Going through the Gita

Jagat · July 6, 2001

I have just decided to copy the Bhagavad-gita verses I went through here into a separate thread. I hope that's OK, JN Prabhu.<hr>

<center>kAlo'smi loka-kSaya-kRt pravRddho

lokAn samAhartum iha pravRttaH

Rte'pi tvAM na bhaviSyanti sarve

ye'vasthitAH pratyanIkeSu yodhAH</center>

I will start by putting the text into proper Sanskrit prose word order (subject-object-verb) and taking the sandhi out. This is called "anvayaH" or putting things in order.

<hr>

1. (aham) loka-kSaya-kRt pravRddhaH kAlaH asmi.

"I am (aham asmi) time, which is the destroyer of worlds and has grown mature (pravRddhaH)."

These two adjectives, loka-kSaya-kRt and pravRddhaH, as well as pravRttaH at the end of the second line, are all in the masculine nominative case, because they have to agree with the noun they modify, kAlaH.

(If anyone has a problem with the idea of gender or adjective-noun agreement, let me know.)

Different commentaries have different understandings of pravRddhaH. Basically it means "(much) increased" or "(very) mature", like vRddha means old. It would appear to mean "ripe" as in "the time is ripe" for all good karma to come to fruition.

2. lokAn samAhartum iha pravRttaH

iha here.

pravRttaH means "taking up an action." It comes from the same place as pravRtti in pravRtti-mArga.

Taking up what? You need an infinitive, so samAhartum, "to completely take away." Basically, "destroy" is good. This is what saMhAra means, which is used in creation, maintenance and destruction. (vizva-saMhAra means destruction of the universe.) The extra "A" doesn't change this meaning.

lokAn is the accusative plural of "worlds." That is what is being destroyed.

3. Rte'pi tvAM na bhaviSyanti sarve

ye'vasthitAH pratyanIkeSu yodhAH

ye yodhAH pratyanIkeSu avasthitAH [te] sarve na bhaviSyanti tvAM Rte api

"All the soldiers (yodhAH) who (ye) are standing (avasthitAH) in the opposing armies (pratyanIkeSu), they (te) all ((sarve) will not be (na bhaviSyanti), except for you alone (tvAM Rte'pi)."

Jagat · July 6, 2001

<center>mahAn prabhur vai puruSaH

sattvasyaiSa pravartakaH

sunirmalAm imAM prAptim

IzAno jyotir avyayaH</center>

First of all, Upanishadic Sanskrit is not always purely classical in form. The Svetasvatara is a late, classical Upanishad. There are 11 major Upanishads, but their language is quite different.

The Brihad Aranyaka and Chandogya have the most archaic language, being somewhere between classical and pure Vedic and closer to the language found in the Brahmanas, which are considered to be the first set of scriptures that followed the Vedas themselves.

But one of the things that can be observed in all the Upanishads is that sometimes a purely correct grammatical reading is impossible. That will be shown in these verses.

Second, this verse has to be read in context, because both the one preceding it and the one following it are thematically connected and consist mostly of nominatives.

<hr>Nominative is the "subject" case. The subject of a sentence is always in the nominative. Words in apposition to the subject are also put in the nominative.

-- "He is a boy." saH bAlakaH.

-- "She is a girl." sA bAlikA

-- "It is a mountain." tat parvatam <hr>

The first verse --

<center>sarvAnana-ziro-grIvaH

sarva-bhUta-guhAzayaH

sarva-vyApI sa bhagavAn

tasmAt sarva-gataH zivaH </center>

ANVAYAH: sa bhagavAn sarvAnana-ziro-grIvaH sarva-bhUta-guhAzayaH

sarva-vyApI. tasmAt zivaH sarva-gataH

"That Lord [is possessed of] all face-head-neck, [is] hidden in the cave (heart) of every living being; [is] all-pervading. Therefore Shiva is all pervading."

GRAMMAR COMMENTS: There are different classes of compound word in Sanskrit. Most of them are pretty straightforward, so it is not really necessary to give a complicated explanation. But there is one kind, called bahu-vrIhi that is found here: "sarvAnana-ziro-grIvaH", which carries the idea "one who possesses or has all these things." Krishna is called pItAmbara, "yellow-dress" because he wears a yellow cloth.

So right away in this verse, we see that the name of Shiva has been found. The Svetasvatara Upanishad has several references to Shiva and none to Vishnu. So though it is a real favorite of theists (it is the most overtly theistic Upanishad), it is not at all Vaishnava in mood. The following verse also has a common name used for Shiva, IzAnaH.

