22 Past participle endings, nişţhā

We had overlooked a sutra in the previous sequence of articles, pertaining to the endings of the past participle forms. Before going further, let us look at it now:

1.1.26 ktaktavatū  nişţhā

The words are parsed (Sharma, Vol2, p.27) as follows: the first is in nominative case, dual number 1 /2, the second is in singular 1/1. The paraphrase or vŗtti is as follows:

Ktaśca ktavatuśca ktaktavatū pratyayau nişţhā sam̨jñau bhavatah̨

Or,

ktah̨ ca (Kta and) KtavatUh̨ ca (ktavatu [and])  ktaktavatū (the pair) pratyayau (affixes) nişţhā sam̨jñau (words, entitites [dual number]) bhavatah̨ (are, constitute [dual number]). To simplify,

'The affixes Kta and KtavatU constitute the nişţhā entities, i.e. are called nişţhā entitites.'

Vasu (p.21-22) renders this simply as follows:

“The affixes Kta and KtavatU are called nişţhā.” 

It may be noticed here that we are showing the indicatory or boundary markers (following the convention in Sharma) by upper case in the formulations Kta and KtavatU: the actual affixes are only ta and tavat. The other small point to note is how the word ktaktavatū is formed by combining the two affixes, but the final –U of the latter (KtavatU) is taken as the nominative case ending and lengthened to –ū to make it dual (number). Correspondingly, the succeeding words are also in dual number, the noun sam̨jñau, and the verb, bhavatah̨.

These are actually affixes of the past participle:

Kŗtah ‘done’
Kŗtavān ‘he did’ (nominative masculine singular from kŗtavat)
Bhuktah ‘eaten’
bhuktavān ‘he ate’ (nominative masculine singular from bhuktavat)

(I would translate Kŗtavān as ‘he who has done’ etc.)

Vasu refers to the K marker as indicating these affixes as KiT, subject to all the rules regarding such entities; one instance is rule 1.1.5, which is supposed to block the application of guņa and vŗddhi substitutions of iK vowels by rule 1.1.3, “when that which is marked by K, G, or Ŋ conditions the replacement” (Sharma, Vol.2, p.9).

In a similar fashion, Vasu points out that the –U of the affix  KtavatU leads to formation of femininine forms by adding a long vowel ī, e.g. kŗtavat- kŗtavatī.

Sharma goes on to describe a quibble on calling something by a technical  term (here, nişţhā), when that term is not invoked until later, in sutra 3.2.102: “If these affixs are to be nişţhā, they must be introduced without assigning the term nişţhā” (Sharma, Vol.1, p.27). He goes on to resolve this seeming contradiction in terms, which I for one have difficulty following. It seems that he wants the affixes to be defined independently, and then given the appellation nişţhā. It seems to me that this is not the way the grammarian works; he does not generally give any common language terms of description to his entitities, but defines them by the relationships. He does not, in this case for example, say that these are the affixes that form past participles; he just calls them nişţhā, and I do not see any connection with what this term may denote in common parlance.