added to
the sound of the letter, if a vowel, or to the letter followed by
a, if -a consonant. Thus, the sound or character a is called
akara; k is kakara: and so on. But the kara is also omitted,
and a, ka, etc. are used alone. The r, however, is never called
rakara, but only ra or repha ('snarl' : the only example of a
specific name for an alphabetic element of its class). The ami-
svara and msarga are also known by these names alone.
CHAPTER II.
SYSTEM OF SOUNDS; PRONUNCIATION.
I. Vowels.
19. THE a, i, and ^^-vowels. The Sanskrit has these
three earliest and most universal vowels of Indo-European
language, in both short and long form % a and TT a,
^ t and ^ I. 3 u and 3T u. They are to be pronounced in
the "Continental" or "Italian" manner as in far or father,
pin and pique, pull and rule.
20. The a is the openest vowel, an utterance from the ex-
24] VOWELS. 9
panded throat ; it stands, therefore., in no relation of kindred
with any of the classes of consonantal sounds. The i and u are
close vowels, made with marked approach of the articulating
organs to one another : i is palatal, and shades through y into
the palatal and guttural consonant-classes ; u is similarly related,
through v, to the labial class, as involving in its utterance a
narrowing and rounding of the lips.
The Paninean scheme (commentary to Panini's grammar, i. 1. 9) classes a
as guttural, but apparently only in order to give that series as well as the
rest a vowel: no one of the Praticakhyas puts a into one class with k etc.
All these authorities concur in calling the i and w-vowels respectively palatal
and labial.
21. The short a is not pronounced in India with the full
openness of a, as its corresponding short, but usually as the
"neutral vowel" (English so-called "short ", of but, son, blood,
etc.). This peculiarity appears very early, being acknowledged
by Panini and by two of the Praticakhyas (APr. i. 36 ; VPr. i.
72), which call the utterance samvrta, 'covered up, dimmed'.
It is, however, of course not original ; and it is justly wont to
be ignored by Western scholars (except those who have studied
in India).
22. The a- vowels are the prevailing vowel-sounds of the
language, being about twice as frequent as all the others (in-
cluding diphthongs) taken together. The -vowels, again, are
about twice as numerous as the w-vowels. And, in each pair,
the short vowel is more than twice (2y 2 to 3 times) as common
as the long.
For more precise estimates of frequency, of these and of the other
alphabetic elements, and for the way in which they were obtained, see
below, 75.
23. The r and /-vowels. To the three simple vo-
wels already mentioned the Sanskrit adds two others, the
r-vowels and the /-vowel, both of them plainly generated
by the abbreviation of syllables containing a ^" r or ^T /
along with another vowel : the TR r coming (almost always :
see 237, 241-3) from T|" ar or f ra, the FT / from FT al.
Some of the Hindu grammarians add to the alphabet also a long I ;
but this is only for the sake of an artificial symmetry, since the sound does
not occur in a single genuine word in the language.
24. The vowel :fj r is simply a smooth or untrilled
r-sound, assuming a vocalic office in syllable-making
10
II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [24
as, by a like abbreviation, it has done also in certain Sla-
vonic languages. The vowel FT I is an -sound similarly
uttered like the English /-vowel in such words as able,
angle, addle.
The modern Hindus pronounce these vowels as ri, ri, li
;or even Iri), having long lost the habit and the facility of
giving a vowel value to the pure r and ^-sounds. Their example
is widely followed by European scholars ; and hence also the
(distorting and quite objectionable) transliterations ri, n, li.
There is no -real difficulty in acquiring and practising the true
utterance.
Some of the grammarians (see APr. i. 37, note) attempt to define more
nearly the way in which, in these vowels, a real r or ^-element is combined
with something else.
25. Like their corresponding semivowels, r and I, these
vowels belong respectively in the general lingual and dental class-
es ; the euphonic influence of r and f (180) shows this clearly.
They are so ranked in the Paninean scheme ; but the Praticakhyas
in general strangely class them with the jihvcimuliya sounds, our
"gutturals".
26. The short r is found in every variety of word and of
position, and is not rare, being just about as frequent as long u.
Long f is very much more unusual, occurring only in certain
plural cases of noun-stems in r (374, 378). The / is met with
only in some of the forms and derivatives of a single not very
common verbal root (kip).
27. The diphthongs. Of the four diphthongs, two,
the ^ e and ETT o, are in great part original Indo-European
sounds. In the Sanskrit, they wear the aspect of being
products of the increment or strengthening of ^ i and 3 u
respectively; and they are called the corresponding guna-
vowels to the latter (see below, 235). The other two, ^ ai
and t au, are by the prevalent and preferable opinion held
to be of peculiar Sanskrit growth (there is no certain trace
of them to be found even in the Zend); they are also in
general results of another and higher increment of ^ i and
3 u, to which they are called the corresponding vrddhi-
vowels (below, 235). But all are likewise sometimes gene-
32 DIPHTHONGS. 1 j
rated by euphonic combination (127); and TT o, especially,
is common as result of the alteration of a final *3R as 175).
28. The ^ e and 3TF o are, both in India and in Eu-
rope, usually pronounced as they are transliterated that
is, as long e (English "long ", or e in they] and o-sounds,
without diphthongal character.
Such they apparently already were to the authors of the
Praticakhyas, which, while ranking them as diphthongs \san-
dfa/afaara), give rules respecting their pronunciation in a manner
implying them to be virtually unitary sounds. But their euphonic
treatment (131-4) clearly shows them to have been still at the
period when the euphonic laws established themselves, as they
of course were at their origin, real diphthongs , ai (a -f- *) and
au \a-\- tf). From them, on the same evidence, the heavier or
vrddhi diphthongs were distinguished by the length of their a-
element, as ai (a -{- i] and au (a -\- u).
The recognisable distinctness of the two elements in the vrddhi-diph-
thongs is noticed by the Praticakhyas (see APr. i. 40, note); but the relation
of those elements is either defined as equal, or the a is made of less quan-
tity than the i and u.
29. The lighter or ywwa-diphthongs are much more frequent
(6 or 7 times) than the heavier or vrddhi- diphthongs, and the
e and ai than the o and au (a half more). Both pairs are
somewhat more than half as common as the simple i and u-
vowels .
30. The general name given by the Hindu grammarians to the vowels
is suara, 'tone'; the simple vowels are called samanaksara, 'homogeneous
syllable', and the diphthongs are called sandhyaksara, i combination-syllable'.
The position of the organs in their utterance is defined to be one of openness,
or of non-closure.
As to quantity and accent, see below. 76 ff. ; 80 ff.
