Voice, Causative and Gerundive in a Translation Test
A Class-11 teacher in Varanasi set a 12-sentence Sanskrit-to-Hindi translation test worth 48 marks. Four items carry 4 marks each and were designed to test voice and verbal derivation: (i) rāmeṇa kāryaṃ kriyate; (ii) rāmaḥ kāryaṃ kārayati; (iii) mayā gantavyam; (iv) bhuktvā gacchati. Marking of 57 scripts shows a pattern: 17 students rendered (i) as 'Rāma works', 22 read (ii) as 'Rāma does the work', and 19 read (iii) as 'I went'. The scheme gives 4 marks per item and says 'no mark below 2 for a serious attempt'. One teacher wants to enforce that floor; another says it rewards a student who has missed the core meaning. The head of department wants a criterion-based band for each item, and a re-check of any script where the student's own Sanskrit paraphrase shows the meaning was understood even though the Hindi is clumsy.
1. Give the correct Hindi rendering of (i)–(iv) with the grammatical reasoning, and name the one element of each sentence that must not be lost.
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(i) rāmeṇa kāryaṃ kriyate - 'Rāma ke dvārā kārya kiyā jā rahā hai.' Present passive (karmaṇi prayoga): the object kāryam has become the nominative agreeing with kriyate, and the agent takes the instrumental rāmeṇa. Element not to be lost: the agent is instrumental and the verb is passive.
(ii) rāmaḥ kāryaṃ kārayati - 'Rāma se kārya karavātā hai.' Causative (ṇic) of kṛ: the base vowel takes vṛddhi (kṛ → kāraya-), the causer is nominative and the actual doer is left unexpressed or goes into the instrumental. Element not to be lost: Rāma does not do the work; he has it done.
(iii) mayā gantavyam - 'mujhe jānā cāhie.' Gerundive in -tavya used impersonally: the agent is instrumental, the gerundive stands in the neuter nominative, and the sense is obligation, not past tense. Element not to be lost: obligation.
(iv) bhuktvā gacchati - 'khākara jātā hai.' Gerund (ktvā) in -tvā marks an action completed before the main verb; the subject is shared. Element not to be lost: the sequence - eat first, then go.
2. For a script that translated (ii) as 'Rāma does the work' and (iii) as 'I went', decide the marks under a criterion-based band and rule on the 'no mark below 2' floor.
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Suggested award: (ii) 2/4, (iii) 1/4.
Band for each item, 4 marks: 2 for the core grammatical meaning (voice, derivation, or mood), 1 for correct case/participant roles, 1 for fluent Hindi.
- (ii): the participants and tense are right (Rāma, the work, present) and the Hindi is fluent, so 1 + 1 = 2. The 2 marks for causative meaning are lost: 'does' is not 'has done'.
- (iii): only fluency survives, and even the agent reading drifts, so 1.
On the floor: it is not defensible as written. A rule that guarantees 2 marks to any script that has missed the voice or the mood converts a 4-mark item into a 2-mark item and compresses the top of the distribution - two students who differ by two correct items end up nearly level. What the department actually wants (protection against harsh marking of clumsy but correct Hindi) is already covered by the fourth band mark. Recommend replacing the floor with the sentence: clumsy Hindi that preserves the grammatical meaning earns full grammatical credit; fluent Hindi that loses it does not.
3. A student rendered (i) as 'kārya Rāma se kiyā jā rahā hai' but wrote the Sanskrit paraphrase as kāryaṃ rāmeṇa kriyate. Is the paraphrase correct? Explain the kāraka logic.
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Yes - the paraphrase is correct and should be credited.
In karmaṇi prayoga the karman (kārya) is promoted to the nominative and controls the verb: kāryam is a neuter a-stem, so the nominative singular is kāryam, and kriyate is third-person singular. They agree. The kartā is demoted and takes the instrumental: rāmeṇa. That is precisely the kāraka logic being tested - nominative marks the karman, instrumental marks the kartā, and the verb agrees with the karman, not with Rāma.
The check for the marker is mechanical: if the student's nominative is the thing acted upon (kāryam) and the agent is instrumental (rāmeṇa), the passive has been understood, whatever the Hindi word order. Award full grammatical credit and reserve the fluency mark for the Hindi phrasing.