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‘He cooks softly’: adverbs in Sanskrit grammar
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
It has been recognized from the earliest times, i.e. from Kātyāyana (K) on, that, although Pāṇini's description of Sanskrit is miraculously concise and almost equally comprehensive in those topics it covers, it requires some supplementation. Even so, P's inadequate treatment of adverbs is noteworthy, and the more so as the tradition was remarkably slow to supplement this deficiency. This paper deals with two connected topics: (i) conceptualization and naming of the adverb; (ii) grammatical descriptions of adverbial usage.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 1979 , pp. 244 - 256
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1979
Footnotes
1
In this article I use the term ‘Sanskrit grammar’ as a translation of vyākarana śāslra; i.e., it refers to the traditional study of the subject, not to the subject itself. Similarly, by ‘Sanskrit grammarian’ I mean vaiyākaraṇika.
References
2 2nd ed., London, 1965.
3 The relative chronology of the great Sanskrit grammarians is certain, as each comments on his predecessors. Their absolute chronology is notoriously uncertain—and not relevant to this article. But I assume the following approximate dates (and use these abbreviations): Yāska fifth century b.c., Pāṇini (P) fourth century b.c., Kātyāyana (K) third century b.c., Patañjali (Pat.) second century b.c., Bhartṛhari (Bh.) fifth century a.d., Kāśikāvṛtti (Kv.) seventh century a.d.
4 A notable example of the incompleteness of P on a topic central to his concerns is his treatment of kṛt affixes; see Paḷsule, G. B., Some primary nominal formations missing in Pāṇini, Poona, 1968 Google Scholar.
5 While Professor S. D. Joshi was teaching me the samāsa section of P at Poona University, I queried P's failure explicitly to mention the type of adverbial compound to which my quotation from Professor Burrow refers. This article arose from that query. Though Joshi is, of course, not responsible for what I have written, his contribution is so great that I can perhaps best sum it up by saying that I merely asked questions to which he supplied answers.
6 Issues in Linguistics; papers in honor of Henry and Renée Kahane, ed. Kachru, Braj B. et al. , Urbana, 1973, 85–98 Google Scholar. I am grateful to Mr. Dominik Wujastyk for drawing my attention to this article, and for reading a draft of my paper critically—the adverb is essential.
7 Joshi, S. D., Adjectives and substantives as single class in the ‘parts of speech ’, Poona, 1966 Google Scholar.
8 Atra is derived from the pronoun idam by the addition of the taddhita affix tra. The full prahriyā (derivation) of the form is given by the following sūtras: 1.1.27, 7.2.102, 6.1.97, 7.2.113, 5.3.1, 5.3.10.
9 On P 2.1.59.
10 Ayachit, S. M., The Gaṇapāṭha, a critical study: Ph.D. thesis, Deccan College Research Institute, Poona, 1959 Google Scholar.
11 include the critical edition, ed. Sharma and Deshpande, Hyderabad, 1969–70, which was not of course available to Ayachit.
12 Cireṇa to cirasya inclusive are in Ayachit's first ‘supplementary list’; Cire is in no list I have seen, but is attested in Monier-Williams's Sanskrit–English dictionary, which also quotes a neuter noun ciram, derived from P 6.2.6. Cire is altogether a marginal case—see note lfr—but this does not affect the argument.
13 These terms might be better translated ‘particularizing’ and ‘particularized’, but I have retained the translation which is in general use.
14 Op. cit., especially pp. 28–9.
15 Even so careful a grammarian as Macdonell slips up quite badly on the avyayībhāva: he presents it as a sub-class of karmadhāraya! ( Macdonell, A. A., A Sanskrit grammar for students, 175, § 188.3.a.) To over-simplify by presenting only the commonest kind of avyayībhdva is perhaps excusable in an elementary grammar, but it is bad to omit mention of the essential criterion by which a compound is so classified, namely that it is indeclinable.Google Scholar
16 For a longer discussion of ‘Case-forms used as adverbs’, see Whitney, W. D., Sanskrit grammar, §§ 1110–17Google Scholar. Most adverbial forms are singular; an example of a plural form is uccaiḫ ‘aloud’.
17 This may be why cire is not in the svarādi gaṇa; but in that case cirāt should not be there either, as both forms could be derived from a noun ciram by 2.3.7.
18 The St. Petersburg lexicon quotes it from no authority earlier than the Kv., and with a wrong reference at that.
19 I rely on Pathak, S. D., Word index to Patañjali's Vyākaraṇa-mahābhāṣya, Poona, 1927 Google Scholar.
20 Joshi, S. D., Patañjali's Vyākaraṇa-mahābhāṣya, Samarthāhnika, Poona, 1968, 106 Google Scholar.
21 I gloss over the fact that the compound could also mean ‘with adverbs’ in the plural.
22 Suṣṭhu and duṣṭhu occur as Nos. 123 and 145 in the svarādi gaṇa printed by Böhtlingk in his edition of P, but they are not in the critical edition of Kv. (see note 11 above), so would seem to be medieval additions.
23 Pillai, K. Raghavan, The Vākyapadīya, Delhi, etc., 1971 Google Scholar.
24 Ibid., 153, n. 37.
25 In this section (7) it will be convenient, and unambiguous, to use ‘adverb’ as a simple equivalent of kriyāviśeṣaṇa. Though in theory all that is said could apply also to my category (2), in fact grammarians before Haribhāskara give examples only of my type (1).
26 I have no other source of information than Abhyankar, K. V., Paribhāṣāsaṃgraha, Poona, 1967, 29–30 Google Scholar.
27 Op. cit., 88.
28 Abhyankar, , op. cit., 221 Google Scholar.
29 Op. cit., 90.
30 Joshi, S. D. and Roodbergen, J. A. F., Patañjali's Vyākaraṇa-mahābhāṣya, Kārakāhniha, Poona, 1975, 123–4Google Scholar, and Cardona, Q., op. cit., § 5B2b, 88–9Google Scholar.
31 This is a valid example in English, but would lose its validity if translated directly into Sanskrit, which has different words for raw and cooked rice, and no word common to rice in both states. In the sentence pacati odanam, ‘he cooks (boiled) rice’, the noun odanam is sādhya.
32 Op. cit., 30.
33 Ibid., 315.
34 Ibid., 34.
35 Ibid., 347.
36 I am grateful to Professor B. K. Matilal for his help with this argument, part of which has appeared at 7.3.2 above.
37 Laghuśabdenduśekhara, ed. Mānavalli, Rāma Śāstrī and Śāstri, Bhāradvāja Nārāyaṇa, Benares, 1887, 313 Google Scholar.
38 Op. cit., § 5A, 88.
39 Gonda in fact considers these forms nominative, but in this he is idiosyncratic. Gonda, Jan, ‘Some notes on adverbial case forms in the Veda’, in Vogel, Claus (ed.), Jñānamuktāvalī: commemoration volume in honour of Johannes Nobel, Sarasvati Vihara Series 38, New Delhi, 1959, 66–76 Google Scholar.
40 ‘On the recording of forms, indicating the parts of speech, and some other points’, in Ghatage, A. M., Dandekar, R. N. and Mehendale, M. A. (ed.), Studies in historical Sanskrit lexicography, Poona, 1973, 73–5Google Scholar.
41 Op. cit., 68.