Sanskrit sa„sk“tam
Pronunciation:	[s„-sk--t-“m]
Spoken in:	Greater India
Total speakers:	49,736 fluent speakers (1991 Indian census)
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Sanskrit
Writing system:	Devan„gar“ and several other Br„hm“-based scripts
Official status
Official language in:	One of the 22 scheduled languages of India
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	sa
ISO 639-2:	san
ISO 639-3:	san
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Sanskrit (-- - sa„sk-t“ v“k, for short sa„sk“tam) is a historical Indo-Aryan language, a liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism,^[1] and one of the 22 official languages of India.^[2]

Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of P-“ini, around the 4th century BCE. Its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of Nepal and India.^[3]

The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back to as early as 1500 BCE,^[4] qualifying Rigvedic Sanskrit as one of the oldest attestation of any Indo-Iranian language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.^[5]

The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and Hindu religious texts. Today, Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are many attempts at revival.

Etymology

The Sanskrit verbal adjective sa„sk“ta- may be translated as "put together, well or completely formed, refined, highly elaborated".^[6] It is derived from the root sa-(s)kar- "to put together, compose, arrange, prepare",^[7] where sa-- "together" (as English same) and (s)kar- "do, make". The language referred to as sa„sk-t“ v-k "the cultured language" has by definition always been a "sacred" and "sophisticated" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people, pr„k“ta- "natural, artless, normal, ordinary". It is also called d-va-bh meaning the "divine language" or the "language of devas or demigods".

History

Devimahatmya manuscript on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol script, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century.

Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. Its closest ancient relatives are the Iranian languages Old Persian and Avestan.^[8]. Within the wider Indo-European language family, Sanskrit shares characteristic sound changes with the Satem languages (particularly the Slavic and Baltic languages), and also with Greek.^[9]

In order to explain the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, many scholars have proposed migration hypotheses asserting that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in what is now India and Pakistan from the north-west some time during the early second millennium BCE.^[10] Among the evidence in favor of such a theory is the close relationship of the Indo-Iranian tongues with the Baltic and Slavic languages, vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Finno-Ugric languages, and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.^[11]

The earliest attested Sanskrit texts are certain books of the Rigveda, which may be located in the Punjab region and dated to the mid-to-late second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive. However, scholars are confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they were ceremonial literature whose correct pronunciation was considered crucial to its religious efficacy.^[12]

From the Rigveda until the time of P--ini (fl. 4th century BCE) the development of the Sanskrit language may be observed in the Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, Brahmanas, and Upanishads. During this time the prestige of the language, its use for sacred purposes, and the importance attached to its correct enunciation all served as powerful conservative forces resisting the normal processes of linguistic change.^[13]

The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is P--ini's Adhy„y“ ("Eight-Chapter Grammar"). It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for some Vedic forms the use of which had become rare in P--ini's time.

The term "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment in ancient India and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as P--ini. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the Middle Indic dialects, and eventually into the contemporary modern Indo-Aryan languages.^{[citation needed]}

Vedic Sanskrit

Main article: Vedic Sanskrit

Sanskrit, as defined by P-“ini, had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. Beginning of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced as early as around 1500 BC (accepted date of Rig-Veda).^{[citation needed]} Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate 'dialects'. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations (Samhitas), theological discussions, and religio-philosophical discussions (Brahmanas, Upanishads) which are the earliest religious texts of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional compilations. The current hypothesis holds that the Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BC.^{[citation needed]} It is around this time that Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period.

Classical Sanskrit

For nearly two thousand years, a cultural order existed that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent, East Asia.^[14] A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics-the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from P-“ini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations" and not because they are pre-Paninean.^[15] Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (-), or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a Middle Indic literary language based on early Buddhist prakrit texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degree.^[16] According to Tiwari (1955), there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, viz., pa„cimottar“ (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), madhyade-- (lit., middle country), p-rvi (Eastern) and dak„i-“ (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three are even attested in Vedic Br„hma“as, of which the first one was regarded as the purest (Kau--taki Br„hma“a, 7.6).

Decline

See also: Termination of spoken Sanskrit

There a number of sociolinguistic studies of spoken Sanskrit which strongly suggests that in this oral use it is limited and is not developing.^[17] Based on this some suggest that Sanskrit had become 'dead', but the distinction isn't clearly understood, as Pollock (2001) describes it in comparison with the "dead" language of Latin:^[18]

Both died slowly, and earliest as a vehicle of literary expression, while much longer retaining significance for learned discourse with its universalist claims. Both were subject to periodic renewals or forced rebirths, sometimes in connection with a politics of translocal aspiration- At the same time- both came to be ever more exclusively associated with narrow forms of religion and priestcraft, despite centuries of a secular aesthetic.

