36 Section I of the Laghu-Siddhanta-Kaumudi. Terms (saṃjñā-prakaraņam)

Continuing with the Laghu-Siddhanta-Kaumudi, we next come upon the statement

Adarśanaṃ lopaḥ  (1.1.60)
Non-appearance is (termed) lopaḥ

(Note: I have used the symbol ṃ to represent the anusvāra, the final nasal sound, as used by standard transliterations like Sharma’s. Likewise, ḥ is used to represent the visarga, the -ha sound which echoes the vowel immediately preceding; in previous posts I was using the simpler -h,  leaving it to be understood that the –a sound was to be supplied the end).

As can be seen from the cross-reference, this is actually sutra 1.1.60 of Panini. We have already dealt with this: see Post 29 here: http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/2015/11/29-reducing-element-to-zero-lopa.html. There was quite a long discussion on fifferent types of lopa (what we may equate to ‘elision’). However, the Laghu does not refer to any of this discussion, but goes on directly to:

Tasya lopaḥ  (1.3.9)

The paraphrase given in the Laghu is:
Tasyeto (tasya itaḥ, of that iT) lopaḥ (elision, deletion) syāt (let be). Ņādayo’ (Ņ  ādayaḥ, of Ņ  etc.) ‘ņādyarthāḥ (a-Ņ  ādi arthāḥ, not-Ņ etc. is the meaning, purport).

Here we have the instance of a sutra from deeper in the Panini (1.3) being pulled up to the front in the Laghu. Looking at 1.3.9, we get the actual context in which the word tasya (of that) is used: it refers to a preceding sutra,

1.3.2 upadeśe’janunāsika it
Word parsing:
Upadeśe (in the initial statement, citation), aC (vowel) anunāsika (nasalized) it (iT, marker)
‘The  nasalized vowel of an item in an original direction, upadeśa, is termed an iT’)

This feeds into the sutra 1.3.9:
Tasya lopaḥ  (1.3.9)
‘There is disappearance of that which is termed iT’.

It has to be mentioned that the sequence is different in the full Siddhanta-kaumudi, as 1.3.2 is actually presented first. But proceeding with the Laghu, the lopaḥ or ‘deletion, disappearance’ is understood to be referring to those iT (what I have been calling ‘end-markers’) in the Siva-sutras or Pratyahara (see Page here http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/p/siva-sutra.html) which mark the end of each set of sounds. Thus the first set is of the short vowels

A I u Ņ
The final Ņ is the nasal sound, anunāsika, which is to be ignored, elided, as it is merely a marker, an iT. It has to be noted here that not all the iT are nasalised sunds; thus in the second pratyahara,

Ŗ ļ K
The marker is a guttaral K, not a nasal. We understand that all the end-markers are considered to be ‘disappeared’, not just the nasals.

The Laghu then cites

Ādirantyena sahetā (1.1.71)

We have already covered this in Post 32 here http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/2016/05/32-form-versus-meaning-what-terms.html

The word parsing is as follows:
Ādiḥ (‘initial’) antyena saha (‘with the final’) itā (iT)

This sutra was explained as follows: ‘An initial item joined with a final iT denotes not only itself but also all intervening items’. Obviously a significant component has been added to the terse statement. Thus aŅ  refers to all the items from the initial a to the final Ņ (the iT marker), which is the set a i u. Similarly aC refers to all the sounds from a to the marker C in the third siva-sutra (basically, the vowels and diphthongs a I u ŗ ļ e o ai au). It does not include the end-markers, K, Ŋ, in the intervening siva-sutras, or the final end marker C. The name of all the consonants is similarly hL, and of all the sounds, aL, as we already saw in an early post (see Page on siva-sutras).

The Laghu then goes on to a set of sutras dealing with length and tone:

Laghu 9: ūkālo’jjhrasvadīrghaplutaḥ (Panini 1.2.27)

This is another illustration of the spin-offs of following the S-K: we are taken into deeper territory, but staying on the subject of terms (definitions). This sutra is parsed as follows:

Ū- (u, ū, and ū3) kālaḥ (duration) aC (‘a vowel’) hrasva (‘short’) dīrgha (‘long’) plutaḥ (‘extra-long, prolated’)
Paraphrase:
A vowel which has the duration of one mora (measure of time), two morae, and three morae is termed (respectively) hrasva (‘short’) dīrgha (‘long’) plutaḥ (‘extra-long, prolated’)

The Laghu does not go into more detail (although Sharma has a whole page of commentary). Panini follows this with
Panini 1.2.28 acaśca
Word parsing:
aCaḥ (‘in place of a vowel’) ca (‘and, also’)
Paraphrase: A replacement which is specified by hrasva (‘short’) dīrgha (‘long’) plutaḥ (‘extra-long, prolated’) should come in place of a vowel (aC).