<center>mahAn prabhur vai puruSaH

sattvasyaiSa pravartakaH

sunirmalAm imAM prAptim

IzAno jyotir avyayaH</center>

ANVAYAH: eSaH mahAn prabhuH vai puruSaH IzAnaH jyotiH avyayaH sunirmalAm imAm prAptim [prati] sattvasya pravartakaH 

Usually what happens when we do the anvaya is to group the words in the different cases together. You have to be somewhat careful, but certainly when the Sanskrit is simple, it works. Here we have many nominatives, so I have just grouped them at the beginning of the sentence.

"This (eSaH) great (mahAn) master (prabhuH) [is] certainly (vai) the soul/spirit (puruSaH), the controller (IzAnaH - also a name of Shiva), the imperishable light (jyotir avyayaH). He is the director (pravartakaH) of existence (sattvasya) towards (prati) this (imAm) most pure (sunirmalAm) attainment (prAptim).

GRAMMAR COMMENTS: sattvasya is in the genitive case, the possessive, which basically translates as "of." pravartakaH is connected to pravRtti in the Gita verse we had earlier. Nouns that have "ka" at the end are usually (not always) some kind of agent noun. Someone or something that does something. So here it is "one who engages us or makes us act." (The "us" is understood.)

The word prati, "towards," is supplied by the commentators. What justifies this addition? Well we have a problem. We have a phrase in the accusative without any verb or preposition governing the accusative case. The best we can do is say that God is engaging our being (sattva) and directing it towards "this" most pure attainment.

CONCLUSION: Certainly the words mahAn prabhuH, though evocative of our beloved Mahaprabhu, hardly justify our interpreting this verse as being a predictor of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Indeed, a straightforward reading leads us to confirm that Shaivaite theists wrote this in glorification of their iSTa-devatA.

Sorry if that was a bit dense. Please let me know if this is at all helpful to anyone. If it is not, then I will desist.

Jagat · July 6, 2001

Since we started on the Gita, I thought I would go through the Bhagavad Gita for Sanskrit beginners. Please give some feedback. I don't know if we'll get through the entire Gita, but a chapter or two will get us through a lot of the basics. I think we can have a test every Sunday or something.<hr>

<center>dharma-kSetre kuru-kSetre samavetA yuyutsavaH

mAmakAH pANDavAz caiva kim akurvata saMjaya</center>

ANVAYA: saMjaya, yuyutsavaH mAmakAH pANDavAH ca eva dharma-kSetre kuru-kSetre samavetAH kim akurvata?

Sanjaya, desiring to fight my sons and the Pandavas assembled on the religious field of Kurukshetra. What did they do?

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS:

Since I am assuming that most people will be beginners, I will give detailed notes. At the beginning, this may be quite extensive. As we go along, we will be trying to avoid repetition.

1. yuyutsavaH. There are many kinds of declension in Sanskrit. Usually you are obliged to memorize these. You are welcome to do so and if you want to follow this, then keep your declension tables at hand. What we have here is the nominative plural of a masculine adjective ending in –u, yuyutsu. There are many nouns that follow this declension, starting with viSNu, etc.

Yuyutsu is interesting because it is derived from the root /yudh meaning “to fight.” It comes from the desiderative form of the verb. You are probably familiar with mumukSu “desiring liberation,” or bubhukSu “desiring to enjoy,” or zuzrUSu, “desiring to hear” (also “desiring to serve”).

2. mAmakAH and pANDavAH are also nominative plurals of masculine nouns ending in –a. This is the most common declension and more than half of all nouns follow this system. So this declension should definitely be memorized. (I will give the full declension later.)

yuyutsavaH is an adjective describing these two nouns. “My sons and the Pandavas want to fight.”

3. dharma-kSetre kuru-kSetre. Masculine AND neuter nouns ending in –a share most of the same conjugation. Here we have the locative case, which as its name shows, indicates location, “in” or “at.”

kSetra is neuter, as you can see in chapter 13, the nominative singular is kSetram.

4. samavetAH is also an adjective agreeing with the two nouns. Now this is also derived from a verb. It is a very important form called the past participle. In Sanskrit, we can often avoid using a finite verb (i.e., one that is conjugated) by using a declined verb form that agrees with the noun.

What is interesting about past participles is that they are usually passive, but are sometimes used actively, like here, and with other verbs meaning “to go” and their derivatives.

The verb root here is /i, “to go.” The actual p.p. is itaH. Here the prefixes “sam” and “ava” have been added to make samaveta. The prefix sam as you probably know, often means “together” as in saM-kIrtanam.