The decline of Sanskrit use in literary and political circles was likely the result of a weakening of the political institutions that supported it as well as by heightened competition with vernacular languages seeking literary-cultural dignity.^{[citation needed]} There was regional variation in the forcefulness of these vernacular movements and Sanskrit declined in different ways across the subcontinent. For example, in some areas Kashmiri was used along side of Sanskrit as the language of literature after the thirteenth century and Sanskrit works from the Vijayanagara Empire failed to circulate outside of their place and time of composition while works in Telugu and Kannada flourished.^[19] This presumed "death" of Sanskrit did not mean it fell out of use in literary cultures of India and, despite literary use of vernacular languages, those who could read in vernacular languages could do the same in Sanskrit^[20]. What it did mean, though, was that Sanskrit was not used to express changing forms of subjectivity and sociality embodied and conceptualized in the modern age.^[21] Instead, it was reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored and any creativity in Sanskrit was restricted to religious hymns and verses.^[22][23]f

European scholarship

European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620-1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681-1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones, and played an important role in the development of Western linguistics.^{[citation needed]}

Sir William Jones, speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

Phonology

Further information: „ik-“

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36 phonemes. There is, however, some allophony and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 sounds.

The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ach), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Spar-a) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):

a - i - u - - - - - ; e ai o au

- -

k kh g gh -; c ch j jh ñ; - -h - -h -; t th d dh n; p ph b bh m

y r l v; - - s h

An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of P-“ini.

Vowels

See also: R-colored vowel#Vocalic R in Sanskrit

The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial Devanagari symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant -- (/p/), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in IPA, equivalent in IAST and ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:

The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.

The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).

Additional points:

• There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
  • The diacritic - called anusv-ra, (IAST: -). It is used both to indicate the nasalization of the vowel in the syllable ([--] and to represent the sound of a syllabic /n/ or /m/; e.g. -- /p--/.
  • The diacritic - called visarga, represents /-h/ (IAST: -); e.g. -- /p-h/.
  • The diacritic - called chandrabindu, not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the anusv-ra to indicate nasalization of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e.g. -- /p--/.
• If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/vir-ma diacritic below (--).
• The vowel /a-/ in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is /--/. But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel.^[24].
• The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence - and - are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two m„tr“s. This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage (see above). These vowels are pronounced as long /e-/ and /o-/ respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong-vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to semivowels according to sandhi rules.

Consonants

IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets.

The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation) and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/-/), and is named in the table as such.

Phonology and Sandhi

The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l (-) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart - occurs in a single root only, k-p "to order, array". Long syllabic r (-) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. m„t“ "mother" and pit- "father" have gen.pl. m-tm and pitm). i, u, -, - are vocalic allophones of consonantal y, v, r, l. There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes,

a, -, -, -, -.

Visarga - - is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara -, Devanagari - of any nasal, both in pausa (ie, the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant /z-/ was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian^{[citation needed]} or other substrate languages. The nasal [-] is a conditioned allophone of /n/ (/n/ and /-/ are distinct phonemes-a-u 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from anu 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent /-/ occurs only marginally, e.g. in pr-- 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective]). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows:

k, kh, g, gh; c, ch, j, jh; -, -h, -, -h; t, th, d, dh; p, ph, b, bh; m, n, -; y, r, l, v; -, -, s, h

or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.

The phonological rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padap--ha).

Writing system

Kashmiri Shaivaite manuscript in the Sharada script (c. 17th century)

Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical Sanskrit literature.^[25] Writing was not introduced to India until after Sanskrit had evolved into the Prakrits; when it was written, the choice of writing system was influenced by the regional scripts of the scribes. As such, virtually all of the major writing systems of South Asia have been used for the production of Sanskrit manuscripts. Since the late 19th century, Devanagari has been considered as the de facto writing system for Sanskrit,^[26] quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in this script.

The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit date to the first century BC.^[27] They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for Prakrit, not Sanskrit.^[28] It has been described as a "paradox" that the first evidence of written Sanskrit occurs centuries later than that of the Prakrit languages which are its linguistic descendants.^[27][29] When Sanskrit was written down, it was first used for texts of an administrative, literary or scientific nature. The sacred texts were preserved orally, and were set down in writing, "reluctantly" (according to one commentator), and at a comparatively late date.^[28]

Brahmi evolved into a multiplicity of scripts of the Brahmic family, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. Later (around the 4th to 8th centuries CE) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script. The latter was displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the Bengali script and, later, the Oriya script, were used. In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Grantha.

Sanskrit in modern Indian and other Brahmi scripts. May -iva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods. (Kalidasa)

Romanization

Main article: Devanagari transliteration

Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliterated using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.

It's also possible to type using an alphanumeric keyboard and transliterate to devanagari using software like Mac OS X's international support.

European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the 20th century onwards, due to production costs, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in Romanized transliteration.

Grammar

Main article: Sanskrit grammar

Grammatical tradition

Main article: Sanskrit grammarians

Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vy„kara“a, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the Adhy„y“ of P-“ini, which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BC). After a century P-“ini (around 400 BC) K„ty“yana composed V-rtikas on P-ninian s-tras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after P-nini, wrote the Mah-bh-“ya, the "Great Commentary" on the Adhy„y“ and V-rtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vy-karana. To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and V-mana wrote the commentary named K„sik“ 600 CE. Paninian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aphorisms). Here whole M-trika (alphabet) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Praty-hara.^[30]

Verbs

Main article: Sanskrit verbs

Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, gu-a, and v-ddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the gu-a-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the v-ddhi-grade vowel as - + V.