 The next three sutras define the three ‘tones’  (such as used especially in Vedic chanting):

Laghu 10: uccairudāttaḥ (Panini 1.2. 29)
uccaiḥ (‘with a high [pitch]’) udāttaḥ (‘udātta, high-pitched’) [and add by ellipsis, anuvŗtti: aC, ‘a vowel’]
“(A vowel) which is pronounced in a high (pitch) is termed udātta, ‘high-pitched’”

Laghu 11: nīcairanudāttaḥ (Panini 1.2. 30)
nīcaiḥ (‘with a low [pitch]’) anudāttaḥ (‘anudātta, low-pitched’) [and add by ellipsis, anuvŗtti: aC, ‘a vowel’]
“(A vowel) which is pronounced in a low (pitch) is termed anudātta, ‘low-pitched’”

Laghu 12: samāhāraḥ svaritaḥ (Panini 1.2. 31)
samāhāraḥ (‘a combination’) svaritaḥ (‘svarita’) [and add by ellipsis, anuvŗtti: aC, ‘a vowel’])
“(A vowel) which is pronounced in a combination (of high and low pitch) is termed svarita, ‘high-low-pitched’”
The term svarita connotes an articulation presenting svara, (musical) notes. If you listen to a recording of the Vedic chants (for example, Rigveda here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCQCSN38KYY). You can make out the two-note tone, actually low-high rather than high-low. It is clearest in the chanting of the actual Rig hymns, starting at 1:45 in the linked video (one of the clearer renderings I have found on the web).

Ballantyne’s translation denotes the accents as acute (high tone), grave (low tone), and circumflex (combination of high and low). In the Veda texts, they are indicated by an underline for low tone, and a small vertical line (like an apostrophe) for high (and svarita) tone.

After the tones, we have the two qualities of nasality and non-nasality:

Laghu 13: mukhanāsikāvacano’nunāsikaḥ (Panini 1.1.8)
Mukha- (‘mouth’) nāsikā- (‘nose’) vacanaḥ (‘speech’) anu-nāsikaḥ (‘through nose, nasal’)

This rule assigns the term anunāsika to nasalized speech or sounds. This multiplies by two the number of distinct sounds that can be distinguished from each of the vowels, over and above the three based on duration, the three based on tone; the total comes to 3x3x2=18 species for each of theses vowels (for example).

Then we come to certain statements about the sounds, which we have actually come across earlier:

Laghu 14:  tulyāsyaprayatnaṃ savarṇaṃ (Panini 1.1.9)

We had this in Post No.6, here: http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/2011/01/6-sounds-of-colour-flock-together-in.html.  This sutra defines savarṇaṃ, ‘homogeneous, of the same type’ as those sounds that are produced with similar place of articulation  (tulyāsya) and effort (prayatnam). The S-K elaborates this at some length in Laghu 15. Thus, the throat (kaṇṭhaḥ) is specified as the place of articulation of the “guttural” sounds a, ā, k, kh, g, gh, ṅ (or ŋ, h, and the visarga ḥ (akuhavisarjanīyāni, neuter gender plural). The palate (tālu) is that of the “palatal” sounds I, ī, c, ch, j, jh, ñ, y and ś (icuyasāni); and so on. We can see here that adding the marker U to the unvoiced consonant in each series denotes all five (including the nasalized version): kU, cU, yU, pU etc.

Laghu 16 gives further technical terms (which are the pattern adopted in modern phonetics, as well). Effort (yatnah) is two-fold: within the mouth (with five sub-types touched, slightly touched, slightly open, open, and contracted), and “external as regards the mouth, belonging to the throat”.

It is in this context that the famous last, final aphorism of Panini is quoted (in the full length S-K para 11):

A a (Panini 8.4.68)
“An open (vivŗta) a is now classed as closed (saṃvŗta)” (Sharma).

Ballantyne (Laghu-S-K) explains as follows: “In actual use, the organ in the enunciation of short a is contracted; but it is considered to be open only, as in the case of the other vowels, when the vowel a is in the state of taking part in some operation of grammar. (The reason for this is, that if the short vowel a were held to differ from the long ā in this respect, the homogeneousness mentioned in No.14 would not be found to exist between them, and the operation of the rules depending upon that homogeneousness would be debarred. In order to restore the short a to its natural rights, thus infringed throughout the Ashtadhyayi, Panini with oracular brevity in his closing aphorism gives the injunction ‘a a’, which is interpreted to signify “Let short a be held to have its organ of utterance contracted, now that we have reashed the end of the work in which it was necessary to regard it as being otherwise” (Ballantyne, p.6).

That is, we process all the rules as if short a and long ā were versions of the same sound, the open variety. But in actual practice, we revert to the more closed short a in our pronunciation. (Only Hindustani singers are repeatedly cautioned not to lapse into the closed a when they do their alap!).