5. kim “what?”. This is an interrogative pronoun in the neuter gender. These pronouns have a special kind of declension that is similar in part to the nouns ending in –a. tataH kim “What next?”

They can stand by themselves, or modify a noun. e.g. kiM kSetram “What (or which) field?”

6. akurvata “did”. This is a not very common form of the verb kR meaning “to do.” This is one of the most important verbs in Sanskrit, and though it follows a not very common conjugation, it should eventually be learned.

It is in the imperfect (past) tense, third person plural, middle voice (Atmanepada). This is just to introduce the terms. I will explain them later.

Jagat · July 6, 2001

<center>LESSON TWO</center>

<center>dRSTvA tu pANDavAnIkaM vyUDhaM duryodhanas tadA

AcAryam upasaMgamya rAjA vacanam abravIt</center>

ANVAYA: tadA tu rAjA duryodhanaH pANDavAnIkam vyUDham dRSTvA, AcAryam upasaMgamya, vacanam abravIt.

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS

1. tadA means “then.”

<center><table border=5><tr><td>Adverb<td>Time<td>Place<td>Manner</tr><tr><td>interrog.<td>kadA <td>kutra <td>katham <td> </tr><tr><td>trans..<td>when?<td>where?<td>how?<td></tr> <tr><td>relative <td>yadA<td>yatra<td>yathA<td></tr> <tr><td>trans.<td>when<td>where<td>as<td></tr><tr><td>correlative <td>tadA <td>tatra <td>tathA </tr> <tr> <td>trans. <td>then <td>there <td>so <td> </tr> <tr> <td>universal <td> sadA <td>sarvatra <td>sarvathA </tr> <tr> <td>interrog. <td>always <td>everywhere <td>in every way <td> </tr></table> </center>

The same pattern is found in pronouns, as you will see.

Doubling the relative pronoun adds an “ever.” yadA yadA “whenever”; yatra yatra “wherever,” etc.

2. rAjA duryodhanaH “King Duryodhana.” The -aH is, as we have already seen, the nominative masculine ending. Duryodhana is the subject of this sentence. rAjA is the nominative of rAjan. There are a few words that decline in the same way, like Atman, which has AtmA as its nominative form.

3. pANDavAnIkaM vyUDham. vyUDham is a passive past participle, “arranged (in battle formation).” It has the same root as the noun vyUha as in catur-vyUha. These words are the object of the first verb in the sentence.

4. dRSTvA “having seen.” This is our first encounter with the gerund. This is a very important element in Sanskrit syntax. Sanskrit doesn’t use verbs the way we do in English, nor do most other Indian languages, which follow the Sanskrit model.

In English, we will use two finite verbs in the same sentence and join them with “and.” “I ate and ran.” In Sanskrit, we would say “Having eaten, I ran.” khAditvA gataH.

Gerunds are pretty simple. They end in -tvA if they have no prefix, and -ya if they have one.

upasaMgamya is of the latter kind. upa + saM + /gam + ya. gam is the basic verb root, “to go.” This is a very important verb. “upa” indicates closeness, “sam” together. So it means “coming up to” or “meeting.” AcAryam again is the object.

5. vacanam. “word or statement.” This is the object of the verb that follows. It is a neuter noun, but when they end in -a, singular neuter and masculine nouns are exactly the same. They are only different in the nominative.

6. abravIt “he spoke,” is another verb in the imperfect tense. It has that a marker before the root, like in akurvata. This is another fairly irregular verb, so I won’t get into it here. This is in the active voice. 

So, King Duryodhan, saw the Pandava army arranged in battle formation, he went to Dronacharya, and said (this) statement.

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-07-2001).]

Jagat · July 6, 2001

<center>LESSON THREE</center>

For July 7, 2001. Three interesting new things come up in this verse. One is feminine nouns, the second is the genitive case, the third is the instrumental case.. A number of different declensions also appear.<hr>

<center>pazyaitAM pANDu-putrANAm

AcArya mahatIM camUm |

vyUDhAM drupada-putreNa

tava ziSyeNa dhImatA ||3||</center>

ANVAYA: AcArya! pANDu-putrANAm mahatIm camUm etAm tava dhImatA ziSyeNa drupada-putreNa vyUDhAM pazya.

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS:

1. AcArya. This is the easiest case to learn – the vocative. When the noun ends in -a, as it does here, then one leaves the noun in its root form. You often see an exclamation point after the vocative, even in devanagari texts. he kRSNa!.

2. pANDu-putrANAm. Two things to note here: (a) This is a very simple type of compound word called a SaSThI-tat-puruSa. The translation makes it clear what that means: “the sons (putra) of Pandu.” It works something like “John-son.”

