PSEB SS Sanskrit key terms

A grammatical noun or substantive: the name of a person, place, thing, or quality. In Sanskrit grammar it contrasts with verbs (ākhyāta) and is inflected for case and number.

A finite verb form, one that expresses an action together with tense, person, and number. Pāṇini defines it as an item conveying action where the doer is not the primary meaning.

A grammatical case ending; also the numbered case itself. Sanskrit has eight: nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, and vocative. Each marks a distinct syntactic role in a sentence.

Grammatical number. Sanskrit distinguishes three: singular (ekavacana), dual (dvivacana), and plural (bahuvacana). The dual is used for exactly two items and is obligatory, not optional.

Grammatical person. Sanskrit verbs and pronouns distinguish three persons: first (uttama, referring to the speaker), second (madhyama, the addressee), and third (prathama, everyone else).

Grammatical gender. Sanskrit nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. Gender is a property of the word, not of the object, and determines which adjective and pronoun forms agree with it.

An adjective or qualifying word. It agrees with the noun it modifies in gender, number, and case, and typically precedes that noun in prose word order.

Compound formation, the joining of two or more stems into one word. The main types are tatpuruṣa, bahuvrīhi, dvandva, dvigu, avyayībhāva, and karmadhāraya. A compound is resolved by supplying the omitted case relation.

A dependent compound in which the first member determines the second, and the whole refers to the second member. The hidden relation is usually a case other than the nominative, as in rājaputra, 'king's son'.

A possessive or exocentric compound whose meaning lies outside both members: it denotes something possessing what the compound describes, as in dīrghabāhu, 'long-armed one', i.e. a person so described.

A copulative compound joining members that are coordinate, so the whole denotes both or all of them together, as in rāmalakṣmaṇau, 'Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa'. The gender and number follow the final member.

An attributive compound in which the first member qualifies the second, which is the head, as in nīlotpala, 'blue lotus'. It is a subtype of tatpuruṣa in which the relation is appositional.

The phonological junction between sounds at word or morpheme boundaries, with regular changes in vowels and consonants. Rules include guṇa and vṛddhi replacements, consonant assimilation, and the visarga changes.

The strengthened vowel grade: a and ā become a, i and ī become e, u and ū become o, and ṛ becomes ar. It appears in sandhi and in certain derivational and inflectional processes.

The strongest vowel grade: a and ā become ā, i and ī become ai, u and ū become au, and ṛ becomes ār. It occurs in secondary derivation and in specified sandhi environments.

The voiceless breath sound written ḥ, arising from original s or r in final position. Its sandhi behaviour depends on the preceding vowel and on the following sound.

The nasal resonance written ṃ, pronounced through the nose without full closure. In practice it assimilates to a following consonant, and it often replaces a final m before consonants.

A word formed with a primary suffix (kṛt), such as -aka, -tṛ, -ta, or -ya, producing nouns and participles from verbal roots. Kṛdanta forms are not inflected as verbs.

A word formed with a secondary suffix added to a nominal stem or to a completed word, such as the suffixes forming patronymics, possessives, and abstract nouns. Contrasted with primary kṛt suffixes.

A verbal root, the basic element from which verb forms and many nouns are derived. Roots are listed in the dhātupāṭha and are grouped into ten gaṇas according to how they form the present stem.

One of the ten classes into which Pāṇini groups verbal roots, chiefly by the present-stem suffix they take. The first, fourth, sixth, and tenth are thematic; the others show different patterns.

A tense or mood category of the verb, named after the letter that marks it in the traditional paradigm. Ten are recognised, including present, imperfect, optative, imperative, and the perfect and aorist pasts.

A verbal prefix such as pra, anu, or sam, which modifies the sense of a root, often drastically. Twenty-two are traditionally listed, and they are written joined to the following form.

An indeclinable particle, including adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections such as ca, api, and eva. These words do not take case endings and their position in the sentence carries meaning.

An indeclinable word: one whose form does not change for case, number, or gender. The category covers particles, many adverbs, and certain fixed forms such as gerunds and infinitives.

A term used in grammatical rules meaning 'in some cases' or 'optionally'. It signals that a rule applies only to some items or that two forms are both correct, as in optional sandhi.

Option or alternative in grammar: a statement that a given rule may or may not apply, so that both the changed and unchanged forms are acceptable. It is marked in sūtras by words such as vā or anyatarasyām.

Vedic metre, and by extension the Vedic corpus itself. Metres are measured in syllables (akṣara) and in gaṇas of three syllables, with fixed patterns of light and heavy syllables.

The standard epic and classical metre of four eight-syllable quarters (pādas), used for the Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, and much kāvya. Its cadence is comparatively free, especially in the odd pādas.

A metre defined by a fixed sequence of light (laghu) and heavy (guru) syllables in each quarter. It is distinguished from metres defined by syllable count alone, such as the anuṣṭubh.

A figure of speech or poetic ornament, the devices that give literary language its beauty. Major types include upamā (simile), rūpaka (metaphor), and utprekṣā (poetic fancy).

The figure of simile: an explicit comparison of two things through a shared quality, usually marked by words such as iva or yathā, 'like' or 'as'. It requires a common property and a point of comparison.

The figure of metaphor: an identification in which the subject is presented as the very thing it resembles, without a word of comparison. It differs from upamā precisely in lacking 'like' or 'as'.

The aesthetic relish or emotional flavour produced in a cultivated audience by a poem or drama. Eight are traditionally enumerated, including śṛṅgāra (love), vīra (heroism), and karuṇa (compassion).

An emotional state or feeling, especially the transient and basic feelings that, when developed in a literary work, are said to be transformed into rasa. Also used for the sense of a word.

The primary or literal power of a word, its direct denotation. Indian semantics distinguishes it from lakṣaṇā (indication) and vyañjanā (suggestion) as the three functions of word meaning.

The secondary or indicative power of a word: the mechanism by which a word conveys a sense other than its literal one when the literal sense is impossible or incongruous, as in 'the village is on the Ganges'.

A class of late Vedic philosophical texts, the basis of Vedānta. They explore the nature of the self (ātman) and ultimate reality (brahman) through dialogue and instruction rather than ritual prescription.

The self or inner principle of a person. In Vedānta it is held to be eternal and ultimately identical with brahman, a central claim of the Upaniṣads.

The oldest body of Sanskrit literature, transmitted orally with exact recitation. It comprises four collections: Ṛg, Sāman, Yajur, and Atharva, each with associated ritual and speculative texts.