Here’s two metarules (rules about rules)
now; i.e. prescriptions on how certain conventional case forms are to be
interpreted (this has already been talked about in the early posts; we will
reinforce that here).
1.1.66 tasminniti nirdişţe pūrvasya
Parsing of words:
Tasminn (7/1) (in that) iti (0, so saying)
nirdişţe (7/1, in the specification), pūrvasya (6/1, of the preceding)
Vŗtti (paraphrase):
Tasminn iti (saying ‘in that’)
saptamyartha- (in the meaning of the saptamī, i.e. seventh or locative, case)
nirdeşe (in the specification) pūrvasyaiva (pūrvasya eva) kāryam (operation of
the preceding only) bhavati (is, transpires), nottarasya (na uttarasya, not of
the following).
“An element which is referred to by a
locative (saptamī) form is understood as a right context for an operation on
that which preceded it” (Sharma, II.67).
Thus, we may interpret the technical word
in the locative case (saptamī) as something like ‘in the case of’, ‘in the
context that’. In short, the locative case denotes the ‘if’ part of a ‘if-then’
statement. An interesting feature of the sutra is that it uses the very
technical device it is defining, by putting nirdişţe in the locative case: if
we translate nirdeşa as ‘specification’, the term reads ‘in the specification
in the seventh case’, which we can expand as ‘in the context of a specification
in the seventh case’ or ‘in the presence of… etc.’. In simple terms, ‘if there
is a (term) specified in the seventh (locative, saptamī) case, then…’.
The ‘…then’ part is given by the last word,
pūrvasya, ‘of the previous’, which is in the genitive, sixth case. We obviously have to supply some words to
round out the meaning. The vŗtti
sensibly supplies the term kāryam, ‘operation, work’. That is, if there is a
term specified in locative case, then the operation is that of the preceding
(term), the term (technical or operative word) that comes before the term in
the locative case. Sharma calls the locative word a “right context” for the
operation specified previously in the given rule. That is, the ‘if’ portion is
given on the right of the operative term, which means that this is a ‘do Y if X’
type of instruction (X being the required condition, the subsequent term in locative
case, and Y the antecedent, operation term), rather than ‘if X then Y’. This is just a convention of ordering the
terms, as far as I can make out at this stage.
An example is the already familiar
rule 6.1.77 iko yaņ aci, where the last
word aci is in the locative case: ‘in (the case of occurrence of a) vowel’;
i.e. ‘if there is a vowel aC’. This is the X, the if- condition, but here
termed the “right context” not just because it comes at the end of the rule,
but implying that the X has to be present to the right, i.e. after the element
on which the operation Y is to be performed. And what is the action Y (kāryam)
to be performed, the ‘do’ instruction? That is: iko yaņ which uses the genitive
case of iK, ‘of the short vowels (iK)’. This genitive (possessive, sixth case)
has to be interpreted according to 1.1.49 şaşţhī sthāne-yogā, ‘the possessive
case (means, signifies) the replacement-relation’. Or, ‘(in place) of short
vowels (iK) (put) semi-vowels (yaŅ), IF there is a vowel aC following (right
context)’.
Here’s another case ending which has a
specific grammatical interpretation:
1.1.67 tasmād ity uttarasya
Word parsing:
tasmād
(5/1) (‘from that’) iti (0) (‘so saying’) uttarasya (7/1) (‘of the following’)
Sharma (II:68) denotes this as a “left
context” of the operation to be carried out as per the following term
‘uttarasya’. Vŗtti (paraphrase):
tasmād
(tasmāt ‘from that’) iti (‘so
saying’) pañcam-artha-nirdeśa (‘fifth case signifying specification’) uttarasya
eva kāryam (‘operation only of the following’) na pūrvasya (‘not of the
preceding’)
“An element referred to by an ablative form
(not otherwise interpretable in a given context) is a left context for an
operation on what follows it” (Sharma, II:68).
