Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-72139 ISBN 0-89148-078-1 (cloth) ISBN 0-89148-079-X (paper) First Edition published 1997, Second Printing 1999 Third Printing 2001, Fourth Printing 2003, Fifth Printing 2007 Copyright © 1997, 1999, 200 1, 2003, 2007 By Centers for South and Southeast Asian Studies The University of Michigan All rights reserved , Printed in the United States of America I Dedicated to Late Professor Shreedhar Ganesh linsiwale (1852-1903 ) my great-grand-mother's maternal uncle who was the first Professor ofSanskrit (at the Free Church College, Bombay) in our family and whose stories inspired me since my childhood to follow in his footsteps • CONTENTS Pages Preface xi Sanskrit Language xiii Lesson 1. Sanskrit Alphabet 1 Lesson 2. Verbs: First conjugation, active 29 (qt~ql4:;p present tense Personal Pronouns: Nominative Lesson 3. Masculine and Neuter Nouns in aJ 35 Prepositions Personal Pronouns: Accusative Sandhi: anusvara, visarga Lesson 4. Verbs: Fourth, Sixth, Tenth 45 Conjugations, active (q t~qrq;!f) ... Negation and Some Connectives: :;:r, =if, CiT, '(!If Sandhi: ,. ~ OJ Lesson 5. Explanation of Cases 53 Lesson 6. Active (qt~qrq1) Verbs: Past Imperfect, 61 Imperative, Potential Lesson 7. Declensions of Personal Pronouns 67 Use of Indeclinables f, Lesson 8. Feminine Nouns in 3lT, 3l 73 Pronouns: ~, liC[, '(!(fC( Lesson 9. Masculine Nouns in ~ and 'J' 79 Feminine Nouns in ~ and 'J' Sandhi: visarga, vowels Lesson 10. Middle (3'lI?i~q (41) Verbs: Present Tense 87 Sandhi: vowels 141) Lesson 11. Middle (3'lk;q~q Verbs: Past Imperfect, 93 Imperative, Potential fi«r, Affixes: ~ Lesson 12. Gerunds and Infinitives 99 Lesson 13. Masculine and Feminine Nouns in i 107 Sandhi: consonants vii Lesson 14. Neuter Nouns in ~, 3', 51 113 Adjectives Lesson 15. Verbs with Prepositions ~s) 121 m) Lesson 16. The Passive Voice ~ 129 Lesson 17. Future Tense (t=lf type) 139 Lesson 18. Irregular and Rare Nouns ending 145 in vowels Lesson 19. Nouns Ending in Consonants: 155 One-stem type Lesson 20. Present Active Participles 165 for Active (q(~qFct1) Verbs Future Active (q (~qret",,) Participles '\ Lesson 21. Present Active Participles 171 for Middle (3i1?i~qFct1) Verbs Present Passive ~ Participles Lesson 22. Past (Imperfect) Participles 175 (in -0 and -~) Lesson 23. Demonstrative Pronouns fC.Pl and afcR{ 185 Nouns with Two Stems Lesson 24. More Nouns with Two Stems, Nouns 191 with Three Stems Degrees of Comparison Lesson 25. Second Conjugation 203 Lesson 26. Second Conjugation (continued) 213 Lesson 27. Third Conjugation 223 Lesson 28. Fifth Conjugation 231 Lesson 29. Seventh Conjugation 237 Lesson 30. Eighth Conjugation 245 Lesson 31. Ninth Conjugation 251 Lesson 32. Compounds (ijlI'RJ) 261 Lesson 33. Locative and Genitive Absolutes 279 Lesson 34. Sanskrit Numerals 285 Lesson 35. Gerundives, Present Middle participles 293 in an;(', Periphrastic (-0Ii{) Future Lesson 36. Past Perfect 303 Lesson 37. Past Aorist 313 viii l 1 Lesson 38. Conditional Mood 327 Benedictive Mood Lesson 39. Secondary Verb Roots 339 Causative Verbs Lesson 40. Desiderative Verbs 353 Lesson 41. Syntax of Ditransitive «(g4i:q4i) Verbs 363 Lesson 42. Intensive I Frequentative Verbs 371 Lesson 43. Denominative Verbs 377 -3Pf Lesson 44. Gerunds in 383 Irregular consonant-ending nouns Additional S8.nskrit Readings 389 1. ~'iT 391 2. ~lf;a81i.fl'1T 393 3. q1"1 (¥i4i(i.fl'1T 395 4. 'f11riti'iT 397 5. ~lqUI4i'1T 399 6. ~JIi.flI4i~JI184i'1T 401 7. ~8q¥i11;:Jlijitff 403 lAc; 8. i.flr liji.fl'iT 405 9. ~4i:o:tlIq)lIT 407 10. ~1~dlf4 411 Glossary 417 Sanskrit • English Glossary 419 English. Sanskrit Glossary 453 Audio files for lessons and readings: www.iLumich.edu!csas!publications ix I PREFACE To The Fourth Reprint Edition I started working on this book around 1976 and almost twenty generations of my students at Michigan used its successively im­ proved versions before the book was finally officially published in 1997. During its long pre-publication life, this book received attention and assistance from a number of my students, especially Ann Wehmeyer, Sandy Huntington, Brian Akers, Patrick Pranke, and Jonathan Silk. Professor Gudrun Buhnemann (Wisconsin) and Profes­ sor Stella Sandahl (Toronto) have also offered suggestions for improving the book. Professor Thomas Hudak (Arizona) offered invaluable help in preparing the camera-ready copy of the book and made suggestions for formal consistency. Besides these students and colleagues, I also want to thank (Late) Pt. N.N. Bhide and Professor S.D. Laddu of Pune for their extensive comments. The current fourth reprint of the book incorporates corrections point­ ed out by Dr. Gary Tubb (Columbia). With all this help, I still bear the ultimate responsibility for the final shape of the book. This book looks at Sanskrit as a productive