SaSThI means “sixth,” here it refers to the sixth case-ending, which is the genitive, or possessive case.

(b) The -nAm ending is most often a genitive plural. Depending on the kind of declension, it will appear somewhat differently. In the declensions of nouns ending in -a, as here, it will be -AnAm. ”of the sons of Pandu”.

NOTE: The n is N because of an internal sandhi rule: after r, R or S, n becomes N.

3. Now we get a list of accusatives, a demonstrative adjective, an adjective and a noun. Putting them in the order they would most likely appear to us in English: etAm mahatIm camUm “this great phalanx.”

Notice that though all of them end in different long vowels -- A, I, U, they all have the accusative marker A, I, U. In 95% of cases, this holds true. There are very few feminine nouns ending in U, so you are lucky to have met one so soon in your Sanskrit career, camU.

etAm, “this”, like tAm, “that,” can be used either as a demonstrative adjective when used with a noun, or as a pronoun when standing by itself. The nominative forms are eSA and sA.

4. vyUDhAm, which we already saw in the previous verse, is being used here as a passive participle, “arranged.” It agrees with camUm, so even though it has been separated a little by the syntax, it is still connected grammatically.

5. Now tava dhImatA ziSyeNa drupada-putreNa tells us who has arranged the phalanx. The phrase is in the instrumental case. That tells you “by [whom or what]” or “with [whom or what].” So we have ”by your intelligent disciple, the son of Drupada.”

-ena is the customary inflection of the instrumental case for masculine and neuter nouns ending in -a. (The sandhi rule mentioned above explains why it’s putreNa).

dhImatA, as you have probably guessed, belongs to a different declension, one that is pretty popular. It is related to mahatI also found in this verse. These are nouns and adjectives ending in -ant, but they are more familiar in their nominative singular form, like bhagavAn, dhImAn, mahAn, etc.

6. So only one more word,pazya, which is an imperative form. This is the simplest form of the verb, an order. “Look!”

Oh Acharya! Look at this phalanx of the sons of Pandu, arranged by your intelligent disciple, the son of Drupada.

And we all know why Duryodhan called him intelligent. He’s trying to egg Dronacharya on.

Tarun · July 7, 2001

We'll stick with Gita verses here?

I ask because you herein again post this Zvet. Upan. zloka: "mahAn prabhur..."

My gut feeling: "sunirmalAm" is this zloka's key word pointing to ZacI-suta Zri Gauranga exclusively.

I know. This comment belongs on the other thread. Admitted.

Jagat · July 9, 2001

<center>LESSON FOUR</center>

For July 9, 2001. Forgive me, friends, for spreading myself a little thin. I have started three different threads in the last week and each one of them is quite demanding. So you’ll forgive me if I start to take it a little easy.

I’ll try to get five Gita verses in a week, and a bit of the other articles, which though already completed, need to be formatted and corrected, sometimes edited – and all of that takes time. So please be patient and we’ll try to get everything in.

<hr>

Verses 4-6 are usually read together. That is the way the commentaries are usually organized.

b>feminine nouns, the second is the genitive case, the third is the instrumental case.. A number of different declensions also appear.

<hr>

<center> atra zUrA mahezvAsA bhImArjuna-samA yudhi |

yuyudhAno virATaz ca drupadaz ca mahArathaH ||4||

dhRSTaketuz cekitAnaH kAzirAjaz ca vIryavAn |

purujit kuntibhojaz ca zaibyaz ca nara-pungavaH ||5||

yudhAmanyuz ca vikrAnta uttamaujAz ca vIryavAn |

saubhadro draupadeyAz ca sarva eva mahArathAH ||3||</center>

ANVAYA: I won’t bother with an anvaya today, as it is pretty straightforward. Mostly we have a list of names, with a few little things thrown in.

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS:

1. So let’s do a little bit of sandhi. In this verse, we have nearly all masculine nouns in the nominative singular, with one or two plurals. Since most of these end in –aH or -AH, we can see a few of the most common sandhi rules in action.

The idea of sandhi fascinated the classical Sanskritists. In a way, the entire Hindu philosophy of life can be summarized by sandhi – everything is contextual. Everything is affected by its context. So when one letter comes into contact with another, it is altered. This means the budding Sanskritist has to be able to recognize these changes.

“H” is called “visarga.” It is one of the most volatile sounds and can change or be dropped depending on what goes before it and what follows, so you have to bear both in mind. In the first line, a single rule is illustrated. The three words are all masculine plurals, and in their original form ended with H, but because these visargas were followed by soft consonants, they were all dropped!