II. Consonants.
31. The Hindu name for 'consonant' is vyan/ana, 'mani-
fester'. The consonants are divided by the grammarians into
sparca, i contact' or 'mute', antahstha, 'intermediate' or i semivowel',
and usman, 'spirant'. They will here be taken up and described
in this order.
32. Mutes. The mutes, sparca, are so called as involving
a complete closure or contact \sparca], and not an approximation
12 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [32
only, of the mouth-organs by which they are produced. They are
divided into five classes or series (varga], according to the organs
and parts of organs by which the contact is made ; and each
series is composed of five members, differing according to the
accompaniments of the contact.
33. The five mute-series are called respectively guttural,
palatal, lingual (or cerebral), dental, and labial; and they
are arranged in the order as just mentioned, beginning with
the contact made furthest back in the mouth, coming for-
ward from point to point, and ending with the frontmost
contact.
34. In each series there are two surd members, two
sonant, and one nasal (which is also sonant): for example,
in the labial series, tj^p and Vf^ph, 3^b and ^bh, and ?T m.
The members are by the Hindu grammarians called respectively 'first',
'second', 'third', 'fourth 1 , and 'last' or 'fifth'.
The surd consonants are known as aghosa, 'toneless', and the sonants
as ghosavant, 'having tone' ; and the descriptions of the grammarians are in
accordance with these terms. All alike recognise a difference of tone, and
not in any manner a difference of force, whether of contact or of expulsion,
as separating the two great classes in question. That the difference depends
on vivara, 'opening', or sarhvara, 'closure' (of the glottis), is also recognised
by them.
35. The first and third members of each series are the
ordinary corresponding surd and sonant mutes of European
languages: thus, ^ k and \g, t^t and d, q p and ^ b.
36. Nor is the character of the nasal any more doubtful.
What q^ m is to ^p and 3[^, or ^n to t^t and < d, that
is also each other nasal to its own series of mutes : a sonant
expulsion into and through the nose, while the mouth-
organs are in the mute-contact.
The Hindu grammarians give distinctly this definition. The nasal
(anunasika, 'passing through the nose') sounds are declared to be formed by
mouth and nose together; or their nasality (anunasikya) to be given them
by unclosure of the nose.
37. The second and fourth of each series are aspirates :
thus, beside the surd mute ^ k we have the corresponding
38 ASPIRATE MUTES. 1$
surd aspirate ^ kh, and beside the sonant Tf.^, the corres-
ponding sonant aspirate % gh. Of these, the precise char-
acter is more obscure and difficult.
That the aspirates, all of them, are real mutes or contact sounds, and
not fricatives (like European th and ph and ch, etc.), is beyond question.
It is also not doubtful in what way the surd M, for example, differs
from the unaspirated t: such aspirates are found in many Asiatic languages,
and even in some European : they involve the slipping-out of an audible bit
of flatus or aspiration between the breach of mute-closure and the following
sound, whatever it may be. They are accurately enough represented by the
th etc., with which, in imitation of the Latin treatment of the similar ancient
Greek aspirates, we are accustomed to write them.
The sonant aspirates are generally understood and described as made
in a similar way, with a perceptible ft-sound after the breach of sonant
mute-closure. But there are insuperable theoretical difficulties in the way
of accepting this explanation ; and some of the best phonetic observers (as
A. J. Ellis) deny that the modern Hindu pronunciation is of such a character,
and define the element following the mute as a "glottal buzz", rather, or an
emphasized utterance of the beginning of the suceeding sound. The question
is one of great difficulty, and upon it the opinions of the highest authorities
are still much at variance. Sonant aspirates are still in use in India, in
the pronunciation of the vernacular as well as of the learned languages.
By the Pratic.akhyas, the aspirates of both classes are called sosman:
which might mean either 'accompanied by a rush of breath' (taking usman
in its more etymological sense), or 'accompanied by a spirant' (below, 59).
And some authorities define the surd aspirates as made by the combination
of each surd non-aspirate with its own corresponding surd spirant; and the
sonant aspirates, of each sonant non-aspirate with the sonant spirant, the
ft-sound (below, 65). But this would make the two classes of aspirates of
quite diverse character, and would also make th the same as ts, th as ts, ch
as cf which is in any measure plausible only of the last. Panini has no
name for aspirates ; the scheme given in his comment (to i. 1 . 9) attributes
to them mahaprana, 'great expiration 1 , and to the non-aspirates alpaprana^
'small expiration'.
It is usual among European scholars to pronounce both
classes of aspirates as the corresponding non-aspirates with
a following h: for example, 2T th nearly as in English boat-
hook, m ph as in haphazard, T dh as in madhouse, and so
on. This is (as we have seen above) confessedly accurate
only as regards the surd aspirates.
38. The sonant aspirates are (in the opinion of most), or
at least represent, original Indo-European sounds, while the surd
14
II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. i38
aspirates are generally regarded as a special Indian development.
The former are more than twice as common as the latter. The
unaspirated (non- nasal) mutes are very much more frequent
(5 times) than the aspirates (for the special frequency of bh and
original gh, see 50 and 66) ; and among them the surds are more
numerous (2Y 2 times) than the sonants. The nasals (chiefly n
and m) are nearly as frequent as the surd non-aspirates.
We take up now the several mute-series.
39. Guttural series: ^ k, T^kh, JT^, \gh, 3" n.
These are the ordinary European k and ^-sounds, with their
corresponding aspirates and nasal (the last, like English ng
in singing}.
The gutturals are defined by the Pratic.akhyas as made by contact of
the base of the tongue with the base of the jaw, and they are called, from
the former organ, jihvamullya, 'tongue-root sounds'. The Paninean scheme
describes them simply as made in the throat (kantha). From the euphonic
influence of a k on a following s (below, 180), we may perhaps infer that
in their utterance the tongue was well drawn back into the hinder mouth.
40. The k is by far the commonest of the guttural series,
occurring considerably more often than all the other four taken
together. The nasal, except as standing before one of the others
of the series, is found only as final (after the loss of a fol-
lowing k), and in a very small number of words.
41. The Sanskrit guttural series represents only a minority
of Indo-European gutturals ; these last have suffered more and
more general corruption than any other class of consonants. By
processes of alteration which are proved to have begun in the
Indo-European period, since the same words exhibit connected
changes also in other languages of the family, the palatal mutes,
the palatal sibilant c, and the aspiration h, have come from
gutturals. See these various sounds below.
42. Palatal series : r( c, ^ ch, s?F j, 37 jh, 3T n. This
whole series is derivative, being generated by the corruption of
original gutturals. The c comes from an original k as does
also, by another degree of alteration, the palatal sibilant c (see
below, 64). The /, in like manner, comes from a g ; but the
Sanskrit j includes in itself two degrees of alteration, one cor-
responding to the alteration of k to c, the other to that of k to g
(see below, 219 : in the Zend, these two degrees are held dis-
tinctly apart). The c is somewhat more common than the j
(about as four to three). The aspirate ch is very much less fre-
quent (a tenth of c), and comes from the original group sk.