We remember that 1.1.9 was followed by 1.1.10

Panini 1.1.10 nājjhalau
Which is parsed as
Na (not) aC (vowels) haLau (and consonants, dual number) (and, by anuvŗtti, we add from 1.1.9: tulyāsyaprayatnaṃ savarṇaṃ)
“Sounds denoted by aC (vowels) are not termed savarņa (homogeneous) with sounds denoted by hL (consonant)” (Sharma).

Thus it is worth remembering these two sutras as a pair (they are often a question in examinations!).

Now we have another clarification:

Laghu 17: aņudit savarņasya cāpratyayaḥ (Panini 1.1.69)

We have already come across this one as well.
aņ (the pratyāhāra aŅ, that is the sounds from the first a up to the final marker or iT in siva-sutra 6, Ņ, comprising of a, I, u, ŗ, ḷ, e, o, ai, au, h, y, v, r, l), udit (ut- it) ca (and those marked by the marker U) savarņasya  (of all the homogeneous ones) a-pratyayaḥ (not a pratyaya, affix).

The first part is straight-forward: a sound from any of the aŅ, denotes not only itself but all its savarņa sounds: in the case of a vowel, a, for instance, it includes the three variations by pitch or tone (low, high, combined), the two based on nasality or absence of nasality, and three variants by duration (short, long, extra-long), totaling to 18 variants.  The second part refers to technical terms marked by the marker U: as mentioned above, kU refers to the four velar stops and velar nasal (k kh g gh ṅ). Here the variations are based on voicing, aspiration, nasality (but not duration or pitch, as there is no extended vowel sound).

The condition is that these items should themselves NOT “propounded as an affix or operative agent, but as something to be operated upon” (Ballantyne).

Two sutras which define contact:

Laghu 18:  paraḥ saṃnikarṣaḥ saṃhitā  (Panini 1.4.109)

“Maximum proximity between sounds is termed saṃhitā” (Sharma, Vol.2, p.312).

According to Sharma, the word paraḥ denotes ‘extremity’, which we can understand as ‘extreme’ closeness of touch (saṃnikarṣaḥ), interpreted by Sharma as “half a mora”. Example: between dadhi atra, a samhitā of half a mora exists, which enables other rules to be processed (6.1.77 iko yaṇ aci, giving dadhyatra ‘yogurt here’).

Laghu 19: halonantarāḥ saṃyogaḥ (Panini 1.41.7)
halaḥ (‘sequence of hL sounds, consonants’) an-antarāḥ (‘un-interrupted’) saṃyogaḥ (‘termed saṃyoga).

“A sequence of consonants (hL) uninterrupted by a vowel (aC) is termed saṃyogaḥ ‘cluster, conjuct’.” (Sharma)

The final sutra in this first section of the Laghu S-K is a new, but one which has been encountered in passing throughout Pada 1 of Adhyaya I:

Laghu 20: suptiṅantaṁ padam (Panini 1.4.14)

This introduces two very important species or terms: sup, or sUP, which denotes the forms of declined nouns (with all those case endings, rāmaḥ rāmau rāmāḥ, and so on); and tiṅ (or also transcribed as tiŋ, and pronounced somewhat like thing!), whuch is the inflected form of a verb. Now these terms can be thought of as made up of a representative ending, with an attached marker or iT: from the basic noun ending in masculine singular nominative, -aḥ or –as, with marker UP, we get sUP; from the basic verb ending in present tense, -ti, with marker Ṅ or Ŋ, we get the term tiṄ (or tiŊ). These terms stand for the endings; and the words in the sutra mean:

Sup-tiṅ-antaṁ (‘ending in sUP, noun endings, or tiŊ, verb endings’) padam (‘padam, word’)
“A form which terminates in sUP or tiŊ is termed pada” (Sharma).


Sharma has an extended discussiion why the term –antam had to be used in the sutra; otherwise, the sUP or tiŊ endings themselves would have got the nomenclature of pada, which is not the intention.

This brings us to the end of the first section of the Laghu. It may be noted that this has omitted a number of sutras that have been cited in the first section of the full S—K, culled from different places in the Ashtadhyayi: including our familiar friends 1.1.1 vŗddhir ādaiC, and 1.1.2 adeŊ guņaḥ. These will occur further on when the Laghu comes to discuss sound joins (sandhi) further ahead.

35 Starting the Siddhanta-Kaumudi

As I said before, there is an advantage in following a rearranged version of Panini’s grammar. It allows us to make entry into the operational rules quickly, as related sutras which may be far apart in the original, are brought together in many of the rearrangements, for the better guidance of the student. One such is the Siddhānta-Kaumudī of Bhattoji Dīkshita, which comes also in a ‘lite’ version, the Laghu S-K of Varadarāja. I chanced upon an old copy of the Laghu S-K in one of Bangalore’s famed used-book stores, edited and presented by James R. Ballantyne from the Benaras College, first published in 1849. It had already gone into the fourth edition by 1891, and my copy is the seventh reprint (2001) by Motilal Banarasidass Publishers, Delhi.