<center>atra zUrAH mahezvAsAH bhIma-arjuna-samAH yudhi..</center>

What, I hear you ask, is a soft consonant? Please look into a BBT book with the Sanskrit alphabet in it. The last three consonants in each line – ga, gha, Ga, ja, jha, Ja, Da, Dha, Na, da, dha, na, ba, bha, ma – the four semivowels – ya, ra, la, va – and ha. These 20 are called “soft consonants.” Linguists give them another name, but let’s not get troubled by a name.

So the rule here is: Whenever H is preceded by A and followed by a soft consonant or a vowel, it is dropped.

NOTA BENE #1: We didn't have an example in these particular verses of AH followed by a vowel, but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

NOTA BENE #2: We have to read backwards – we have to be able to deduce whether there was a visarga there once that is now missing. This requires a little bit of knowledge, because maybe there never was a visarga there in the first place!!!

2. yudhi is a locative case for a consonant-stem noun. Actually –i is the official universal locative ending, but because of various sandhi rules and exceptions, you really see it only in consonant-stem nouns. Examples: Atmani, bhagavati, mahati, gAvi,, etc.

yudhi-Sthira means “steady in battle.” That’s another story. It’s an archaic type of compound word in which the first member retains a case ending. This doesn’t usually happen, but there are a few cases.

The more common form for “in battle” would be yuddhe from yuddha.

A couple of the other names in these verses also show derivatives of the /yudh verb root. yuyudhAna and yudhAmanyu, but I won’t burden you with explanations of those right now. Let’s stick to sandhi today.

3. saubhadro and yuyudhAno were originally saubhadraH and yuyudhAnaH. The rule here was: Whenever visarga (H) is preceded by “a” and followed by a soft consonant, the aH is transformed into o.

In this case, it is fairly easy to recognize, because there are very few words in Sanskrit that naturally end in -o.

4. Notice how often in these verses you get “z” before a “ca”. Very simple. The rule is: No matter WHAT vowel precedes the visarga, if it is followed by “c”, it becomes z.

5. The last visarga sandhi rule for today: Whenever a visarga is preceded by a or A, and followed by any vowel, it is dropped. This is what happened to vikrAntaH.

6. We’ll finish today’s lesson by introducing you to the word sarva. This common word, which you are all no doubt already familiar with, is in fact declined like a pronoun. Pronouns are sometimes declined like ordinary –a stem nouns, and sometimes they have endings that are unique to themselves. In this particular case, sarva is really sarve, but due to a vowel sandhi rule, it became sarva.

So sarvaH in the masculine singular (“the entire”) becomes sarve in the masculine plural (“all”). Similarly,

kaH becomes ke (“who?”)

yaH becomes ye (“who”)

saH becomes te (“he, they”)

And we have a number of other adjectives that fit into this category. We shall meet them all in due course.

So let’s stop there today. And now to go to my REAL work!

Jagat · July 11, 2001

<center>LESSON FIVE

VERSE 10

aparyAptaM tad asmAkaM

balaM bhISmAbhirakSitam |

paryAptaM tv idam eteSAM

balaM bhImAbhirakSitam ||10||</center>

ANVAYA: tat asmAkam balam bhISmAbhirakSitam aparyAptam | eteSAm balam idam tu bhImAbhirakSitam paryAptam |

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS:

(1) asmAkam “our” and eteSAm “their.” These are both genitive plural, but different from the familiar AnAM. eteSAm is the customary form found in all pronouns yeSAm, teSAm, keSAm, sarveSAm, but asmAkam, you’re just going to have to get used to. Of course, “your” in the plural is yuSmAkam. One thing to notice I, we, you (both singular and plural) have no gender. Thank Krishna for that.

(2) tat and idam. There are two words for this etat and idam, two words for that tat and adaH (as in pUrNam adaH pUrNam idaM. What’s the difference. Not much, really. But if you are really being demonstrative, “this thing here” or “that thing there”, you would really go with idam and adaH. If you are using a relative clause in a sentence, you must go with tat or, very much less frequently, etat. The same thing with the other pronouns – “he” can be saH or eSaH (if it’s this guy right here) ayam and asau (this and that fellow) and iyam and asau in the feminine.

tat has an adverbial usage also. Here, in this verse, it seems to mean something more like tataH or “so.”

(3) tu (which here, by vowel sandhi has become tv). I have deliberately not discussed this particle, which is usually translated “but.” It often cannot be translated so easily. It basically presents some kind of contrast, but it is not necessarily so straighforward as “but” or “nevertheless”. You would never start a sentence with tu, and it nearly always applies to the word preceding it. So in this sentence, the contrast is clearly between the words aparyAptam and aparyAptam.