The sonant aspirate jh is excessively rare (occurring but once
45] PALATAL AND LINGUAL MUTES. 15
in the Vedic texts, and not half-a-dozen times in the Brahma-
nas) ; where found, it is either onomatopoetic or of anomalous
or not Indo-European origin iin the so-called root ujh, it comes
from j and h}. The nasal, n, never occurs except immediately
before or, in a small number of words, also after (201)
one of the others of the series.
43. Hence, in the euphonic processes of the language, the
treatment of the palatals is in many respects peculiar. In some
situations, the original unaltered guttural shows itself or, as
it appears from the point of view of the Sanskrit, the palatal
reverts to its original guttural. No palatal ever occurs as a final.
The j is differently treated, according as it represents the one
or the other degree of alteration. And c and j (except artificially,
in the algebraic rules of the grammarians) do not interchange,
as corresponding surd and sonant.
44. The palatal mutes are by European scholars, as by
the modern Hindus also, pronounced with the compound
sounds of English ch and j (in church and judge}.
Their description by the old Hindu grammarians, however, gives them
a not less absolutely simple character than belongs to the other mutes.
They are called talavya, 'palatal 1 , and declared to be formed against the
palate by the middle of the tongue. They seem to have been, then,
brought forward in the mouth from the guttural point, and made against the
hard palate at a point not far from the lingual one (below, 45), but with
the upper flat surface of the tongue instead of its point. Such sounds, in
all languages, pass easily into the (English) ch and ./-sounds. The value
of the ch as making the preceding vowel "long by position" (227), and its
frequent origination from t -f- p (203), lead to the suspicion that it. at least,
may have had this character from the beginning : compare 37, above.
45. Lingual series: t, 3" th, Z d, ?o dh, HT n. The
lingual mutes are by all the native authorities denned as
uttered with the tip of the tongue turned up and drawn
back into the dome of the palate (somewhat as the usual
English smooth r is pronounced). They are called by the
grammarians murdhanya, literally 'head-sounds, capitals,
cephalics'; which term is in many European grammars
rendered by 'cerebrals' . In practice, among European Sans-
kritists, no attempt is made to distinguish them from the
dentals : t is pronounced like rT t, J d like e[" d, and so
w.ith the rest.
16 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [46
46. The linguals are another non-original series of sounds,
coming mainly from the phonetic alteration of the next series,
the dentals, but also in part occurring in words that have no
traceable Indo-European connection, and are perhaps derived from
the aboriginal languages of India. The tendency to lingualization
is a positive one in the history of the language : dentals easily
pass into linguals under the influence of contiguous or neighbor-
ing lingual sounds, but not the contrary ; and all the sounds
of the class become markedly more frequent in the later litera-
ture. The conditions of their ordinary occurrence are briefly
these : a. s comes from s, much more rarely from q, j, ks, in
euphonic circumstances stated below (180, 218, etc.) ; b. a
dental mute following s is assimilated to it, becoming lingual
(t, th, n) ; c. n is often changed to n after a lingual vowel or
semivowel or sibilant in the same word (189 etc.) ; d. dh, which
is of very rare occurrence, comes from assimilation of a dental
after s (198 a) or h (222); e. t and d come occasionally by
substitution for some other sound which is not allowed to stand
as final (142, 145). When originated in these ways, the lingual
letters may be regarded as normal ; in any other cases of their
occurrence, they are either products of abnormal corruption, or
signs of the non-Indo-European character of the words in which
they appear.
In a certain number of passages numerically examined (below, 75),
the abnormal occurences of lingual mutes were less than half of the whole
number (74 out of 159), and most of them (43) were of n: all were found
more frequent in the later passages. In the Rig- Veda, only 15 words have
an abnormal t; only 6, such a th; only 1, such a dh; about 20 (including
9 roots, nearly all of which have derivatives) show an abnormal d, besides
9 that have nd; and 30 (including 1 root) show a n.
Taken all together, the linguals are by far the rarest class
of mutes (about iy 2 per cent, of the alphabet) hardly half
as frequent even as the palatals.
47. Dental series: <^t, Z^tk, <[ d, V^dk, ^n. These
are called by the Hindus also dantya, 'dental', and are
described as formed at the teeth (or at the roots of the
teeth), by the tip of the tongue. They are practically the
equivalents of our European t, d, n.
But the modern Hindus are said to pronounce their dentals with the
tip of the tongue thrust well forward against the upper teeth, so that these
sounds get a slight tinge of the quality belonging to the English and Modern
Greek tft-sounds. The absence of that quality in the European (especially
52] LABIAL MUTES; SEMIVOWELS 17
the English) dentals is doubtless the reason why to the ear of a Hindu the
latter appear more analogous with his linguals, and he is apt to use the
linguals in writing European words.
48. The dentals are one of the three Indo-European original
mute-classes. In their occurrence in Sanskrit they are just about
as frequent as all the other four classes taken together.
49. Labial series: q p Cfi ph ^ b. ^ bh, 3} m.
X ^ -X * *X -X ^ ^X
These sounds are called osthya, 'labial 1 , by the Hindu gram-
marians also. They are, of course, the equivalents of our
p, b, m.
50. The numerical relations of the labials are a little pe-
culiar. Owing to the absence (or almost entire absence) of b in
Indo-European, the Sanskrit b also is greatly exceeded in fre-
quency by bh, which is the most common of all the sonant
aspirates, as ph is the least common of the surd. The nasal m (not-
withstanding its frequent euphonic mutations when final: 212 ff.)
occurs just about as often as all the other four members of the
series together.
51. Semivowels: f y, ^" r, s$ I, 3 v. The name given to this
class of sounds by the Hindu grammarians is antahstha, "standing between'
either from their character as utterances intermediate between vowel and
consonant, or (more probably) from the circumstance of their being placed
between the mutes and spirants in the arrangement of the consonants.
The semivowels are clearly akin with the several mute series
in their physical character, and they are classified along with
those series though not without some discordances of view
- by the Hindu grammarians. They are said to be produced
with the organs "slightly in contact" (isatsprsta), or "in imperfect
contact" (duhsprsta] .
52. The ^ r is clearly shown by its influence in the
euphonic processes of the language to be a lingual sound,
or one made with the the tip of the tongue turned up into
the dome of the palate. It thus resembles the English
smooth r, and, like this,, seems to have been untrilled.
The Paninean scheme reckons r as a lingual. None of the Praticakhyas,
however, does so; nor are they entirely consistent with one another in its
description. For the most part, they define it as made at 'the roots of the
teeth'. This would give it a position like that of the vibrated r; but no au-
thority hints at a vibration as belonging to it.
