The same compound, two samāsa types: pītāmbara in two sentences
During a grammar revision class in a Thrissur school, the teacher writes two sentences on the board: (a) pītāmbaro hariḥ; (b) pītāmbaram ānaya. A student objects that the dictionary entry for pītāmbara gives 'yellow garment', which makes the word a karmadhāraya, so both sentences should be karmadhāraya. Another student says the first is a bahuvrīhi because it describes Hari, while the second is a karmadhāraya because it names the object brought. The teacher asks the class to settle the dispute with a paraphrase test and with reference to the compound's external syntax, not the dictionary alone. The exam question that follows asks students to classify each occurrence and to explain why the same surface form can belong to two samāsa types. A third student adds that proper names such as 'Pītāmbara' complicate the issue, because the name may preserve an old bahuvrīhi analysis while functioning simply as a name.
1. Classify pītāmbara in (a) and (b), and show the paraphrase test that decides each case.
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In (a) pītāmbaro hariḥ, pītāmbara is a bahuvrīhi: pītaṃ ambaraṃ yasya saḥ pītāmbaraḥ, 'he whose garment is yellow'. The compound qualifies the outside referent Hari. In (b) pītāmbaram ānaya, pītāmbara is a karmadhāraya: pītam ambaraṃ pītāmbaram, 'yellow garment'; it names the object brought. The paraphrase test is decisive: a bahuvrīhi can be expanded with a relative clause using 'yasya' and refers to a person distinct from the garment; a karmadhāraya refers to the garment itself and cannot be paraphrased with 'yasya'. External syntax confirms this: in (a) the compound is a predicate nominative describing Hari; in (b) it is the accusative object of ānaya.
2. Why can the dictionary entry alone not decide the samāsa type?
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A dictionary records lexical potential, not syntactic function. The same surface form can be a karmadhāraya in one context and a bahuvrīhi in another because samāsa classification depends on the relation between members and on how the whole compound is used in the sentence. The dictionary may list 'yellow garment' because that is a common lexicalised sense, but it cannot tell us whether the speaker is naming a garment or describing a person who wears one. The class should therefore ask: does the compound refer to the members' sum, or to an outside referent qualified by them? Only the sentence answers that.
3. How should the class treat 'Pītāmbara' when it is used as a proper name, e.g. Pītāmbaraḥ āgacchati?
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A proper name is historically a compound that has become a name; Pītāmbara may preserve a bahuvrīhi origin ('whose garment is yellow') or a karmadhāraya origin, but in 'Pītāmbaraḥ āgacchati' it functions synchronically as a name, not as a live descriptive compound. The class should distinguish etymological analysis from current usage. For exam classification, if the sentence uses it as a name, the student should note the bahuvrīhi origin but should not force a compound label onto a name-function. The safe formulation is: 'name of bahuvrīhi origin, used here as a proper noun'.