“An operation caused by the exhibition of a
term in the ablative or fifth case, is to be understood to enjoin the
substitution of something in the room of that which immediately follows the
word denoted by the term” (Vasu, p.60; decidedly a prolix rendering totally at
odds with the spirit of the old grammarians!).
The
“left context” implies that the operation prescribed is to be done on the
element which follows the instruction: ‘if x then do Y’. I like to look at the
ablative as emanating something that affects the target and effects the change:
in 8.4.61, for instance, it states that after ud with following sthāna and
stambha, substitution of the initial of the second (following) word is done
with “a letter belonging to the class of the prior” (Vasu, p.60), i.e. stha- or
sta- is replaced with sounds homologous to the –d of ud-, giving forms like
utthāna. In this sutra, the ablative case is used for the originating
condition: udah. Given ud on he left, stha- is replaced by a sound of the
dental class, etc.
Here are two gratuitous comments from my
side. One is, the nebulous nature of the distinction between the two types of
clauses, ‘do Y in case of X obtaining’
using the locative case, and ‘from
the influence of X do Y’ using the originator in the ablative. Both pretty much
seem to imply ‘if X, Y follows’. The
distinction seems to be mainly that in the first formula, the X is to be
verified to the right, after the element operated upon; in the second, the
originator is already on the left of the element acted upon. One wonders whether
there is not a simpler way of specifying these conditions.
The second comment is that the actual case
suffix form (the sUP-antam) of ablative and genitive are often the same, if not
also the locative. So in some cases it must be a close call, and the choice is made probably on some prior external
knowledge of the patterns in the language!
Before we leave these two metarules, let’s
just take a glimpse of how the Mahābhāşya treats them (Shastri, III:218 to 231).
The close parallelism between the two rules is shown by treating them together,
quoting them together at the opening.
Patanjali (as per the commentary by
Shastri) deals with three aspects. The first is kim udāharaņam, what is the
example(s). These are given as the rule iko yaņ aci for tasminn…, leading to
the derivation of forms (like) dadhyatra and madhvatra (replacement of I, u by
y, v before a vowel aC). For tasmād…, the examples are the derivation of
dvīpam, antarīpam for rule 6.3.97 dvyantarupasargebhyo’pa īT, whereby in dvi+ap
‘two waters’, the final sound in the preceding dvi conditions the initial sound
in the subsequent ap giving dvi+ip, dvīp (Sharma, II:68). There follows a
discussion on the import and effect of the word iti (which I have rendered in
my home-spun way as ‘so saying’), when treated as a technical term in the
grammar. The commentator says that the word iti “changes the meaning of the
word”: tasminn iti means the locative case (rather than ‘inside something’),
tasmād iti means ‘the ablative’ (rather than ‘out of something’). Then follows
an extended quibble about which is the general class, which is the specific
case (example): we can know this “from the desire of the speaker”.
The second issue
dealt with is the use of the word nirdişţe in the sutra. Here (as I understand
the sentence) the operation takes place on the word (śabda) in locative
(saptamī) case, and not on the meaning (artha) denoted by that word, which may
the case in certain other rules: in 4.2.81 janapade lup, or 5.3.55 atiśāyane tambişţhnāu, the words in
locative case “denote ar tha and not
śabda” (Shastri III:221).
The third issue
taken up is kimartham punaridam ucyate ‘what for are these sūtras read?”
(Shastri III:222). Since the locative or ablative case ending can apply equally
to right-condition or left- condition (pūrvatva
and uttaratva), as I have also hinted above, statement of the two sutras “is
for niyama, as in dadhyudakam and pacatyodanam” (I would interpret niyama as
rule, constraint). The use of locative or ablative as the case may be will then
serve to decide “whether, when both are mentioned in a sutra, the kārya happens
to that which precedes or to that which follows”; in case of vipratişedha
conflict, the later rule generally prevails (Shastri III:223). There follow a
number of applications of these principles in elucidation of various rules.