Whitney, Grammar. 2
1 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [52
In point of frequency, r stands very high on the list of
consonants ; it is about equal with v, n, m, and y, and only
exceeded by t.
53. The T I is a sound of dental position, and is so
defined and classed by all the native authorities.
The peculiar character of an Z-sound, as involving expulsion at the
sides of the tongue along with contact at its tip, is not noticed by any Hindu
phonetist.
It is a disputed question whether r and I were distinguished from one
another in Indo-European speech ; in the Sanskrit, at any rate, they are very
widely interchangeable, both in roots and in suffixes: there is hardly a root
containing an I which does not show also forms with r; words written with
the one letter are found in other texts, or in other parts of the same texts,
written with the other. In the later periods of the language they are more
separated, and the I becomes decidedly more frequent, though always much
rarer than the r (only as 1 to 7 or 8 or 10).
54. Some of the Vedic texts have another -sound, written
with a slightly different character (it is given at the end of the
alphabet, 5), which is substituted for a lingual d (as also the
same followed by h for a dh] when occurring between two vowels.
It is, then, doubtless a lingual I, one made by breach (at the
sides of the tongue) of the lingual instead of the dental mute-
closure.
55. The This sibilant is by all the native author-
ities classed and described as palatal, nor is there any-
thing in its history or its euphonic treatment to cast doubt
on its character as such. It is, then, made with the flat
of the tongue against the forward part of the palatal arch
that is to say, it is the usual and normal sA-sound. By
European scholars it is variously pronounced more often,
perhaps, as s than as sh.
The two s/i-sounds, s and p, are made in the same part of the mouth
(the s probably rather further back), but with a different part of the tongue ;
and they are doubtless not more unlike than, for example, the two t-sounds,
written t and t ; and it would be not less proper to pronounce them both as
one sh than to pronounce the linguals and dentals alike. To neglect the
difference of s and f is much less to be approved. The very near relationship
of s and f is attested by their euphonic treatment, which is to a considerable
extent the same, and by their not infrequent confusion by the writers
of manuscripts.
64. As was mentioned above (41), the r, like c, comes
from the corruption of an original &-sound, by loss of mute-
contact as well as forward shift of the articulating point. In
virtue of this derivation, it sometimes (though less often than c)
"reverts" to k that is, the original k appears instead of it ;
while, on the other hand, as a s/j-sound, it is to a certain
extent convertible to s. In point of frequency, it slightly
exceeds the latter.
65. The remaining spirant, ^ h y is ordinarily pronounced
like the usual European surd aspiration h.
This is not, however, its true character. It is defined by all the native
authorities as not a surd element, but a sonant (or else an utterance inter-
mediate between the two) ; and its whole value in the euphony of the language
is that of a sonant: but what is its precise value is very hard to say. The
Paninean scheme ranks it as guttural, as it does also a : this means nothing.
The Pratic.akhyas bring it into no relation with the guttural class : one of them
quotes the opinion of some authorities that "it has the same position with
the beginning of the following vowel" (TPr. ii. 47) which so far identi-
fies it with our h. There is nothing in its euphonic influence to mark it
as retaining any trace of gutturally articulated character. By some of the
native phonetists it is identified with the aspiration of the sonant aspirates
22 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [65
with the element by which, for example, gh differs from g. This view
is supported by the derivation of h from the aspirates (next paragraph), by
that of l + h from dh (54), and by the treatment of initial h after a final
mute (163).
66. The h, as already noticed, is not an original sound,
but comes in nearly all cases from an older gTi (for the few
instances of its derivation from dh and bh, see below, 223). It
is a vastly more frequent sound than the unchanged gh (namely,
as 7 to 1): more frequent, indeed, than any of the guttural
mutes except k. It appears, like j (219), to include in itself
two stages of corruption of gh: one corresponding with that of
k to c, the other with that of k to c; see below, 223, for the
roots belonging to the two classes respectively. Like the other
sounds of guttural derivation, it sometimes exhibits "reversion"
to its original.
67. The : h. or visarga (visarjamya, as it is uniformly
called by the Prati^akhyas and by Panini, probably as 'be-
longing to the end' of a word), appears to be merely a surd
breathing, a final A-sound (in the European sense of h),
uttered in the articulating position of the preceding vowel.
One Praticakhya (TPr. ii. 48) gives just this last description of it. It
is by various authorities classed with ft, or with h and a: all of them are
alike sounds in whose utterance the mouth-organs have no definite shaping
action.
68. The visarga is not original, but always only a substi-
tute for final s or r, neither of which is allowed to maintain
itself unchanged. It is a comparatively recent member of the
alphabetic system; the other euphonic changes of final s and r
have not passed through visarga as an intermediate stage. And
the Hindu authorities are considerably discordant with one an-
other as to how far h is a necessary substitute, and how far a
permitted one, alternative with a sibilant, before a following
initial surd.
69. Before a surd guttural or labial, respectively, some of
the native authorities permit, while others require, conversion of
final s or r into the so-called jihvamutiya and upadhmariiya spi-
rants. It may be fairly questioned, perhaps, whether these two
sounds are not pure grammatical abstractions, devised (like the
long /-vowel : 23) in order to round out the alphabet to greater
symmetry. At any rate, neither printed texts nor manuscripts
(except in the rarest and most sporadic cases) make any account
of them. Whatever individual character they may have must be,
71]
ANUSVABA.
23
it would seem, in the direction of the (German) ch and ^sounds.
When written at all, they are wont to be transliterated by %
and (p.
70. The - anusvara, n or w 7 is a nasal sound lacking
that closure of the organs which is required to make a
nasal mute (36); in its utterance there is nasal resonance
along with some degree of openness of the mouth.
71. There is discordance of opinion both among the Hindu phonetists
and their modern European successors respecting the real character of this
element : hence a little detail is necessary here with regard to its occurrence
and their views of it.
Certain nasals in Sanskrit are of servile character, always to be assi-
milated to a following consonant, of whatever character that may be. Such
are final m in sentence-combination (213), the penultimate nasal of a root,
and a nasal of increment (255) in general. If one of these nasals stands
before a contact-letter or mute, it becomes a nasal mute corresponding to the
latter that is, a nasal utterance in the same position of the mouth-organs
which gives the succeeding mute. If, on the other hand, the following con-
sonant does not involve a contact (being a semivowel or spirant), the nasal
element is also without- contact : it is a nasal utterance with unclosed mouth-
organs. The question is, now, whether this nasal utterance becomes merely
a nasal infection of the preceding vowel, turning it into a nasal vowel (as
in French on, en, un, etc., by reason of a similar loss of a nasal mute); or
whether it is an element of more individual character, having place between
the vowel and the consonant; or, once more, whether it is sometimes the one
thing and sometimes the other. The opinions of the Praticakhyas and Panini
are briefly as follows :
The Atharva-Pratic.akhya holds that the result is everywhere a nasalized
vowel, except when n or m is assimilated to a following I , in that case, the
n or m becomes a nasal I: that is, the nasal utterance is made in the
^-position, and has a perceptible i-character.