Sanskrit uses word order a lot to indicate emphasis of meaning. Since word order is not as rigid as in English.

The sandhi rule here is that u or U followed by any vowel other than u or U becomes v.

What happens if u or U are followed by u or U? They become U. The same thing happens with a and i.

(4) bhISmAbhirakSitam and bhImAbhirakSitam are compound words. These are tRtIya-tat-puruSa compounds. The second element is governed by the first, which is understood to be in the instrumental (tRtIya) case (the “by” case). So a commentator would gloss bhISmeNa abhirakSitam, “protected (all around -- abhi) by Bhishma.”

Another sandhi rule, an easy vowel sandhi rule: When a or A is followed by a or A, they join to become A. But I’ll bet you already knew that one. (See #3 above_

(5) paryAptam and abhirakSitam are both past participles. Ap is a pretty common verb, Apnoti, Apta, etc., pop up frequently. It means “obtain, attain, get.” paryApta means “reached its limits” or “limited.” This is why there is quite a difference of opinion about their meaning. Is Duryodhana saying that his forces are unlimitedly great, or that they have not reached a sufficient amount to whip the Pandavas? Duryodhana is confused and his words have double meaning.

6. Do I need to tell you that balam is a neuter noun in the nominative case, and that everything else -- idaM, bhISmAbhirakSitaM, paryAptam, etc., are all "in apposition" or "in agreement" with balam, describing or modifying it? Good, I am glad to see we're starting to get some of the basics down.

So, what do we have? “So (tat) our (asmAkaM) forces (balaM) protected by Bhishma (bhISmAbhirakSitam) are unlimited [or insufficient] (aparyAptaM). Their (eteSAM) forces (balaM) here before us (idam) on the other hand (tu) protected by Bhima (bhImAbhirakSitam) are limited [or sufficient] (paryAptaM).

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-11-2001).]

animesh · July 11, 2001

Jagat ji,

One question. You have written that "aparyAptaM" may mean both unlimited as well as insufficient. You have written that this shows that Duryodhan was confused. Can we really claim that he was confused. There are many words which mean more things than one, but their usage does not indicate that the speaker is confused. Based on the context it may be possible to find out what he meant.

Is it possible to know what Duryodhan really meant by, say, reading neighbouring verses?

[This message has been edited by animesh (edited 07-12-2001).]

Jagat · July 12, 2001

Please read again. It can mean both, at least according to Baladeva:

nanv ubhayoH sainyayos taulyAt tavaiva vijayaM katham ity Azankya sva-sainyAdhikyam Aha aparyAptam iti | aparyAptam aparimitam asmAkaM balam | tatrApi bhISmeNa mahA-buddhimatAtirathenAbhirakSatam | eteSAM pANDavAnAM balaM tu paryAptaM parimitam | tatrApi bhImena tuccha-buddhinArdharathenAbhirakSitam | ataH siddha-vijayo’ham ||10||

animesh · July 12, 2001

Sorry. I had not read it properly. I was editing my message when you were typing the reply.

For other members of this forum:

Before editing, my post read:

Jagat ji,

One question. You have written that "aparyAptaM" means unlimited. Doesn't it mean insifficient?

Jagat · July 12, 2001

<center>LESSON SIX

VERSE 11</center>

<hr>Lots of new things today. So get ready.<hr>

ayaneSu ca sarveSu yathA-bhAgam avasthitAH |

bhISmam evAbhirakSantu bhavantaH sarva eva hi ||11||</center>

ANVAYA : sarve eva hi bhavantaH ayaneSu ca sarveSu yathA-bhägam avasthitäH bhISmam eva abhirakSantu |

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS

1. sarve bhavantaH. “All of you.” These are masculine plurals in the nominative case. We have already seen sarve and we know that it becomes sarva in front of eva because of vowel sandhi, or at least we do now.

bhavantaH is an interesting word. bhavAn is the masculine singular, bhavatI the feminine singular. It is a polite form of address. Instead of saying “you” in the second person, one uses the respectful pronoun bhavAn and follows it with third person verb endings. The plural ending of nouns that end in vat, like bhagavat, etc., is vantaH. So plural for bhagavAn is bhagavantaH.

2. ayaneSu sarveSu. Here we have the familiar Su ending that indicates the locative plural. Because of the consonant sandhi rules, after a or A, this is su. Thus Atmasu or karmasu or rAdhAsu (if there could be many of her!). ayanam is military terminology for sainya-praveza-vartma “the entry points into the military formation.” The locative can mean “in” or “at.”