language, rather than as a dead language which can only be deciphered. I have not insisted on each Sanskrit example being a citation from a classi­ cal text, though many examples are versions of classical passages modified to fit the level of grammar covered in a given lesson. I have personally contributed poems, plays, and serious writing, and have participated in literary and Sastric debates in Sanskrit. Therefore, I have not felt shy in composing Sanskrit passages myself, though I have deliberately kept modernisms of modern Sanskrit at a minimum and have emphasized the classical patterns. The book is expressly designed to be introductory. That means it does not pretend to cover and explain all possible nuances of Sanskrit grammar, and does not go into every possible exception to its rules. It deals with the standard classical language, and does not deal with Vedic Sanskrit, or with peculiarities of the epic, Buddhist or other non-standard varieties of Sanskrit. The book is oriented toward learning and teaching Sanskrit as a language, and does not aim at teaching Sanskrit linguistics, either in its Indo-European or PaI).inian dimensions. In this regard, I have been influenced a lot by the textbooks of English, German and French I used to learn these languages. Those students who need more direct access to Sanskrit linguistics should be directed to specific works in that category. Similarly, the book is not intended to teach Hinduism, Buddhism, or J ainism. The examples are inclusive of these traditions, but they also include Sanskrit poetry and satire, and are intended to teach Sanskrit as a language, rather than as a moral, religious, or a mystical code. Each introductory book ultimately needs to make a choice of facts, explanations, and the order and the amounts in which these facts and explanations should be provided to the student. My choice is guided by my own experience of teaching Sanskrit for the past thirty-two years. The book is not designed for self-study, and assumes that the instructor knows a great deal more Sanskrit xi than what is contained in this book and can provide more detailed explanations if demanded by students. I hope that the publication of this book will advance the cause of Sanskrit instruction. I have myself composed the bulk of stories and exercises in this book. A few of them are direct quotations from classical works, and others are altered versions of classical passages modified to fit the level of grammar known to the student at a given point. I have not consciously and deliberately excerpted examples from other Sanskrit textbooks. However, there will necessarily be a certain amount of shared examples. I studied Sanskrit since the age of ten, using a wide variety of teaching materials in Marathi, Sanskrit, and English, and these materials have an enormous overlap in cited examples. As a result, it is not possible to attribute a given example to a specific source. I wish to acknowledge my general indebtedness to all the teaching materials I have used over the years to acquire the knowledge of Sanskrit. I am extremely pleased to see that this book is now going into its fourth printing in a short span of seven years. Its success as a basic textbook for teaching Sanskrit is by now self­ evident. In this fourth reprint, I have made additional correc­ tions for the minor typographical and other errors which I noticed myself, and also those which were pointed out to me. However, except for these very minor corrections, the book remains identi­ cal with the first three printings. Ann Arbor, May 27, 2003 Madhav M. Deshpande xii I SANSKRIT LANGUAGE Professor Madhav M. Deshpande Sanskrit is the oldest attested member of the Indo-Aryan language-family, itself a sub-branch of Indo-Iranian, which is in turn a branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The oldest known Indo-Aryan texts, the Vedas, were composed in an archaic form of Sanskri t called Vedic. The oldest among the Vedas, the IJgveda, dates to the middle of the second millennium B.C. and was composed largely in the Northwestern region of the Indian sub-continent. Subsequently, Indo-Aryans moved fprther east and south within the sub-continent, and later Vedic:. texts were produced in these areas. The late Vedic period continued until the middle of the first millennium B.C. In all probability, writing was not known in this period, and the literature relevant for religious ritual was preserved by an extraordinarily accurate oral tradition which survives to this day in many parts of India. One can, however, detect dialectal differences as far back as the IJgveda, and these increased as the Indo-Aryans moved into different regions. With these migrations, the orally transmitted Vedic texts themselves imperceptibly underwent successive alterations, as is evident