The other Praticakhyas teach a similar conversion into a nasal counter-
part to the semivowel, or nasal semivowel, before y and I and v (not before
r also). In most of the other cases where the Atharva-Pratic.akhya acknow-
ledges a nasal vowel namely, before r and the spirants the others
teach the intervention after the vowel of a distinct nasal element, called the
anusvara, 'after-tone'.
Of the nature of this nasal afterpiece to the vowel no intelligibly clear
account is given. It is said (RPr.) to be either vowel or consonant; it is
declared (RPr., VPr.) to be made with the nose alone, or (TPr.) to be nasal
like the nasal mutes; it is held by some (RPr.) to be the sonant tone of
the nasal mutes ; in its formation , as in that of vowel and spirant, there is
(RPr.) no contact. As to its quantity, see farther on.
There are, however, certain cases and classes of cases where these other
24 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [71
authorities also acknowledge a nasal vowel. So, especially, wherever a final
n is treated (208; as if it were ns (its historically older form); and also in
a small number of specified words. They also meiitiou the doctrine of nasal
vowel instead of anusvara as held by some (and TPr. is uncertain and incon-
sistent in its choice between the one and the other).
In Panini, finally, the prevailing doctrine is that of anusvara every-
where; and it is even allowed in many cases where the Pratic.akhyas pre-
scribe only a nasal mute. But a nasal semivowel is also allowed instead be-
fore a semivowel, and a nasal vowel is allowed in the cases (mentioned above)
where some of the Pratic,akhyas require it by exception.
It is evidently a fair question whether this discordance and uncertainty
of the Hindu phonetists is owing to a real difference of utterance in differ-
ent classes of cases and in different localities, or whether to a different scho-
lastic analysis of what is really everywhere the same utterance. If anu-
svara is a nasal element following the vowel, it cannot well* be any thing
but either a prolongation of the same vowel-sound with nasality added, or a
nasalised bit of neutral-vowel sound (in the latter case, however, the altering
influence of an i or w-vowel on a following s ought to be prevented, which
is not the case: see 183).
72. The assimilated nasal element, whether viewed as
nasalized vowel, nasal semivowel, or independent anusvara, has
the value of something added, in making a heavy syllable, or
length by position (79).
The Praticakhyas (VPr., RPr.) give determinations of the quantity of
the anusvara combining with a short and with a long vowel respectively to
make a long syllable.
73. Two different signs, 1 and -, are found in the MSS.,
indicating the nasal sound here treated of. Usually they are
written above the syllable, and there they seem most naturally
to imply a nasal affection of the vowel of the syllable, a nasal
(anunasika) vowel. Hence some texts (Sama and Yajur Vedas),
when they mean a real anusvara, bring one of the signs down
into the ordinary consonant-place ; but the usage is not general.
As between the two signs, some MSS. employ, or tend to employ,
the - where a nasalized (anunasika) vowel is to be recognized,
and elsewhere the 1; and this distinction is consistently observed
in many European printed texts; and the former is called the
anunasika sign: but it is very doubtful whether the two are not
originally and properly equivalent.
It is^a very common custom of the manuscripts to write
the anusvara-sign for any nasal following the vowel of a syllable,
either before another consonant or as final (not before a vowel),
without any reference to whether it is to be pronounced as nasal
mute, nasal semivowel, or anusvara. Some printed texts follow
this slovenly and undesirable'habit ; but most write a nasal mute
751
TABLE OF ALPHABETIC SOUNDS.
25
Son.
Surd
Son.
Surd
whenever it is to be pronounced excepting where it is an
assimilated m (213).
It is convenient also in transliteration to distinguish the
assimilated m by a special sign, m, from the anusvara of more
independent origin, n; and this method will be followed in the
present work.
74. This is the whole system of sounds recognised by the
written character; for certain transitional sounds, more or less
widely recognised in the theories of the Hindu phonetists, see
below, 230.
75. The whole spoken alphabet, then, may be arranged
in the following manner, so as to show, so far as is possible
in a single scheme, the relations and important classifications
of its various members :
Vowels
Semivowels
Nasals
Anusvara
Aspiration
Visarga
Sibilants
111 asp.
1-27
b unasp .
.46
ph asp.
, a
. fc
19-78 8-1P ^
'9 J $
&
V #
i. I
T,f I u, u
4-85 1.19
74 -01 -01 2.61 .73
y
r I v
4-25
5-05 -69 4.99
n n
n n m
22 -35
1-03 4-81 4-34
n
63
h
1-07
gh jh
15 .01
ff J
.82 .94
kh ch
13 .17
k c
1-99 1.26
Gutt. Pal.
dh
03
d
21
fh
06
t
.26
Ling.
3-56
dh
83
d
2-85
th
.58
t
6.65
Dent.
Mutes
p unasp.
2-46
Lab.
2(j II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [75
The figures set under the characters give the average
percentage of frequency of each sound, found by counting the
number of times which it occurred in an aggregate of 10,OOC
sounds of continuous text, in 10 different passages, ^of 1,000
sounds each, selected from different epochs of the literature :
namely, two from the Rig- Veda, one from the Atharva-Veda,
two from different Brahmanas, and one each from Manu, Bha-
gavad-Gita, Qakuntala, Hitopade9a, and Vasavadatta*.
III. Quantity of sounds and syllables.
76. The Hindu grammarians take the pains to define
the quantity of a consonant (without distinction among
consonants of different classes) as half that of a short vowel.
77. They also define the quantity of a long (dirgha)
vowel or diphthong as twice that of a short vowel making
no distinction in this respect between the guna and the
prefab-diphthongs .
78. Besides these two vowel-quantities, the Hindus
acknowledge a third, called pluta (literally 'swimming'),
or protracted, and having three moras, or three times the
quantity of a short vowel. A protracted vowel is marked
by a following figure 3: thus, 5TT$ a 3.
The protracted vowels are practically of rare occurrence (in
RV., three cases; in AV., fifteen; in the Brahman a literature,
rather more frequent). They are used in cases of questioning,
especially of a balancing between two alternatives, and also of
calling to a distance or urgently. The protraction is of the last
syllable in a w r ord, or in a whole phrase ; and the protracted
syllable has usually the acute tone, in addition to any other
accent the word may have ; sometimes it takes also anusvara, or
is made nasal.
