Verbs in Sanskrit

Vyākaraṇ (व्याकरण): The philosophy of the grammarians

Language shapes the reality we live in. All aspects of the human experience is illuminated by language. Nothing exists without language. Every object, element, and idea exist in this world because we can express it through language. We ourselves create our reality using language. Enquiry into language has been a long lived tradition of the Indian philosophical thought. It was not just the Grammarians who talk about language but all schools of thought in the Indian philosophy have discussed the fundamental problem of communication. The necessity of ensuring no modification creeps up into the Vedic texts led to the Indian scholars to enquire, debate, and put forward theories of grammar and language. The Ṛg Veda (ऋग्वेद) has several references to the power of speech that is vāc (वाच). They talk about vāc (वाच) as powerful deity and ever ready to bestow her blessings on her devotees. Vedāṅga (वेदाङ्ग) is the six supplementary disciplines of Vedic studies that developed in Vedic and post Vedic times in which three are directly concerned with language: śikṣā (शिक्षा) which is to do with phonetics, phonology, and pronunciation; vyākaraṇa (व्याकरण) is grammar; and nirukta (निरुक्ता) which is etymology. The Sanskrit term for grammar, Vyākaraṇ (व्याकरण), means linguistic analysis. Śākalya (शाकल्य) was an ancient grammarian and scholar of the late Vedic period. He was one of the first to attempt the linguistic analysis of the Ṛg Veda and broke down the text of Ṛg Veda into words and identifying the separate elements of the compound words. Śaunaka (शौनक) who is attributed to Bṛhaddevatā (बृहद्देवता) says in his treatise that a sentence is made of words, and words are made up of phonemes. Pāṇini (पाणिनि) the grammarian who lived around 5th century BCE wrote the phenomenal piece about the descriptive grammar of Sanskrit Aṣṭādhyāyi (अष्टाध्यायी) which is regarded as the greatest monument of human intelligence.

It was the etymological school of Yāska (यास्क), the author of Nirukta (निरुक्ता) who undertook the semantic analysis of the words with their components in the Vedic scriptures to explain their meaning in the context of their occurrence. He subscribed to the view that most of the nouns in Sanskrit can be derived from a verbal root. Bhartṛhari (भर्तृहरि) was a grammarian, poet, and a linguist philosopher. He is most famously known for Vākyapādīya (वाक्यपादीय), a treatise on sentences and words. Bhartṛhari (भर्तृहरि) introduced the concept of Sphoṭa (स्फोट) meaning "bursting, opening", "spurt", which talks about the meaning of the spoken words. He says that the linguistic fact is that the complete utterance of a sentence is the fundamental unit of spoken language. The spoken word or the sentence are to be taken as compete integral unit and not made of any smaller units. Although, he agrees that in linguistic analysis a sentence can be broken down to words, words to its roots, and roots to phonemes it has no basis in reality. A listener can only grasp the meaning of the spoken words when the complete sentence has been uttered. This concept is called Sphoṭa.

The goal of the philosophy of the grammarians was not just confined to intellectual knowledge but was to experience the ultimate truth. Knowledge in knowing the correct grammar and speech not only led to the right understanding but also helped to see the reality and hence the philosophical meaning of the Sanskrit term darśan (दर्शन) literally means sight. The grammarians did not reduce language to be a complete human convention having a scientific basis nor did they fall into the trap of metaphysical reductionism to make language seem as obscure mysticism. Paņini and Yāska not only studied human speech relating it to the everyday world, but they also made room for a metaphysical study. Bhartṛhari opens up Vākyapādīya with a metaphysical enquiry into origin and nature of language but then goes on to talk about the technical aspects of it in the next few śloka (श्लोक)

अनादिनिधनं ब्रह्म शब्दतत्त्वं यदक्षरम् । विवर्ततेऽर्थभावेन प्रक्रिया जगतो यतः ॥ १ ॥

anādinidhanaṃ brahma śabdatattvaṃ yadakṣaram | vivartate'rthabhāvena prakriyā jagato yataḥ || 1 ||

The Brahman who is without beginning or end, whose very essence is the Word, who is the cause of the manifested phonemes, who appears as the objects, from whom the creation of the world proceeds.

--Vakyapadiya of Bhartrihari Verse 1.1

द्वावुपादानशब्देषु शब्दौ शब्दविदो विदुः । एको निमित्तं शब्दानामपरोऽर्थे प्रयुज्यते ॥ ४४ ॥

dvāvupādānaśabdeṣu śabdau śabdavido viduḥ | eko nimittaṃ śabdānāmaparo'rthe prayujyate || 44 ||

In the words which are expressive, the learned discern two elements: one is the cause of the real word which, the other, is used to convey the meaning.