from the branches and sub-branches of the Vedic textual traditions. The Rgveda was followed by other Vedas, i.e., the Atharvaveda, Yajurveda and Samaveda, in various recensions. These texts consist largely of prayers to Vedic deities composed by the Aryan priests, ritual formulae, curses, incantations, etc., and are generally referred to by the word mantra in the Indian tradition. These were followed by prose compositions, mostly commentatorial and exegetical in nature, called Brahma'1}as, and philosophical and mystical texts known as the U panu,ads. The chronological divisions among these texts are not sharp and there is some overlap, but the language of the early Vedic texts can be neatly distinguished from that of the late Vedic prose. There are traces of vernacular languages, or what are later called Prakrits, even in early Vedic texts, but it is fairly clear that S0111e form of Sanskri t was used as the first language by the Vedic poets. Throughout its history, Sanskrit was influenced· by the languages with which it came in contact and, in turn, it influenced them. Even the oldest Vedic texts show some signs of convergence with non-Aryan languages in phonology, syntax and lexicon. Indications of this convergence, only minor in early phases, become more pronounced in later centuries. Sanskrit, as a second language, was also substantially influenced by the first languages of its speakers, be they Indo-Aryan vernaculars such as the Prakrits or non-Aryan tongues such as the Dravidian languages of South India. At the same time, as the elite language par excellence, Sanskrit exerted tremendous influence on Indo-Aryan and non-Aryan vernaculars. In almost every case, the literary xiii vernaculars were in fact Sanskritized varieties of these languages. The vernacularization of Sanskrit and the Sanskritization of vernaculars have been simultaneous processes in Indian linguistic history, which have substantially affected every dimension of all these languages. In the case of Sanskrit, the dedicated indigenous tradition of scholarship has helped maintain a certain amount of stability in the morphological structure of the language. A closer examination, however, reveals substantial changes in phonology, syntax and lexicon. The middle of the first millennium B.C. marks a general transition to what is called Classical Sanskrit. Somewhat akin to the language of the late Vedic prose, the Classical language slowly began to lose its standing as a first language to becoming a second - language important for religion and learning acquired through ritual apprenticeship and a study of grammar. By this time, the language of the Vedic hymns, which were orally preserved and recited, was becoming partially unintelligible, and its correct pronunciation and comprehension required deliberate study. This eventually led to the emergence of phonetic analysis, etymological studies, sophisticated recitational techniques, and general exegetical efforts. Eventually, this helped the development of the tradition of Sanskrit grammar. The oldest surviving grammar (i.e., A~tlidhyayi "Grammar in Eight Chapters") is ascribed to Panini who lived in the Northwestern corner of the sub-continent abOl.i.t 500 B.C. It presents a state of affairs in which the Vedic texts were orally preserved and studied, and a form of colloquial Sanskrit was widely used with near-native fluency. However, it also suggests the existence of vernacular languages which are fully attested a few centuries later as the Prakrits or the Middle Indo-Aryan languages. It is unlikely that Sanskrit was Pal).ini's mother-tongue, but it is obvious that it was widely used in various walks of life by different communities and was not restricted to the priestly class or to the context of ritual. In later centuries, the sociolinguistics of Sanskrit went on changing. Eventually, Sanskrit became a fossilized classical language, a second-language of high social prestige restricted generally to ritual and elite learning. The earliest readable inscriptions in India, those of the King ASoka in the 3rd century B.C., are in Prakrits (= Middle Indo-Aryan languages) and not in Sanskrit. The earliest known Sanskrit inscription of any importance comes from the 8aka (= Scythian) ruler Rudradaman (2nd century A.D.). It is important to note that the political patronage of Sanskrit in the ancient times emanated from the foreign rulers of western India and Sanskrit was given the status as the official language by the Guptas and by the "new" ~atriyas. Sanskrit was used by these rulers as a means to integrate themselves into the local society, as did Sakas, or else as a sYlnbol of high status. Sanskrit eventually became the dominant language of inscriptions through the rest of the first millennium A.D. It was used by poets, philosophers, ministers, xiv b