The Sanskrit Language: A Grammar and Reader. Vol. 2: Appendices, Glossary and Lexicon

316 Pages·1995·12.46 MB·English

by  Walter Harding Maurer

THE SANSKRIT
LANGUAGE
An Introductory Grammar and Reader
Walter Harding Maurer
Professor of Sanskrit
University of Hawai ’i at Manoa
Volume Two
Appendices, Glossary and Lexicon
With an Index to Volume One
by Gregory P. Fields
RRoutledgeCurzon
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published in 1995
by Curzon Press
Reprinted 2001
Reprinted 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4RN
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
i'.j 1995 Walter Harding Maurer
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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ISBN 0-7007-1382^ (set)
Table of Contents
Volume II
Appendix I. The Story of Nala and Damayanti...................................... 553
Introduction ................................................................................. 553
Sanskrit Text ................................................................................. 555
Notes .............................................................................................. 568
Appendix II: Paradigms of Declensions and Conjugations...................... 610
A. Nouns and Adjectives ................................................................ 610
Vowel Stems ............................................................................... 610
a-stems: masculine and neuter OW)............................ 610
d-stems: feminine only OFTT)............................................. 611
/-stems: masculine (3rf**T), feminine (*!%),
neuter («niT) ............................................................ 611
/-stems: feminine only ...................................................... 612
1. Polysyllables OTCt)............................................... 612
2. Monosyllables (Ut)............................................... 613
3. The Mixed Stem ............................................. 613
w-stems: masculine OTFp, feminine OFT),
neuter (W) .............................................................. 614
Declension of feminine ^ ......................................... 615
//-stems: feminine only ....................................................... 615
1. Polysyllables («0J) ................................................ 615
2. Monosyllables 0T)................................................. 616
r-stems .............................................................................. 616
1. Nouns of Agency (^ ) ......................................... 616
2. Nouns of Relationship:
masculine and feminine ................................... 617
a) with guna (fe, m.y f.) .......................... 617
b) with vrddhi OTRf, m .................................. 617
.................................................. 618
tf/-stem (t) ......................................................................... 618
o-stems: masculine and feminine OTt)................................... 618
feminine (^ft) ............................................................ 619
aw-stems: masculine ................................................. 619
feminine Oft) ............................................................. 620
ii Table of Contents
Consonant Stems ..................................................................................... 620
1. Unchangeable Stems ....................................................... 620
a) Root words and words inflected
like them .......................................................... 620
b) Stems in -as f.)
-is -us (3TPJ<E{) ....................................... 622
2. Changeable Stems .......................................................... 623
a) Two degrees (strong and weak)............................. 623
i) Present and Future Active
Participles in -at
....................................................... 623
ii) Possessive Adjectives in
-vat OPMq) and -mat
..................................................... 624
iii) Possessive Adjectives in -in
(«Tppp ........................................................ 625
iv) Comparative Adjectives in
-lyasl-yas 625
v) The Irregular Noun apf..................................... 626
b) Three degrees (strong, middle, and
weakest) .......................................................... 626
i) Stems in -an, -man and -van
(masculine and neuter) ............................... 626
ii) Irregular Stems in -an
a) ............................................................. 627
b) WJ .......................................................... 628
c) 628
d) ............................................................. 629
iii) Adjectives in -aflcf-ac..................................... 630
Three degrees
3M3^) ............................................630
Two degrees OTT35^) .................................... 631
iv) Perfect Active Participles in
-ivast-vas fa£^) ........................... 633
v) Irregular Stems ............................................... 634
a) 3** ............................................................. 634
b) ............................................................ 635
Table of Contents iii
B. Pronouns ....................................................................................... 635
1. Personal Pronouns
First Person (*1^), Second Person
Honorific Second Person 635
2. Demonstrative Pronouns ....................................................... 636
a) 'this, that' ............................................................... 636
b) 'this' ..................................................................... 637
c) 'this' ..................................................................... 637
d) ap?: 'that' ....................................................................... 637
3. Anaphoric Pronouns ............................................................. 638
'him, her, it, them’ ................................................... 638
4. Relative Pronoun (^ ).......................................................... 638
5. Interrogative Pronoun (ftnp ................................................. 639
6. Indefinite Pronoun 639
7. Reflexive Adjective (W) ...................................................... 640
8. Reflexive Pronoun (3JT?*Fp .................................................. 640
9. Intensive Adjective and Pronoun (wmh) ............................... 640
C. Numerals (Cardinals and Ordinals).............................................. 641
Symbolic Word Numerals ......................................................... 646
D. * Verbs ......................................................................................... 647
1. Present, Imperfect, Imperative and Optative.......................... 647
Table of Personal Endings ................................................... 648
First Conjugation ................................................................ 650
Class I VtT.................................................................... 650
Second Conjugation .............................................................. 651
Class II Vfo*............................................................... 651
Class III ^ ................................................................. 652
Class V Vf .................................................................. 653
Class VII ^ ................................................................ 654
Class VIII ^ ............................................................... 655
Class IX ...................................................................656
2. The Passive Conjugation ....................................................... 657
IV Table of Contents
3. Perfect............................................................................................................. 658
i. Roots with medial -a (VcFT).......................................................... 659
ii. Roots with medial vowel other than -a (V w )..................... 659
iii. Roots with final vowel other than -a ......................... 660
iv. Roots ending in -a (V^T)................................................................ 660
v. Roots with samprasarana (V ^ ).................................................. 660
vi. Roots with initial -/ (V ^)............................................................ 661
vii. Roots with loss of medial -a in weak forms...................... 661
4. Periphrastic Perfect................................................................................... 661
Periphrastic Perfect of the Causative Stem «ftfcPT.................... 662
5. Aorist............................................................................................................... 662
A. The First Aorist................................................................................ 663
a) The simple 5-form.......................................................... 663
b) The /5-form......................................................................... 663
B. The Second Aorist.......................................................................... 664
a) The thematic type............................................................ 664
b) The root aorist.................................................................. 664
6. Future............................................................................................................... 665
Appendix 111: Survey of the Principal Rules of Sandhi.................................... 666
Appendix IV: Sanskrit and its Relationship to the
Other Indo-European Languages................................................................ 679
Fnglish-Sanskrit Glossary............................................................................................... 695
Sanskrit-English Lexicon................................................................................................. 727
Index to Volume One........................................................................................... 833 (1-1)