Explaining the need for such a work, Ballantyne quotes Colebrooke as follows: “The studied brevity of the Pāninīya sūtras renders them in the highest degree obscure”, and “with every exertion of practised memory”, the student must still experience “the utmost difficulty
 in combining rules dispersed in apparent confusion through different portions of Panini’s eight Lectures”. But the re-arrangements, while bringing together rules related to a particular inflection (derivation) of word forms, require a “commentator’s exposition” to throw light on the sutras that have been dragged out of their contexts in the original.

The Ballantyne edition does not carry any biographical details of the authors, but apparently Bhattoji Dikshita was an early 17th-century Sanskrit grammarian (see the Wiki entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bha%E1%B9%AD%E1%B9%ADoji_D%C4%ABk%E1%B9%A3ita), as was Varadaraja, his disciple (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varadar%C4%81ja).

The Laghu can be downloaded at https://archive.org/details/laghusiddhantaka014967mbp, or http://www.sanskritebooks.org/2009/04/laghu-siddhanta-kaumudi-english-translation-jr-ballantyne/ , whereas the full-length S-K can be got from http://www.sanskritebooks.org/2011/02/siddhanta-kaumudi-sanskrit-english-commentary-saradaranjan-ray-kumudranjan-ray/ , or https://archive.org/details/siddhantakaumud00agoog. One of the problems I see with these scanned versions is that the typefaces are rather indistinct. The Saradaranjan edition is a bit clearer, but the English is a bit defective; it does have a longish introductory essay and overview. One should probably  download many versions and use the best of each.

Let us get into the Lagu S—K now. The first section is called Samjñā-prakaraņam, which is about the technical terms, as we have seen in our previous discussion of the original sutras of the first pāda of the first book of Panini. First the Siva-sutra or Maheswara sutras are presented: a I u Ņ, ŗ ļ K, and so on to the last, ha L; see our PAGE here http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/p/siva-sutra.html.

Laghu-1: Iti māheśwarāņi aŅ ādi samjñārthāņi
Thus the terms aŅ and so on, known as māheśwarā ‘s.

Laghu-2: Eşām antyā itah
Of these, the finals (are) iT’s

This is the denotation of the final letters of each pratyāhāra’s as an iT. In the name aŅ, the final Ņ is an iT. The name stands for the sequence or set of sounds (vowels) a i u, and so on. We called the the markers or labels, and they will reappear in other contexts (for labelling a type of grammatical form, for instance). They are not real words in the language, but a part of the meta-language or technical terms.

Laghu-3: Hakārādišu akāra uccāraņārthah
In the terms Ha and so on, the a-sound is for the sake of enunciation

That is, unlike the vowels, when we name the consonants, we add a small a-sound, but only for the sake of articulating it. By ha, ya, va, etc. we really mean only the bare consonants h, y, v, etc.

Laghu-4: LaŅ madhye tu iT samjñakah
In the midst of the term laŅ, however, (the short vowel a) is named an iT.

This refers to the sixth pratyahara, laŅ. The short vowel a itself is an iT, a marker.

Now we hit the first example of a nugget from the original sutras of Panini:

Laghu-5: hal antyam | 1-3-3

For our convenience, this has been cross-identified as sutra 1-3-3 of Panini. We haven’t yet come to this part of the Panini sutras, so as promised, the S-K is now taking us deeper into the stream without having to wade through the shallows. Let’s look at the original context and paraphrasing of 1-3-3. It is seen that it takes over the preceding sutra 1.3.2 by anuvŗtti, elipsis (see Post #11 here http://readingpanini.blogspot.com/2014/12/11-carrying-sutra-over-span-of-sutras.html).

1.3.3 hal antyam (upadeśe iT from 1.3.2)

The explanation in the Laghu is as follows:
Upadeśe (in the upadeśa, instruction, definition) antyam (final) hal (haL, consonant) it (an iT, marker) syāt (let be). Upadeśa (an upadeśa is (defined as)) adyoccāraņam = ādya-uccāraņam (‘original enunciation’). Sūtreşu (in the sutras, aphorisms, statements) a-dŗşțam (not seen) padam (word) Sūtrāntarāt (from an other sutra) anuvartanīyam (to be supplied, reverted) sarvatra (everywhere).

According to Sharma (Vol.II, p.141), an upadeśa is literally an ‘instruction’, but is used in grammar “to refer to the initial teachings or citations (ādyoccāraņa)”, which may be referring to “a rule, a linguistic item, or a collection of rules or linguistic items”. There is an involved discussion of the word hal used here: while it defines the final consonant haL as an iT, the word itself uses an iT, the final L. We will not go into the logical resolution of this tautology. Sometimes, we just have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps!