Examples are: adhdh svid asi3d updri svid asl3t (RV.), 'was it, forsooth,
below? was it, forsooth, above?' iddm bhUydS id$3m Hi (AV.), 'saying, is this
more, or is that?' dgndSi pdtmvdSh s6mam piba (TS.), 'oh Agni! thou with
thy spouse ! drink the soma'.
A diphthong is protracted by prolongation of its first or a-element:
thus, e to a3i, o to a3u.
* See J. A. 0. S., vol. X.
82] QUANTITY. 37
The sign of protraction is also sometimes written as the result of ac-
centual combination, when so-called kampa occurs: see below, 90b.
79. For metrical purposes, syllables (not vowels) are
distinguished by the grammarians as 'heavy' (guru) or 'light'
(laghu). A syllable is heavy if its vowel is long, or short
and followed by more than one consonant ("long by po-
sition"). Anusvara and visarga count as full consonants in
making a heavy syllable. The last syllable of a pada (pri-
mary division of a verse) is reckoned as either heavy or
light.
The distinction in terms between the difference of long and short in
vowel-sound and that of heavy and light in syllable-construction is valuable,
and should be retained..
IV. Accent.
80. The phenomena of accent are, by the Hindu gram-
marians of all ages alike, described and treated as depend-
ing on a variation of tone or pitch; of any difference of
stress involved, they make no account.
81. The primary tones (svara) or accent-pitches are
two : a higher (udatta, 'raised'), or acute ; and a lower
(anudatta, 'not raised'), or grave. A third (called svarita :
a term of doubtful meaning), is always of secondary origin,
being (when not enclitic : see below, 85) the result of actual
combination of an acute vowel and a following grave vowel
into one syllable. It is also uniformly defined as compound
in pitch, a union of higher and lower tone within the
limits of a single syllable. It is thus identical in physical
character with the Greek and Latin circumflex, and fully
entitled to be called by the same name.
82. Strictly, therefore, there is but one distinction of tone
in the Sanskrit accentual system : the accented syllable is raised
in tone above the unaccented ; while then further, in certain
cases of the fusion of an accented and an unaccented element
2 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [82
into one syllable, that syllable retains the compounded tone of
both elements.
83. The svarita or circumflex is only rarely found on a
pure long vowel or diphthong, but almost always on a syllable
in which a vowel, short or long, is preceded by a y or v re-
presenting an originally acute t or w-vowel.
In transliteration, in this work, the udatta or acute will be
marked with the ordinary sign of acute, and the svarita or cir-
cumflex (as being a downward slide of the voice forward) with
what is usually called the grave accent : thus, d, acute , ya or
va, circumflex.
84. The Praticakhyas distinguish and name separately the circumflexed
tones arising by different processes of combination : thus, the circumflex is
called
a. Ksaipra ('quick'), when an acute i or w-vowel (short or long) is con-
verted into y or v before a dissimilar vowel of grave tone : thus, vyhpta
from vi-apta, apsvantdr from apsu antdr.
b. Jatya ('native') or nitya ('own'), when the same combination lies
further back, in the make-up of a stem or form, and so is constant, or
belongs to a word in all circumstances of its occurrence: thus, kva (from fcwa),
svhr (stiar), nybk (nfak), budhnya (budhnfa), kanyh (fcanla), nadyas (nadf-as),
tanvh (tanU-a).
The words of both these classes are in the Veda, in the great majority
of cases, to be read with restoration of the acute vowel as a separate syllable :
thus, apsu antdr, suar, nadias, etc. . In some texts, part of them are
written correspondingly : thus, suvar, tanuva, budhnfya.
c. Praflista, when the acute and grave vowels are of such character that
they are fused into a long vowel or diphthong (128): thus divi 'va (RV.
and AV.), from dM iva; shdgata (TS.), from su-udyata; nai 'vh J friiyat
(B.), from nd evd apniyat.
d. Abhinihita, when an initial grave a is absorbed by a final acute e
or 6 (135): thus, te 'bruvan, from te abruvan; t> 'bravit, from so abravlt.
85. But further, the Hindu grammarians agree in de-
claring the (naturally grave) syllable following an acute,
whether in the same or in another word, to be svarita or
circumflex - - unless, indeed, it be itself followed by an
acute or circumflex; in which case it retains its grave tone.
This is called by European scholars the enclitic or depend-
ent circumflex.
Thus, in tena and te ca, the syllable na and word ca are
regarded and marked as circumflex : but in tena te and te ca
svar they are grave.
87] METHODS OF WRITING ACCENT. 29
This seems to mean that the voice, which is borne up at the higher
pitch to the end of the acute syllable, does not ordinarily drop to grave pitch
by an instantaneous movement, but descends by a more or less perceptible
slide in the course of the following syllable. No Hindu authority suggests
the theory of a middle or intermediate tone for the enclitic, any more than
for the independent circumflex. For the most part, the two are identified
with one another, in treatment and designation. The enclitic circumflex is-
likewise divided into a number of sub-varieties, with different names: they
are of too little consequence to be worth reporting.
86. The essential difference of the two kinds of circum-
flex is shown clearly enough by these facts : a. the independent
circumflex takes the place of the acute as the proper accent of
a word, while the enclitic is the mere shadow following an acute,.
and following it in another word precisely as in the same word ;
b. the independent circumflex maintains its character in all
situations, while the enclitic before a following circumflex or
acute loses its circumflex character, and becomes grave ; more-
over, c. in many of the systems of marking accent (below, 88),
the two are quite differently indicated.
87. The accentuation is marked in manuscripts only of the
older literature : namely, in the different Vedic texts, in two of
the Brahmanas (Taittirlya and Qatapatha), and in the Taittiriya-
Aranyaka. There are a number of methods of writing accent,
more or less different from one another ; the one found in MSS . of
the Rig- Veda, which is most widely known, and of which most of
the others are only slight modifications, is as follows : the acute
syllable is left unmarked ; the circumflex, whether independent
or enclitic, has a brief perpendicular stroke above; and the grave
next preceding an acute or (independent) circumflex has a brief
horizontal stroke below. Thus
stcfjtri juhdti; rp^T tanvh; WT kva.
The introductory grave stroke below, however, cannot be given if an acute
syllable is initial, whence an unmarked syllable at the beginning of a word
is to be understood as acute ; and hence also, if several grave syllables precede
an acute at the beginning of a sentence, they must all alike have the grave
sign. Thus,
^: mdrah; ft te ; cflf^fH karisyasi ; rT%TfTT tuvijatd.