The verb tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:

• Present (Present, Imperfect, Imperative, Optative)
• Perfect
• Aorist
• Future (Future, Conditional)

Nouns

Main article: Sanskrit nouns

Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual). It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative.

The number of actual declensions is debatable. Panini identifies six karakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases [1]. Panini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24-54):

1. Apadana (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.
2. Sampradana ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.
3. Karana ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
4. Adhikarana ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.
5. Karman ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
6. Karta ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, 1977: 94)

Personal Pronouns and Determiners

Main article: Sanskrit pronouns and determiners

Sanskrit pronouns are declined for case, number, and gender. The pronominal declension applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms.

The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Where two forms are given, the second is enclitic and an alternative form. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -tas; thus mat or mattas, asmat or asmattas. Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its demonstratives fulfil this function instead by standing independently without a modified substantive.

There are four different demonstratives in Sanskrit: tat, etat, idam, and adas. etat indicates greater proximity than tat. While idam is similar to etat, adas refers to objects that are more remote than tat. eta, is declined almost identically to ta. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing e- to all the forms of ta. As a result of sandhi, the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into e-as and e-ã.

The enclitic pronoun ena is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. Interrogative pronouns all begin with k-, and decline just as tat does, with the initial t- being replaced by k-. The only exception to this are the singular neuter nominative and accusative forms, which are both kim and not the expected *kat. For example, the singular feminine genitive interrogative pronoun, "of whom-", is kasyã-. Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the participles api, cid, or cana after the appropriate interrogative pronouns. All relative pronouns begin with y-, and decline just as tat does. The correlative pronouns are identical to the tat series.

In addition to the pronouns described above, some adjectives follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to tat.

• eka: "one", "a certain". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ekam)
• anya: "another".
• sarva: "all", "every". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both sarvam)
• para: "the other". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both param)
• sva: "self" (a reflexive adjective). (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both svam)

Compounds

Main article: Sanskrit compounds

One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German and Finnish. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however morphologically speaking they are essentially the same. Each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection. Some examples of nominal compounds include:

Dvandva (co-ordinative)

These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. There are mainly two kinds of dvandva constructions in Sanskrit. The first is called itaretara dvandva, an enumerative compound word, the meaning of which refers to all its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the dual or plural number and takes the gender of the final member in the compound construction. e.g. r„ma-lak-ma“au - Rama and Lakshmana, or r„ma-lak-ma-a-bharata--atrughn“h - Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna. The second kind is called sam„h“ra dvandva, a collective compound word, the meaning of which refers to the collection of its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the singular number and is always neuter in gender. e.g. p„-ip“dam - limbs, literally hands and feet, from p--i = hand and p-da = foot. According to some grammarians, there is a third kind of dvandva, called eka„e“a dvandva or residual compound, which takes the dual (or plural) form of only its final constituent member, e.g. pitarau for m„t“ + pit-, mother + father, i.e. parents. According to other grammarians, however, the eka„e“a is not properly a compound at all.

Bahuvr-hi (possessive)

Bahuvr-hi, or "much-rice", denotes a rich person-one who has much rice. Bahuvr-hi compounds refer (by example) to a compound noun with no head - a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example, "low-life" and "block-head" are bahuvrihi compounds, since a low-life is not a kind of life, and a block-head is not a kind of head. (And a much-rice is not a kind of rice.) Compare with more common, headed, compound nouns like "fly-ball" (a kind of ball) or "alley cat" (a kind of cat). Bahurvr-his can often be translated by "possessing..." or "-ed"; for example, "possessing much rice", or "much riced".

Tatpuru-a (determinative)

There are many tatpuru-as (one for each of the nominal cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpuru-a, the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog. It would be called a "caturtitatpuru-a" (caturti refers to the fourth case-that is, the dative). Incidentally, "tatpuru-a" is a tatpuru-a ("this man"-meaning someone's agent), while "caturtitatpuru-a" is a karmadh-rya, being both dative, and a tatpuru-a. An easy way to understand it is to look at English examples of tatpuru-as: "battlefield", where there is a genitive relationship between "field" and "battle", "a field of battle"; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling").

Karmadh-raya (descriptive)

The relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial, e. g. uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl.

Amre-ita (iterative)

Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness, e. g. dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'.

Dvigu

Syntax

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (June 2008)

Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free (with a strong tendency toward SOV, which was the original system in place in Vedic prose).

Numerals

The numbers from one to ten:

1. éka-
2. dva-
3. tri-
4. catúr-
5. páñcan-
6. „á“-
7. saptán-
8. a--á-
9. návan-
10. dá-an-

The numbers one through four are declined. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly: