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!