All the grave syllables, however, which follow a marked circumflex are left
unmarked, until the occurrence of another accented syllable causes the one
which precedes it to take the preparatory stroke below. Thus,
sudfcikasamdrk ;
jV__j
but H^lfctiH^J JNIH sudfftkasamdrg gdvam
30 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS. [88
88. The other methods it is not worth while to attempt to set forth.
They may be found illustrated in the different texts, and explained by the
editors of them. In part, their peculiarities consist in other forms or places
given to the grave and circumflex signs. ' In some methods, the acute is itself
marked, by a slight stroke above. In several, thte independent circumflex is
distinguished from the enclitic. The most peculiar systems are the scanty
and imperfect one of the Qatapatha-Brahmana, with a single sign, written
below ; and the highly intricate one of the Sama-Veda, with a dozen different
signs, written above.
89. In this work, as everything given in the devanagari char-
acters is also given in transliteration, it will in general be
unnecessary to mark the accent except in the transliterated form ;
where, however, the case is otherwise, there will be adopted the
method* of marking only the accented syllables, the acute
and the independent circumflex : the latter by the usual svarita-
sign, the former by a small u (for udatta] above the syllable :
thus,
*^3\ indra, Mi4 dgne,
These being given, everything else which the Hindu theory recognises
as dependent on and accompanying them can readily be understood as im-
plied.
90. The theory of the Sanskrit accent, as here given (a consistent and
intelligible body of phenomena), has been overlaid by the Hindu theorists,
especially of the Praticakhyas, with a number of added features, of a much
more questionable character. Thus :
a. The unmarked grave syllables, following a circumflex (either at the
end of a sentence, or till the near approach of another acute), are declared
to have the same high tone with the (also unmarked) acute. They are called
pracaya or pracita ('accumulated': because liable to occur in an indefinite
series of successive syllables).
b. The circumflex, whether independent or enclitic, is declared to begin
on a higher pitch than acute, and to descend to acute pitch in ordinary cases :
the' concluding instant of it being brought down to grave pitch, however, in
the case of an independent circumflex which is immediately followed by
another ascent of the voice to higher pitch (in acute or independent cir-
cumflex).
This last case, of an independent circumflex followed by acute or cir-
cumflex, receives peculiar written treatment. In the Rig- Veda method, a
fignre 1 or 3 is set after the circumflexed vowel, according as it is short or
long, and the signs of accent are thus applied:
* Introduced by Bohtlingk, and used in the Petersburg lexicon and elsewhere.
93] ACCENT. 31
: apsv alntdh from apsu antdh;
raybS 'vdnih from rayo avdnih .
The other methods, more or less akin with this, need not be given.
In the scholastic utterance of such a syllable is made a peculiar quaver
or roulade of the voice, which is called kampa or vikampana.
C. Panini gives the ambiguous name of eka$ruti ('monotone') to the pra-
cita syllables, and says nothing of the uplifting of the circumflex to a higher
plane: he teaches, however, a depression below the grave pitch for the mark-
ed grave syllable before acute or circumflex, calling it sannatara (otherwise
anudattatara).
91. The system of accentuation as marked in the Vedic texts has assum-
ed in the traditional recitation of the Brahmanic schools a peculiar and
artificial form, in which the designated syllables, grave and circumflex
(equally, the enclitic and the independent circumflex), have acquired a con-
spicuous value, while the undesignated, the acute, has sunk into insigni-
ficance *.
92. The Sanskrit accent taught in the native grammars and
represented by the accentuated texts is essentially a system of
word-accent only. No general attempt is made (any more than
in the Greek system) to define or mark a sentence-accent, the
effect of the emphasis and modulation of the sentence in mo-
difying the independent accent of individual words. The only
approach to it is seen in the treatment of vocatives and personal
verb-forms.
A vocative is usually without accent except at the beginning
of a sentence : for further details, see the chapter on Declension.
A personal verb-form is usually accentless in an independ-
ent clause, except when standing at the beginning of the clause :
for further details, see the chapter on Conjugation.
93. Certain other words also are, usually or always, without
accent.
a. The particles ca, vd, u, sma, iva, cid, svid, fta, are always without
accent.
b. The same is true of certain pronouns and pronominal stems : md, me,
ndu, na<, tvd, te, i?am, vas, ena-, tva-.
c. The cases of the pronominal stem a are sometimes accented and some-
times accentless.
An accentless word is not allowed to stand at the begin-
ning of a sentence : also not of a pada or primary division of
a verse ; a pada is, in all matters relating to accentuation, treat-
ed like an independent sentence.
* Hang, Wedischer Accent, in Abh. d. Bayr. Akad., vol. XIII, 1874.
32 II. SYSTEM OF SOUNDS.
94. Some words have more than a single accented syllable.
Such are :
a. Dual collective compounds : as fndravdrunau.
b. A few other compounds, in which each member irregularly retains
its own accent : as tdnundpat, vdnaspdti, brhaspdti. In a rare case or two,
also their further compounds, as brhaspdtipramitta.
C. Infinitive datives in tavdf: as etavaf,
d. A word naturally barytone, but having its final syllable protracted :
see above, 78.
e. The particle vdvd (in the Brahmanas).
95. On the place of the accented syllable in a Sans-
krit word there is no restriction whatever depending upon
either the number or the quantity of the preceding or
following syllables. The accent rests where the rules of
inflection or derivation or composition place it, without
regard to any thing else.
Thus, indre, agnau, indrena, agnina, agriintim, bahucyuta,
dnapacyuta, parjdnyajinvita, abhimatisahd } dnabhimlatavarna, abhicas-
ticatana, hiranyavacimattama .
96. Since the accent is marked only in the older litera-
ture, and the statements of the grammarians, with the
deduced rules of accentuation, are far from being sufficient
to settle all cases, the place of the stress of voice for a
considerable part of the vocabulary is undetermined. Hence
it is a general habit with European scholars to pronounce
Sanskrit words according to the rules of the Latin accent.
97. In this work, the accent of each word and form will
in general be marked, so far as there is authority determining its
place and character. Where specific words and forms are quoted,
they will only be so far accentuated as they are found with
accent in accentuated texts.
103] 33
CHAPTER III.
RULES OF EUPHONIC COMBINATION.
Introductory.
98. THE individual elements composing a language as
actually used are its words. These are in part uninflected
vocables (indeclinables, particles) ; in the main, they are in-
flected forms.
99. The inflected forms are analy sable into inflective en-
dings, of declension or of conjugation, and inflected stems to
which those endings are added.
100. The inflected stems, again, are for the most part
as are also in part the uninflected words analysable into
derivative endings or suffixes, and roots, to which, either directly
or through more primary stems, those endings are added.
But, not a few stems and particles are irreducible to roots ; and, on the
other hand, roots are often used directly as inflected stems, in declension as
well as in conjugation.