--Vakyapadiya of Bhartrihari Verse 1.44

अरणिस्थं यथा ज्योतिः प्रकाशान्तरकारणम् । तद्वच्छब्दोऽपि बुद्धिस्थः श्रुतीनां कारणं पृथक् ॥ ४६ ॥

वितर्कितः पुरा बुद्धया क्वचिदर्थं निवेशितः । करणेभ्यो विवृत्तेन ध्वनिना सोऽनुगृह्यते ॥ ४७ ॥

नादस्य क्रमजन्मत्वान्न पूर्वो न परश्च सः । अक्रमः क्रमरूपेण भेदवानिव जायते ॥ ४८ ॥

araṇisthaṃ yathā jyotiḥ prakāśāntarakāraṇam | tadvacchabdo'pi buddhisthaḥ śrutīnāṃ kāraṇaṃ pṛthak || 46 ||

vitarkitaḥ purā buddhayā kvacidarthaṃ niveśitaḥ | karaṇebhyo vivṛttena dhvaninā so'nugṛhyate || 47 ||

nādasya kramajanmatvānna pūrvo na paraśca saḥ | akramaḥ kramarūpeṇa bhedavāniva jāyate || 48 ||

Just as the fire which is within the churnsticks is the cause of the other fire (which is kindled), similarly, the word which is in the mind (of the speaker) becomes the cause of the different expressive words. First conceived in the mind and applied to some meaning or other, the word is suggested by the sounds which are produced by the articulatory organs. Because the gross sound (nāda) is produced in a sequence, the word which is neither prior nor posterior nor has any sequence, is manifested as having sequence and parts.

--Vakyapadiya of Bhartrihari Verse 1.46-1.48

Also worth noting another aspect of the grammarians and their study of language. The correct use of language is not seen as conveying new knowlledge, but rather uncovering ancient knowledge that has been obscured due to ignorance. Here the ancient knowledge being referred to is the teachings of the Veda.

Yāska's philosophy: Verbs the ultimate root of all nouns?

Yāska (यास्क) a 5th century BCE a grammarian and Vedic linguist in his book Nirukta (निरुक्त) which is a commentary on Nighanṭu (निघन्ठु), a collection of Vedic words, talks about etymology in deep. Yāska follows the tradition in the Brāhmna (ब्राह्मण) - a distinct layer of Vedic literature, part of śruti (श्रुति) itself - of giving etymological explanation of the words. He wanted etymology to work hand in hand with grammar as considering the context and the meaning while explaining the meaning of the word was important as the same word could be derived and explained in different ways to suit different contexts. He also theorised that "the noun indeed is derived from verb." Yāska categorises śabda (शब्द) - word into four groups:

  1. nāma (नाम) - noun
  2. ākhyāt (आख्यात) - verb
  3. upsarga (उपसर्ग) - preposition/prefix
  4. nipat (निपत) - particle

Yāska considers dhātu (धातु) - root, to be the primordial element of the word. For nouns he claims that all of them are derived from verbs.

नामानि आख्यातजानि

nāmāni ākhyātajātāni

Nouns are verb-born.

-- Nirukta 1.12

But he also mentions that there is a difference of opinion among scholars on this claim.

न सर्वाणि इति गार्ग्यो वैयाकरणानांश्च एके

na sarvāṇi iti gārgyo vaiyākaraṇānāṃś ca eke

Not all [nouns are so derived] — so says Gārgya, and some among the grammarians agree

-- Nirukta 1.12

Paṇini does not explicitly takes sides on this argument but the architecture of Aṣṭādhyāyi (अष्टाध्यायी) implicitly supports this notion. His grammar is built on a list of roughly 2000 roots - dhātupātha (धातुपाठ), which acts as the generative basis of the entire system. He provides the machinery for the verabl derivation of nouns but does not assert that all nouns must be derived from verbs.

caitraḥ ghaṭaṃ karoti (चैत्र: घटं करोति) translates to Chaitra makes a pot. For grammarians the verb karoti करोति forms the center of gravity. The agent (Chaitra) and the object (pot) are satellites of that verbal action. The focus is on the action itself with participants defined relative to it. This reflects the vyākaraṇa (व्याकरण) tradition's deep commitment to the verb root (dhātu) as the primary focus of meaning the kriyā (क्रिया) - action is at the center of reality.

What are verbs?