3. ca is a lot like tu, which we discussed in the last verse. We usually translate as “and” and for the most part that works. But here, what two things are being joined or added? So it’s a little difficult to translate. Most commentators have just skipped over it here, but Ananda Giri says kartavya-vizeSa-pradyotI ca-zabdaH, “The word ca here emphasizes that this is a special duty.” That sounds like he’s pushing it a little. ca can sometimes function like api, which can mean either “even” or “also.” But that is hard to fit into this verse also. So let’s leave it there for now.

4. yathA-bhAgam. This is a particular kind of adverbial compound known as a karma-dhAraya. Forget I told you that. yathA is an important adverb that means “as” or “according to”. You follow that with a noun in the accusative case and you have your compound. Here it is “as divided” or “as appointed.” As an adverb it modifies a verb (or verb derivative), in this case avasthitAH, “situated.”

This first part of the verse ayaneSu ca sarveSu yathA-bhAgam avasthitAH means, “all of you situated according to the way that you were assigned positions in all the specific locations within the military phalanx” or something like that.

5. bhISmam is in the accusative case, so it is the direct object of the verb, which is abhirakSantu.

6. abhirakSantu introduces the imperative mood. Since our subject is bhavantaH, this verb is in the third person. Still, it’s just a polite way of saying, “Do it!” “Protect Bhishma” (on all sides). The present tense would have been abhirakSanti, just as the respective singular forms are abhirakSatu and abhirakSati.

7. eva hi are both emphatic particles. Here they are used for emphasizing sarve. We could exaggerate in translating and say “every dang-blast last one of you”, but that is probably unnecessary. Some people think that a writer might use too many of these single syllable words in order to fill out a verse. This does indeed happen a lot in anustubh composition, where the narrative is often more important than the finely tuned turn of a phrase.

TRANSLATION: Therefore stand in your respective positions in the strategic points of the formation and protect Bhishma on all sides.

Jagat · July 12, 2001

Just checking aparyAptam in the various commentaries.

Ananda Giri like Baladeva comes out on the side of aparimitam. On the other hand, Hanuman and Sridhar have asamartham ("incapable"). Nilakantha is original here, pariveSTitam "surrounded." He is saying that we can surround them but they can't surround us.

Zaehner translates "Imperfect are those our forces, though Bhishma protects them, but perfect are these their forces which Bhima guards."

He comments, "This appears to be what the text means. The words are spoken by Duryodhan who is much given to boasting and come somewhat unnaturally from his lips. Hence, Radhakrishnan, following some ancient and modern commentaries, translates aparyAptam as "unlimited" and paryAptam as limited. He does not, however, quote any parallel for such a use of the word. Some MSS reverse the order of Bhishma and Bhima, thus giving the required sense (!).

Vishwanath Chakravarti has paripUrNam. His gloss translates in the following way, "Even though our army is protected by Bhishma, who is of sharp intellect, it is incomplete in comparison to the Pandavas' army, though it is protected by the less intelligent Bhima. We are thus no match for them."

So Vishwanath takes Duryodhan as having a premonition of defeat, while the others see him as a boaster.

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-12-2001).]

animesh · July 16, 2001

I wanted to ask a question on pronunciation. Lots of words used in scriptures are very long because sandhi has been used. I find it difficult to pronounce them. Is it OK if I break them into parts and then pronounce each part (assuming that I can do correct sandhi-vichchhed)? Or, is it a must that they should be pronounced exactly as they are written?

Tarun · July 16, 2001

Animesh: Poetic meter takes into account sandhi.

You'll be messing with meter only if you open up vowels like e into a + i, o into a + u, A into a + a, etc.

4 syllable gurUttama => guru uttama (5 syllables) thus effecting, unsmoothing zlokas chanting rhythm.

Conjunct consonants like cc into t + c in saccidAnanda => sat cit Ananda won't add any syllable.

IOW, you'll be adding one syllable, which interrupts the poetic flow.

Give an example of a word combination you find too long.

Jagat: When Zrila Zridhar Mhrj's Gita 1st came out in English 1985, 1st thing I noticed was this 1.10 verse translated oppositely.

Jagat · July 16, 2001

<center>LESSON SEVEN</center>

<hr>This verse is pretty straightforward. If you know your nominative and accusative cases, you should be well on your way.