101. The roots are, in the condition of the language as
it lies before us, the ultimate attainable elements ; to a great
extent not actually ultimate, but, where otherwise, the result of
processes of development too irregular and obscure to be made
the subject of treatment in a grammar.
102. The formative processes by which both inflectional
forms and derivative stems are made, by the addition of endings
to bases and to roots, are more regular and transparent in San-
skrit than in any other Indo-European language, and the gram-
matical analysis of words into their component elements is
correspondingly complete. Hence it became the method of the
native grammarians, and has continued to be that of their Euro-
pean successors, to teach the language by presenting the endings
and stems and roots in their analysed forms, and laying down
the ways in which these are to be combined together to make
words. And hence a statement of the euphonic rules which
govern the combination of elements occupies in Sanskrit grammar
a more prominent and important place than in other grammars.
103. Moreover, the formation of compound words, by the
putting together of two or more stems, is a process of very
exceptional frequency in Sanskrit ; and this kind of combination
also has its own euphonic rules. And once more, in the form
Whitney, Grammar. 3
34 III- EUPHONIC COMBINATION. [103
in which the language is handed down to us by the litera-
ture, the words composing a sentence or paragraph are adapted
to and combined with each other by nearly the same rules which
govern the making of compounds, so that it is impossible to
take apart and understand the simplest sentence in Sanskrit
without understanding those rules. Hence also a greatly added
degree of practical importance belonging to the subject of
euphonic combination.
This euphonic interdependence of the words of a sentence, which is
unknown to any other language in anything like the same degree, is shown
to be at least in considerable measure artificial, implying an erection into
necessary and invariable rules of what in the living language were only
optional practices, by the evidence of the older dialect of the Vedas and the
younger Prakritic dialects, in both of which these rules (especially as regards
hiatus: 113) are very often violated.
104. We have, therefore, in the first place to consider the
euphonic principles and laws which govern the combination of
the elements of words (and the elements of the sentence) ; and
then afterward to take up the subject of inflection, under the
two heads of declension and conjugation : to which will succeed
some account of the classes of uninnected words.
105. The formation of conjugatioixal stems (tense and
mode-stems, etc.) will be taught, as is usual, in connection
with the processes of conjugational inflection ; that of uninflected
words, in connection with the various classes of those words.
But the general subject of derivation, or the formation of de-
clinable stems, will be taken up by itself later for a brief pre-
sentation ; and it will be followed by an account of the formation
of compound stems.
Although, namely, the general plan of this series of grammars excludes
the subject of derivation, yet, because of the comparative simplicity and
regularity of the principal processes of derivation in Sanskrit, and the import-
ance to the student of accustoming himself from the beginning to trace those
processes, in connection with the analysis of derived forms, back to the root,
an exception will be made in regard to the subject in the present work.
106. We assume, then, for the purposes of the present
chapter, the existence of the material of the language in a
grammatically analysed condition, in the form of roots, stems,
and endings.
107. What is to be taken as the proper form of a root or
stem is not in all cases clear. Very many of both classes show
m a part of their derivatives a stronger and in a part a weaker
form (260). This is, in most cases, the only difficulty affecting
108 ] INTRODUCTORY. 35
stems whether, for example, we shall speak of derivatives in
mat or in mant, of comparatives in yas or in yam, of a perfect
participle in vat or in vaiis or in us. The Hindu grammarians
usually give the weaker form as the normal one, and derive the
other from it by a strengthening change ; some European author-
ities adopt the one form and some the other : the question is an
unessential one, giving rise to no practical difficulty.
108. As regards the roots, the difficulty is greater, partly
because complicated with other questions, arising from practices
of the Hindu grammarians, which have been more or less widely
followed by their European successors. Thus :
a. More than half of the whole number of roots given by the Hindu
authorities (which are over 2000) have never been found actually used in
the literature; and although some of these may yet come to light, or may
have existed without finding their way into any of the preserved literary
documents, it is certain that most are fictitious, made in part for the ex-
planation of words claimed to be their derivatives, and in part for other and
perhaps unexplainable reasons. Of the roots unauthenticated by traceable
use no account will be made in this grammar or, if at all considered,
they will be carefully distinguished from the authenticated.
b. Those roots of which the initial n and s are regularly converted to
n and * after certain prefixes are by the Hindu grammarians given as be-
ginning with n and s: no European authority follows this example.
c. A number of roots ending in a which is irregularly treated in the
inflection of the present-system are written in the Hindu lists with diph-
thongs e or at or o; and so, after this example, by many Western scholars.
Here they will be regarded as a-roots : compare below, 251. The o of such
roots, especially, is purely arbitrary ; no forms made from the root justify it.
d. The roots showing interchangeably r, ar, and ir and Ir or ur and ur
forms are written by the Hindus with r, or with f, or with both. Here also
the f is arbitrary and indefensible. As between r and ar, even the latest
European authorities are at variance, and it may be left to further research to
settle whether the one or the other is alone worthy to be accepted. Here (mainly
as a matter of convenience : compare below, 237) the r-forms will be used.
e. In the other cases of roots showing a stronger and a weaker form,
choice is in great measure a matter of minor consequence unless further
research and the settlement of pending phonetic questions shall show that
the one or the other is decidedly the truer and more original. From the
point of view of the Sanskrit alone, the question is often impossible to
determine.
f. The Hindus classify as simple roots a number of derived stems :
reduplicated ones, as didhi, jagr, daridra ; present-stems, as urnu ; and
denominative stems, as avadhir, kumar, sabhaj, mantr, santv, arth, and the
like. These are in European works generally reduced to their true value.
g. But it is impossible to draw any definite line between these cases
36 III. EUPHONIC COMBINATION. [108
and others in which root-forms evidently of secondary origin have attained a
degree of independent value in the language which almost or quite entitles
them to rank as individual roots. Even the weak and strong forms of the
same root as vad and vand, cit and cint, mah and mahh may have
such a difference of use that they count as two ; or a difference of inflection
combined with a difference of meaning in a root has the same effect as
in vr vrnoti and vr vrnlte, in ha jahati and ha jihite; or an evident present-
stem becomes a separate root as jinv and pinv. Not a few roots occur
in more or less clearly related groups, the members of which are of various
degrees of independence. Thus, a considerable class of roots show an added a;
and such as mna and dhma are reckoned only as side-forms of man and
dham; while Jra, pra, pya, psa, and others, presumably made in the same
manner, figure as separate from their probable originals. Many final con-
sonants of roots have the value of "root-determinatives", or elements of
obscure or unknown origin added to simpler forms. A class of derivative
roots show signs of reduplication, as caks, jaks, dudh; or of a desiderative
development, as bhaks and bhiks, ?rus, afes, naks. Yet another