Yāska gives us a very metaphysical explaination of what a verb (आख्यातम्) means. He says that the verb has bhāva (भाव) as its priamry meaning. bhāva comes from the verbal root bhů (भू) which means "to become". He goes on to contrast this with noun saying that noun has sattva (सत्त्व) as it primary meaning. sattva comes from the root as (अस्) and means "to be, is". Here the classification is based on the process oriented nature of bhů versus the state oriented nature of as. The two roots synonymsly mean "to exist" but in a very different way. Yāska divided Sanskrit speech words into four parts: verb, noun, preposition, and particle (more on these later). The verb is concerned with a dynamic activity involving the time factor while the noun represents a static state. The verb indicates the action, which takes place in a temporal sequnece. The temporality matters here. Bhartrrṛhari explains that reality when it appears in a temporal sequence in various things is called kriyā (क्रिया) or bhāva and when viewed without any such temporal sequence is called sattva. So, generally speaking verb is a word that expresses an action.

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb by inflection. Remeber, from the last article:

Sanskrit is an inflected language.

There is an important distinction to be made here. We should avoid regarding nouns as just "things" and verbs as just "actions". The critical difference between these two terms are that a finite verb (तिङन्त) (more on finite vs infite verb later) is a word that varies with person, number, tense, mode, and voice. A noun/nominal (सुबन्त) is a word that varies whith case, number, and gender. Well what are these varities? These are grammatical categories or inflectional categories of the verb. In Sanskrit grammar the term is dhāturūpa (धातुरूप). A finite verb is is the heart of a Sanskrit sentence. Without it, there can be no complete grammatical sentence. Let's look at what these grammatical categories do:

  • Person/ puruṣa (पुरुष): This category specifies the relationship among the agents or subjects of a finite verb, the user(s) or speaker(s) of the sentence of which the verb is a part, and the audience, person, thing, of group to whom the sentence is addressed. It basically differentiates between the first, second, and third person. The first person refers to the speaker (I),; the second to the person spoken to (you); and the third person to someone or something speon about (he/she/it/they). However, there is a slight difference in the how Sanskrit refers to these perspectives. Sanskrit counts persons starting from the one spoken about, not the one speaking. So:

    • prathamapuruṣa (प्रथमपुरुष): "first" = he/she/it (English third person)
    • madhyamapuruṣa (मध्यमपुरुष): "middle" = you (English second person)
    • uttamapuruṣa (उत्त्मपुरुष): "last/highest" = I (English first person)

    English counts from the speaker going outwards and Sanskrit counts from the discourse subject inward.

  • Number / vacan (वचन): Finite verbs are inflected for singular / ekvacana (एकवचन) to refer to one thing or person and plural / bahuvacana (बहुवचन) to refer to multiple things or people just like English. However, unlike English Sanskrit has a dual / dvivacana (द्विवचन) specifically referring to exactly two of something. It should be translated to English as "we two", "the two of us", "the two of them", "the two sisters", or simply as plurars "we", "they", "the sisters".

  • Tense & mood / lakāra (लकार): This category represents the time expressed by the verbs. It is the time in which the action referred by the verb occurred relative to the time in which the verb form is used. The different moods of a verb expresses different kind of utterances in which the action is referred to say, whether it is something that is actually occurring (either in past, preset, or future), or as something that either might happen or ought to happen. The five tenses of Sanskrit are:

    • Present / vartamānkala (वर्तमानकाल): For referring to an action that takes place more or less at the same time that the verbal form is used. The Sanskrit present tense corresponds to the English present ("I go to the park") and the progressive present ("I am going to the park").
    • Aorist / luṅ lkāra (लुड् लकार): The aorist has reference ot the past time indefinitely or generally without references to anmy particular time. An action done beofre today is epressed by the perfect or imperfect; whatever remains for the aorist is to express a past action done very recently. Aorist merely implies the completion of an action at a past time generally and also an action done at a very recent time as during the course of the day.
    • Imperfect / laṅ lakāra (लड् लकार): Used to express the sense of past before the commencement of the current day.
    • Perfect / lit lakāra (लिट लकार): Expresses the sense of past signifying what took place before the current day and not percieved by the speaker.
    • Future / bhaviṣyakāla (भविष्यकाल): For referring to an action that takes place in the future relative to the speaker's time.

    Sanskrit has 3 ways to refer to the past / bhutakāla (भुतकाल) but generally speaking they express the same thing: an action that took place prior to the present. Following are the modes in Sanskrit:

    • Indicative: For referring to an action that actually did, does or will take place. It is basically used for statements about reality that is things that are. eg. "you are going to the park."
    • Potential: This is used to refer to an action that ought or ought not to take place, as well as an action that might or might not take place. Used to express possibilities or wishes that is things that could be. eg. "you should/might/could go to the park.", "if you go to the park...", or even future like "you will go to the city". The potential is also sometimes called the subjunctive or the optative.
    • Imperative: This expresses an action that from the speaker's perspective must or must not take palce. Used for giving commands or orders.
  • Diathesis or Voice / pada (पद):