The sutra from which the anuvŗtti (ellipsis) is carried over is:

1.3.2 upadeśe aC anunāsika it
upadeśe (in an instruction) aC (a vowel) anunāsika (nasalized) iT (an iT, a marker)
‘The nasalized vowel of an item in upadeśa or ‘initial citation’ is termed it’ (Sharma, p.141).

This associates nasalization to the role as a marker, an iT. Let us also anticipate by noting that the sutra 1.3.2 is put at Laghu-36, under the section 'aC-sandhih’, vowel-joins.

34 Structure and themes of Panini’s Ashtadhyayi

Before going on to an alternative arrangement of the sutras as found in the Siddhanta-Kaumudi of Bhattoji or the short version, the Laghu- Siddhānta-Kaumudi of Varadarāja, let’s take a look at the general structure and arrangement of themes in the Ashtadhyayi itself (assuming that there is some method in the madness!).

According to Ram Nath Sharma (Vol.I, p.74 onwards, see the References Page), the method in Panini’s arrangement is to group sutras in domains, so as to mark off the range of action of particular directions. He sees another motivation in this, that of developing a metatheory, which to me is seems a bit obscure as a concept. The thematic content is arranged as follows according to Sharma:

Book I:
(a) major definitions and interpretational rules
(b) rules dealing with extensions (atideśa)
(c) rules dealing with ātmanepada nad parasmaipada
(d) rules dealing with the kāraka’s

Book II
(a) rules dealing with compounds
(b)  rules deletion with nominal inflection
(c) rules dealing with number and gender of nouns
(d) rules dealing with replacements relative to roots
(e) rules dealing with deletion by LUK

Book III
(a) rules dealing with roots ending in affixes saN, etc.
(b) rules dealing with derivation of items ending in a Kŗt
(c) rules dealing with derivation of items ending in a tiŊ (basically, verb forms)

And thus it goes on. So basically, the definitions of terms (called saɱjña) and many of the metarules – the conventions about technical terms and operants – is contained in the first quarter of Book I. Because of the “dominance of the terms”, Sharma says that Book I is labeled as saɱjñādhikāra, ‘domain of names’.

One issue with this separation of terms and applications is that we will have to bring together sutras from far corners to make sense. In the last article, I suggested that if we have defined a vŗddham (a word having a long vowel ā or diphthong ai, au as the first of its vowels), it would be nice if we immediately came upon a note at least alluding to its applications. This the grammar does not furnish (no doubt because of the aphoristic character of Panini’s work, essential to fix the sutras in the mind with least difficulty), and it is the commentator who has to supply these cross-references. The sutras are like bare formulae, and the whole exercise of studying them is to remember the cross-references, exceptions and conflicts, prohibitions and hierarchies or orders of precedence in the subsequent applications.

Further discussion on the structure will not make much sense until we have gone through more of the chapters: it will be like those scientific definitions of a common object which fail to strike a bell, but which become obvious once the answer is revealed (this characterizes certain exaggeratedly scholastic works). We will next proceed to the Laghu version of Varadarāja, and see where that leads.

33 Words with long vowels: vŗddham

Before wrapping up Part 1 (Pāda 1) of the first book (adhyāya), let us just look at the final sutras that we summed up in the last post:

1.1.73 vŗddhir yasyācām ādistadvŗddham
Parsing of words:

vŗddhih (1/1, nominative singular: ‘long vowels, vŗddhi’) yasya (6/1, genitive, singular: ‘whose’)  acām (6/3. Genitive, plural: ‘of the vowels, aC’) ādih (1/1, nominative singular: ‘initial, first’) tad (1/1” ‘that’) vŗddham (1/1)

Paraphrase (vŗtti):

Acām (of the vowels, aC) madhye (in the midst of) yasya (whose) vŗddhi-samjñaka (a vŗddhi letter) ādi-bhūtah (first occurring)  tat śabda-rūpam (that word-form) vŗddha- samjñam (a vŗddha-term) bhavati (is).

That is, a word in which a vŗddhi letter (a long vowel ā or diphthong ai or au, see Post 2 here) occurs as the first of its vowels (aC, see the Pratyahara page here), is called a vŗddham. This technical term, or samjñam, is given for convenience in other rules.

Sharma (Vol.2, p. 73):
“That item, the first of whose vowels is a vŗddhi, is termed vŗddha”.

Vasu (Vol.1, p.66):
“That word, among the vowels of which the first is a vŗddhi, is called vŗddham”.

