The Ambiguous -āe in a Maharashtri Stanza
You are preparing a translation of a four-line Maharashtri stanza for an exam. The second line reads: piyāe kayaṃ jaṃ miaṃ, taṃ kahaṃ vismarasi. The form piyāe can be analysed as feminine instrumental singular ('by the beloved'), genitive singular ('of the beloved'), or locative singular ('in the beloved'). The verb vismarasi is second person singular present ('you forget'). The metre requires the line to have a certain syllable weight, but it does not by itself settle the case. The previous line names a female addressee, and the next line refers to 'that deed' (taṃ kammaṃ). You must decide which case is syntactically and contextually best, and then explain the decision in a way that shows you can parse, not just guess.
1. Set out the possible case analyses of piyāe and the syntactic signal that would favour each.
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piyāe can be: (a) instrumental singular of piyā, 'by the beloved'; favoured if kayaṃ is a passive participle with an agent and the relative jaṃ/taṃ refers to the deed. (b) genitive singular, 'of the beloved'; favoured if piyāe directly qualifies a noun and no agent is needed. (c) locative singular, 'in/on the beloved'; favoured only if a verb or preposition requires location, which is not the case here. (d) dative singular in some Prakrit usage, 'for the beloved'; this would need a verb of giving or benefit. The ending -āe is genuinely syncretic, so case must be decided by syntax, not by the ending alone.
2. Choose the best analysis and translate the line, showing agreement and word order.
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Best: instrumental. The relative clause jaṃ ... taṃ ('that which ... that') has a neuter referent, and kayaṃ is a neuter past passive participle agreeing with it. A passive participle can take an instrumental agent, so piyāe = 'by the beloved'. Translation: 'That which was done by the beloved - how do you forget it?' Word order piyāe kayaṃ jaṃ places the agent before the participle, which is natural for the instrumental. The genitive reading would give 'the beloved's deed', but then kayaṃ would be a noun and the relative construction would lose its participle; the instrumental reading accounts for more forms with less positing.
3. How would a mistaken genitive reading change the translation, and what in the stanza refutes it?
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A genitive reading would produce 'How do you forget that deed of the beloved?' It is not impossible, but it leaves kayaṃ as an isolated nominal and ignores the passive participial construction jaṃ ... kayaṃ. The clincher is the relative-correlative pair: jaṃ is neuter and taṃ picks it up; kayaṃ agrees with the neuter relative. That agreement is most economically explained by 'which was done', with piyāe as agent. The addressee context does not make the beloved the possessor; it makes the beloved the doer. If the stanza had a noun like kammaṃ immediately after piyāe, the genitive would be stronger; it does not.