Appendix I
The Story of Nala and Damayanti.
The story of King Nala and his queen Damayanti is one of the very
many tangential or digressive episodes that are incorporated in the
Mahabharata. Although these episodes, some of which, like the story of Nala
and Damayanti, are of considerable length, make up a large part of the
Mahabharata, they have hardly anything directly to do with the Great War
between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, which is the subject of the great epic.
This is not to imply that these episodes or stories are just clumsy, irrelevant
insertions: to be sure, if they were omitted, the basic narrative of the Great
War would remain intact and move to its conclusion. They are, in truth, very
cleverly introduced just as in a lecture one might relate some tangential
matter by way of illustration or emphasis on some point. Such intrusions can
greatly contribute to the interest and even to the progress of the main topic,
and so they do also in the Mahabharata without constituting any part of its
principal theme.
The particular episode with which we are here concerned is related by
the sage Brhadasva to King Yudhisthira, one of the Pandavas, all of whom
are living in exile in the Kamyaka forest. After honoring the great sage with
due hospitality upon his visiting them in the forest, King Yudhisthira
complains to him about his wretched lot in having lost his kingdom and
wealth as a result of an adverse game of dice with his Kaurava cousin
Duryodhana. Brhadasva thereupon tells him that he knows of a king whose
sad lot far exceeded that of Yudhisthira. Upon being requested to do so,
Brhadasva relates the story of King Nala and the almost endless train of
adversities that followed his marriage to Damayanti, in consequence of his
loss of kingdom and all else in a game of dice.
The story of Nala and Damayanti is one of the most remarkable gems
that has come down from ancient times. A veritable ornament of world
literature, it is characterized by all the facets of truly great poetry: fluidity
of sound, simplicity of style, floridity in moderation, the full range of human
emotions - love, hate, jealousy, cruelty - the deepest tragedy and pathos, the
vicissitudes and undulations of fortune in sharpest relief, conjugal happiness
and unswerving devotion of a wife to her husband through incomparable
hardship and deprivation.
Sanskrit students and scholars alike everywhere in the world shall be
forever beholden to the great German scholar Franz Bopp, founder of the
science of comparative philology, for culling this poem out of the massive
Mahabharata and making it known through his publication of the Sanskrit
554 Appendix 1: The Story of Nala and Damayanti
text with Latin translation and notes more than 170 years ago.l Since then
the ‘Nala Story', as it is usually more briefly called, has become the
invariable fare of all beginning students of Sanskrit everywhere. The entire
Nala Story, however, which consists of 26 cantos or chapters, running to
about 100 printed pages, is rarely read, chiefly because its length would
preoccupy beginners far beyond the time normally available to them in the
first year of their study of Sanskrit, but also because the first five cantos
form so really complete a story, that for all practical purposes it could be
assumed to proceed no further, if we were not informed of its continuation.
Apart from the simplicity and beauty of its language, the Nala Story is
an ideal work to read in the early stage of one’s study because it is entirely
written in the anustubh metre (or sloka metre) in which perhaps 90% of
Sanskrit literature is composed. We might dare to say, it is almost as though
the Nala Story, for all its countless virtues, were a work destined from its
inception for students of the Kali Age eager to leam Sanskrit in the easiest
way possible. Finally, most of the basic forms and constructions of Sanskrit
grammar recur with desirable frequency and clarity of use in these five
cantos. Its vocabulary, which is characteristic of the sort of Sanskrit that
pervades the Mahabharata, is sufficiently repetitive to conduce to easy and
painless assimilation.
The text presented here has been taken unchanged from the Critical
Edition of the Mahabharata prepared in Poona, India, during the course of
several decades by a galaxy of eminent scholars. It may be briefly said here
that by the term ’critical edition' of a work is meant the restoration of it to a
form closest to the original through a minute study and comparison of all the
extant MSS. By this process their interrelation may be seen, the genuine
tradition isolated and the necessary changes and corrections introduced.
On the whole, the Nala story does not contain many words that have
not so far been used in the exercises. The unfamiliar ones must be sought out
in the glossary at the end of the volume where they will be found according to
the order of the Devanagari alphabet.
The notes that follow the Sanskrit text are given according to the
number of the line in which an annotated item occurs. The numbering of the
lines starts afresh with each of the five cantos.
1Nalus, carmen Sanscriticum e Mahabharato editit, latine vertit et adnotationibus illustravit
Franciscus Bopp (London, 1819).
Appendix 1: The Story of Nala and Damayand 555
Canto I
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