These words may come to have the said vŗddhi letter as a result of a rule application or derivation (tad-bhāvita), or by itself (a- tadbhāvita). Examples of the former (derived forms) include aupagavah, aupagavīyah from upagu, a name. Examples of the latter (naturally occurring) are the words śālīyah (‘that which pertains to a house, śālā’),  and mālīyah (‘that which is found in a garland, mālā’), where the vŗddhi letter ā is already contained. These forms are derived as per sutra 4.2.115, and will come in handy in other rules.

The next is:
1.1.74 tyadādīni ca

Parsing:
Tyad- ādīni (1/3, nominative plural: ‘tyat and following words’) ca (0, particle: ‘and’).
(vŗddham, by anuvŗtti, ellipsis, from #73)

The import is:
Tyad-ādīni (tyat and following) śabda-rūpāņi (word-forms) vŗddha- samjñāni ( vŗddha-terms)  bhavanti (are) ca (also).

Sharma (Vol.2, p.74) gives the list of ‘tyad etc.’, which are a part of the sarvādīni (sarva and following) words that were defined as sarvanāman (‘pronoun’), see post 16 here. Some of these are reproduced below, along with the forms derived by rule based on their being defined as vŗddha words (without having a vŗddhi letter as the first among their vowels).

Tyad ‘he, she, it’ → tyadīyam ‘his, etc.’
Tad ‘he, that’ → tadīyam ‘his’
Etat ‘this’ → etadīyam ‘this one’s’
Idam ‘this’ → → idamīyam ‘this one’s’
Adas ‘that’ → adasīyam ‘that one’s’
Yuşmad ‘you’ → tvadīyam ‘yours’
Asmad ‘I’ → → asmadīyam ‘mine’
Bhavat ‘you (polite)’ → bhavadīyah ‘yours (polite)’
Kim ‘what, who’ → kimīyam ‘whose’

The final sutra of part 1 (the first Foot or Quarter, Pāda) of Book 1 is the following:

1.1.75 eŋ prācām deśe
(yasyācām ādistadvŗddham from #73)

This says that
eŋ (1/1, nominative singular: ‘the letters e, o’) yasya ācām (‘of whose vowels’) ādih (‘first’) tat (‘that’) prācām (6/3, possessive, singular: ‘of eastern’) deśe (7/1, locative, singular: ‘in a country’) vŗddha- samjñam (termed vŗddha) bhavati (‘is’).

This extends the vŗddha definition to eastern place-names, that have –e- or –o- as the first of the vowels, rather than the vŗddhi vowels ā or ai, au. Examples include

bhojakața → bhojakațīyah ‘a resident of Bhojakața’

Presumably, these formations will be altered if the place is not in the eastern country. Perhaps a resident of Roma would be a romakah, not a romīyah!

Having worked valiantly through the entire first Pāda, I propose to make a diversion by taking up one of the variations, the Siddhanta-kaumudi of Bhattoji Dikshita or even the light version, the Laghu-siddhanta-kaumudi of Vardaraja. There are at least two incentives to do this. One is to see whther there are alternate arrangements of the ideas presented in the sutras ((and obviously there are); for instance, why doesn’t Panini put the sutras dealt with in this post right after the definition of vŗddhi (the first sutra, 1.1.1, to be exact)? It would be interesting to see what the other authors do: indeed, it will be seen that Panini’s first sutra is not the first sutra in their alternative arrangements.

The second purpose is to re-discover the sutras of Panini’s first quarter, with a fresh insight due to the different sequencing of ideas. A related benefit would be to cover a lot of sutras from different parts of Panini’s work, which will hopefully give an accelerated view of the great grammarian’s opus, and make it that much more enlightening when we come back to Panini.

32 Form versus meaning: what terms represent

We now come upon another metarule, a rule about rules or a convention. This is

1.1.68 svam rūpam śabdasyāśabdasamgῆā

Parsing:

Svam (1/1, nominative singular: ‘own’), rūpam (1/1: ‘form’),  śabdasya (6/1, genitive singular: ‘of a word’), ā-śabda-samgῆā (1/1: ‘not-word-technical term’)

A word occurring in the grammar denotes its form only, and not its meaning or synonyms; except when it is a technical term or name,  samgῆā, in which case it obviously refers to the thing denoted by that term, and not its form or shape. Note the extremely condensed way in which the last word – a phrase in itself – is built up.

In popular speech, a word has some meaning as it refers to a concrete thing or entity that may be referred to by other synonymous names.  This sutra is saying that we should not assume any such equivalence when we see words used in the grammar. Most words refer to some form or shape, rather than to a concrete thing as would be assumed in normal conversation.

Here’s the grammarians’ interpretation or Vŗtti (paraphrase):

Śāstre (‘in the treatise’) svam eva rūpam (‘own form only’) śabdasya grāhyam bodhyam pratyāyyam (‘the word’s significance’) bhavati (‘is’), na bāhyo (a)rthah (‘not any other meaning’) śabda-samgῆām varjayitva (‘technical terms excepted’).

In the above rendering, I have to admit that I have sort of glossed over the word-for-word translation. 

Sharma (Vol.II, p.68) just renders it as follows:

“A word other than one which is a technical term (samgῆā) of the grammar denotes its form only”.

Let’s see whether Vasu makes it any clearer:

“In this Grammar, when an operation is directed with regard to a word, the individual form of the word possessing meaning is to be understood, except with regard to a word which is a definition” (Vol.1, p.61).

Some examples from the literature are then provided. There is a sutra or rule 4.2.33 agner ḍhak. This denotes that after the word agni comes the suffix dhak or ḍhaK, a code or iT, which transforms the word to mean ‘whose deity is’: it makes the form āgneya, ‘belonging to agni’. The rule 1.1.68 says that the transformation will apply only to the specific word form agni, and not to its synonyms (fire). Other examples are given.

The book of explanations (vārttika) gives four exceptions to this principle, as follows. These are words ‘marked’ with the iT-markers S- (sit), P- (pit), J- (jit) and JH (jhit) (Sharma, p.69; Vasu, p.62). The words do not actually carry these letters, but are defined in a virtual manner to be so marked.  There is apparently no uniformity in the way these species behave in rules. One may represent themselves and their synonyms, in which case a rule may extend to their own form (sva-rūpa) as well as the synonyms; another may refer only to synonyms, not themselves. We will not go into these details; let us go forward to some of the subsequent developments.

1.1.69 aņudit savarņasya cāpratyayah

aņudit (1/1, nominative singular) savarņasya (6/1, genitive singular: ‘of similar letters’) ca a-pratyayah (1/1, nominative singular: ‘and not-an-affix’)

The first word is a compound, made up of the terms aņ and ut. The first aņ represents the letters from a to the marker Ņ in the Siva-sutras (look up the Page!). It may be noted that the marker Ņ occurs twice, and this sutra refers to the second of them: this covers the whole range of vowels (a to au) as well as the consonants h, y, v, r, and l. The second component ut or UT represents sounds marked with U. For instance, there is a set marked with U termed kU: these represent the set of velar stops, k kh g gha and ŋ, that is, k and its savarņa’s.

This is apparently an exception (or, one could say, an extension) of the rule 68 which said that a word represents only its own form. Here we are saying that a sound denoted by aŅ (the vowels from a to marker Ņ) will represent not only itself, but also similar letters (those sounded in similar fashion, including long and nasal versions). Further, letters marked by U will also denote all the savarna’s, and not just their own form (svam rūpam). Analogously, the other consonant series are termed cU, ṭU, tU, pU.

This extension does not include sounds which are added as affixes (pratyaya). Obviously, the rule-maker must take care to remember this caveat when formulating his rules!

Here’s one more extension:

1.1.70 taparastatkālasya

Parsing:

Ta-parah (1/1, nominative singular) tat-kālasya (6/1, genitive: ‘of that duuration’) (svam rūpam)

The first word ta-parah can be interpreted as ‘that which is followed by a T’ OR ‘that which follows a T’, a T being a marker (an iT). 

Sharma translates the Vŗtti as follows:

“A vowel followed by by t denotes sounds of the same duration” (p.71).

Vasu has:

“The letter which has t after or before it, besides referring to its own form, refers to those homogeneous letters which have the same prosodial length or time” (p.63). This is obviously a little more forthcoming than Sharma’s rendering!

Thus a form denotes at (aT) will include variants of a, like different tones, and nasalised, but not long a or extra-long a. If there were not the T (before or after the letter), however, all forms would be denoted, as per the preceding sutra about aŅ (see above).

Yet another explanation:

1.1.71 ādir antyena sahetā

Word parsing:

Ādih (1/1, nominative: ‘an initial item’) antyena (3/1, instrumental) saha (0: ‘with a final’) itā (3/1, instrumental: ‘with an iT’) (svam rūpam).

I’m not giving the detailed paraphrase (vŗtti) but going to the translations set forth by Sharma:

“An initial item joined with a final iT denotes not only itself but also all intervening items” (p.72)

And Vasu:

“An initial letter, with a final iT letter as a final, is the name of itself and of the intervening letters” (p.64).

This rule is supposed to be the one which tells us that a pratyāhāra includes all the letters in the range from the initial letter to the final iT.

1.1.72 yena vidhistadantasya

Yena (3/1: ‘by which’) vidhih (1/1: ‘a rule’) tat-antasya (6/1: ‘having that at its end’) (svam rūpam).

Vasu: “An injunction which is made with regard to a particular attribute, applies to words havig that attribute at their end as well as to that attribute itself”.

Sharma: “That (qualifier) by means of which a provision is made (in a rule) denotes an item which ends in it”.

