A Sanskrit grammar for beginners

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SANSKRIT GRAMMAR FOR BEGINNERS BY

F. MAX MULLER

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NEW ANIJ A.BRIDGEIJ EDITION .ACCENTED

.A.ND

TRANSLITERA.TED

THROUGHOUT

WITH .A. CHAP'rER ON SYNTAX .A.ND .A.N APPENDIX ON

CLASSIC~L

METRES

BY

A. A. MACDONELL, M.A., PH.D. llBMBBR OP THE GBRMAN ORIBNTAL SOCIBTY AND 011 THE llOYAL ASIATIC SOCIBTY OP GREAT BRIT'AIN AND IRELAND

L ONDON LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

1886

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.,....,All rigl;ts reserved -·--

®xfotll PR.INTRO BY HOR ACF. HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVhRSJTY

'·' ' i•_

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. As I am growing old I begin to feel that it is difficult, if not im1)ossible, to keep · my books young, or to revive them constantly by what we call ne\v editions. vVhen I had revised the last edition of my Sanskrit . Grammar, I bade farewell to it. What I had 'vished to achieve, little as it may seem, I . had achieved, namely, to supply a grammatical manual, correct in all its rules and paradigms) and containing · for all important matters references to Panini, the highest grammatical authority, recognised as such by all post-Vedic writers of Sanskrit. It may not seem, as I said, to be a very hi.gh aim to produce a correct gr ammar, and to make its correctness dependent on the authority of another grammarian. But when we examine other grammars, and see, for instance, such forms as naman given through successive editions as a Nominative and Accusative singular, when we see such breaches of the simplest phonetic rules as in Benfey's impossible form adaktam 1 , etc» matched in one of the most recent Sanskrit Grammars by Whitney (arauttam) 2 , a claim to freedom from clerical errors will hardly be considered a very modest claim. Nor do I flatter myself to have always reached that standard ·of correctness which is :cepresented to us in the truly marvellous work of Panini. ' It has been argued, not without a certain plausibility, that no grammar, not even that of Panini, ought to be constituted into an infallible tribunal, but that the language itself and the liter ature should form the final court 1 2

Kurze Grammatik, § 265, ix, p. 178, paradigm dah. Sanskrit Gramm.ar, § 882, paradigm rudh.

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PREFACE

of appeal in all questions of grammatical right or wrong. True as this principle would be everywhere else, it is not so in Sanskrit, at least, not with regard to that literature for which alone my grammar is intended. The whole of Sanskrit literature, with the exception of the Vedic and the Buddhistic, is so completely under the sway of Panini's rules that even a poet like Kalidasa would be considered guilty of a grammatical blunder, if he used a form not recognised by Panini. This is a state of things unknown in any other literature, and supplies, I believe, a perfect justification for the absolute deference paiid by myself and others to Panini's authority. There is, of course, some debatable land, such as the two great epic poems, and again, some rifaccimenti of V edic works, such as Mann and other law-books, in which ancient kliandasa forms occur and in which Panini's authority is not completely recognised. Still even there the more ancient and more historical forms, which contravene the rules of Panini, are looked upon by all native scholars as exceptions, so much so that when I myself appealed to the authority of Vyasa, the reputed author of the Mahabharata, in support of such a form as himsasva, which, in my Sanskrit translation of 'God save the Queen,' I had borrowed from the Mahilbharata, I was told that this · form, not having the authority of Panini, would be offensive to the ears of nativ-e scholars. Though the case wa.s by no means so clear as my friendly critics imagined, I gladly yielded to their remonstrances, changing ·himsasva into ukkhinddhi. My own opinion was, and i s still, that a Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners, such as mine was meant to be, and a grammar thait might safely be used by candidates for the Civil Service of India, without their running the risk of being punished for forms which they learn from well-accredited books, sl1ould not attempt more than to give such rules as can claim the authority of Panini. To attempt the higher task of writing an historical grammar of the Sanskrit language,

TO THE "NEW EDITION.

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)iever entered my mind. If one knows the difficulties of an historical grammar of Greek, Latin, or German, one may well doubt whether the time has come for attempting a history of the language of a country in which nothing is so entirely absent as history. I know, of course, that I have been charged with inconsistency, because I ventured to introduce into my grammar the Vedic system of accentuation, which is not recognised in post-Vedic Sanskrit, and has its proper place in an historical grammar only. I must plead guilty to that charge, but I considered the. accent so useful for purely practical purposes, and so full of interest for the Science of Language, that I decided to mark it throughout, at least in the transliterated portions of my grammar, wherever it could be done with certainty and with a hope of practical usefulness. . It is interesting to see how the same objections which were raised against the old Greek and Latin school-grammars, begin to be raised against the grammars of Sanskrit. It is well known that ever so many forms are given in the llaradigms of rv1Trl ii,

+

Ex. " ' 'if = n"il tat + ka takka, and this; ifil'.. f\Flf~ = n'f~i!f~ tat+ khinatti takkhinatti, he cuts this ; ifil'.. + ~tfif 1 = il'~~Tra .....

=

tat + srinoti

= taksrinoti,

he hears this;

..... i\'Tlfif = ifTirllfif tat + gayate = taggayate, this is born.

ifil'.. +

In the last example the final i1'... t is changed to' k, and then to ~g

(38): the same change would take place before an initial 'Jigh ;

and before an initial ">l ii, i1'... t might become either ~g or ">l ii . 35 (63) . Final ~n before ~g, ~ gh, ~ii, and ~sis changed to palatal ~ii. Ex. il''R:. "stllfn = ifT~fn tan+ gayati = taiigayati, he conquers them.

+

~

Note-Rules on the change of s wiU be given in 43 and 45.

final~

u before' k,

~

kh, and

36 (64). Final' t before~ t, '.m a: ~fir'ElITT'~: iidvish-uh; ~ ya (cl. II), to go,~ ayah or ~~~ ay-uh.

Pa.ra.digms. 143 (322). As the four classes of the first conjugation are inflected exactly alike, one paradigm will suffice for them. The same applies to the fifth and eighth classes. In the second class, fsl{_ elvish has been used, instead of ~ ad, for the paradigm, because it illustrates better than ~ acl both the rWes of internal Sandhi and the difference between strong and weak forms. G

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FIB.ST CON J'UGATION. First Class :

./'1-. bM, to be; _Fresent stem ~ bhav-a. Present.

PARASMAIPADA. SIN!}ULAB.

I.~ bMva-mi

DUAL.

N>

ATMANEPADA. DUAL.

PLURAL.

PLURAL.

SINGULAR.

~:

~ST

a.)

efn fti,

thus, 1. is placed at the encl of the exact words of quotations. With verbs of saying it supplies the place of inverted commas and of the indirect construction in English: ilq'T'~i Olifl,lqtif'lfit lf 'fllj