This is understandable: it stretches a denotation to a whole set of similarly ending words. An explanation states that this should not be stretched to compound words with the given ending.

This brings us to the end of the svam rupam series. What is left in this quarter of the first adhyaya are a couple of sutras: 1.1.73 states that words which have a vŗddhi as the first among its vowels will be called vŗddham. Sutra 1.1.74 states that the words tyad etc. are also called  vŗddham. This denotation apparently facilitates the application of certain derivations given in later rules. The last type of vŗddham is in rule 1.1.75, which states that names of Eastern countries with the letter e or o (eŋ) as the first among their vowels, will also be designated as vŗddham.

We thus come to the end of the first quarter or chapter of Book One, 1.1, and it’s quite an achievement. Just to vary the pace a bit, I propose to shift to another version of the grammar, the Laghu or Light version of Varadaraja, the Laghu-siddhanta-kaumudi, which itself is an abridgement of the Siddhanta-kaumudi of Bhattoji Dikshita. The arrangement and sequence is different from the Ashtadhyayi, although the material is substantially the same. Let us see whether the cryptic and convoluted structure of the Paniniyam is mitigated at all by the Kaumudi!

31 Metarules: locative, ablative

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.

30 Definitions of final elements in words

The next couple of sutras assign names to certain elements in words.

1.1.64 aco’ ntyādi ti

Acah (6/1) (of the aC range of letters, i.e. vowels) antyādi (1/1) (ādi, beginning with, antya, the last) TI (1/1) (termed TI)

 Vŗtti, paraphrase:

Acām (of the aC, i.e. vowels) sannivişţānām (? Of the entered) yo (yah) antyo (antyah) (which is the final, last) aC tadādi (that beginning with) śabdarūpam (word form) Ți samjñam (element called Ți) bhavati (is).

“That part of an item which begins with its last vowel (aC) is termed  Ți” (Sharma).

“The final portion of a word, beginning with the last among the vowels in the word, is called Ți” (Vasu).

This is therefore a technical definition, rather than a concept: it is a shorthand way of referring to the last segment of any word that starting from the last vowel (aC). The term Ți is an artificial creation, but is indicative of the last vowel; the Ț is an indicator, while the i can be seen as standing in for all vowels aC (one supposes it could also have been called by some other code like Ța or Ģu, but perhaps the grammarians chose Ți as it mimics the common verb ending –ti). The term Ți is used in other rules which prescribe modifications in the last vowel-segment, e.g. change of –ti or –i in a transitive, active (parasmaipada) verb form to –te or –e in the intransitive or reflexive (ātmanepada form,  bhavati versus vartate (is, exists): 3.4.79 Țit ātmanepadānām Ţere.

Incidentally, it is to be noted that even a single-letter word can have a final vowel-segment; this is an application of

1.1.21 ādi-antyavad (-vat) ekasminn (‘in a single(eka)-element, the element may be like (vat) a head (ādi) or a final (antya’).

If the previous sutra gives a technical name to the last vowel-initial segment, the next sutra defines another segment, this time the letter or element just before the final letter:

1.1.65 alo’ntyāt pūrva upadhā

Alah (5/1) antyāt (5/1) pūrva (1/1) upadhā (1/1)

As can be seen from the word parsing above, the first two are in the fifth case (ablative, ‘from’). The first noun aL refers to all the letters in the alphabet, or rather, since it is in singular number, any letter; the second word antyāt (‘last’) is also in ythe ablative, and can be taken as a qualifier, giving the sense of ‘from the last letter’.

Vŗtti (paraphrase):

Dhātvādau varņa-samudāye (in the group of letters, sounds) antyād (antyāt, 5/1) (from the end) alah (5/1) (from the letter, sound, aL) pūrvo (pūrvah) (prior, before) yo (yah) varņah (which letter, sound) so (sah) (that) alopadhā- (aLa upadhā-) (letter, aL) upadhā- samjño (samjñah) (upadhā – term) bhavati (is, constitutes).

“The sound (aL) which precedes the final sound of an item is called upadhā ‘penultimate sound’“ (Sharma).

“The letter immediately preceding the last letter of a word is called the penultimate” (Vasu).

Once again, the term upadhā is a coined name, but a different type from the Ți of the previous sutra in that it is not a marker or labelled term; upadhā is a noun, and may possibly stand for some meaning. The particle upa- denotes a sub-class of its type, dhā may be linked to the verbal root which means ‘to bear, hold’, so that there is a sense of something sub-ordinate, hence pen-ultimate, in contrast to the previous sutra which talked of the ultimate or last, antya. The need to define the penultimate sound will be met with in various other rules (of substitution or elision), such as 7.2.116 ata  upadhāyāh, which directs the replacement of short by long a in pac+aka (Sharma, II:67).