There are three clauses in this sentence, with a present participle, a gerund and, finally, a finite verb.<hr>

tasya sañjanayan harSaM kuru-vRddhaH pitAmahaH |

siMha-nAdaM vinadyoccaiH zankhaM dadhmau pratApavAn ||12||</center>

ANVAYA: pratApavAn kuru-vRddhaH pitAmahaH tasya (duryodhanasya) harSaM sañjanayan, siMha-nAdaM vinadya zankhaM uccaiH dadhmau ||12||</center>

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS

1. pratApavAn. By now you are familiar with nouns with the suffix -vat or vAn. The usual meaning is “possessing” the quality named beforehand, in this case pratApa or “valor.”

This is not to be confused with vat which can also be tacked onto a noun to mean “like, as.”

2. sañjanayan. This is another new form, the present participle. It is an active form, “producing.” (from the verb root /jan, which brings us such famous nouns as jana, janma, jAti, jananI, janaka, etc.).

These participles are also declined very much like nouns and adjectives ending in consonants, especially like -vat words. So this declension will be an important one to learn. This is the nominative masculine form here.

Another thing about this verb. Notice that -ay that immediately precedes the ending -an. That is a causative marker. Sanskrit and most Indian languages have a way of creating causative forms. Whereas in European languages we usally “make” someone do something, in Sanskrit we have a form of the original verb that has the meaning of making someone else do that action. That was clear, wasn’t it?

Examples:

<ul>[*]karoti “he does”, kArayati “he makes someone else do.”

[*]smarati “he remembers,” smArayati “he makes someone else remember, he reminds.”

There are rules for how to do this – You lengthen (vRddhi) the first vowel and add the –ay before the verb endings. I should tell you what vRddhi is, but I don’t want to overburden you at this point. And of course there are many irregular forms.

tasya harSam is the object of the participle in this phrase.

2. vinadya is one of those gerunds, a lyap to use the Sanskrit technical term. It ends in ya because there is a prefix vi-.

The difference between the gerund and the present participle:

<ul>[*]The g. is indeclinable. It is always the same. The p.p. has to agree in number and gender with its subject.

[*]The g. indicates that an action has been completed, while the p.p. indicates the action is continuous; so technically vinadya means “having sounded” while sanjanayan means “creating.”

So here Bhishma makes the lion’s roar, which brings Duryodhan joy, BEFORE blowing his conch shell. The two actions are separate, but some commentators seem to take them as one. As Baladeva says,

<center> mukhataH kiñcid anuktvA zankha-nAda-mAtra-karaNena jaya-parAjayau khalv IzvarAdhInau tvad-arthe kSatra-dharmeNa dehaM tyakSyAmIti vyajyate</center>

<blockquote>“Without saying anything verbally (mukhataH), by simply blowing his conch Bhishma announces that victory and defeat are under the control of the Supreme Lord, but for Duryodhan’s sake he is ready to give up his life because that is his duty as a kshatriya.”</blockquote>

3. uccaiH is a familiar adverb meaning “loudly.” In fact, it is an instrumental plural of the adjective ucca meaning “high.” I am not sure how that happened, but there you have it, uccaiH means loudly. It is used quite frequently.

4. dadhmau. There are at least six different ways of expressing the past tense in Sanskrit and there is not all that much to distinguish them in terms of meaning. In English we have past continuous, perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, etc., that have different meanings in terms of time. These distinctions may once have existed in Sanskrit, but generally they have been lost. When it is absolutely necessary to convey a pluperfect meaning (an action completed in the past) we tend to use a gerund, or a continuous action in the past, a present participle, combined with another verb to show clearly the time relation.

Why this preamble? Because our noble Sanskritists of the European persuasion decided to call the verb forms like dadhmau the perfect tense, because it resembles the perfect tense formation in Greek. Panini called it liT. In English perfect tenses have the auxiliarly “have”. “I have blown.” You can see in this verse that if I translated “Bhishma has blown his conch shell after making a lion’s sound bringing pleasure to Duryodhan”, it woulddn’t make much sense.

dadhmau comes from the root dhmA. Verb roots that end in –A are conjugated somewhat differently from most other verbs. In the perfect tense that means a third person singular ending in -au. Most third person singulars end in -a after the reduplication of the verb stem. In this case that means the addition of da before dhm.

There are not many examples of perfect tenses in the Bhagavad-gita: The ubiquitous uvAca is a perfect tense. babhUva (2.9), cakAra are others. There are not many past tenses in the Gita at all, so the other past forms are not all that well-represented, either. There are more imperfects than anything else, as far as I can see. As soon as you get into narrative, however, you will come across many of all forms of the past tense.

Jagat · July 18, 2001

<center>LESSON EIGHT</center>

<hr>As with most verses so far, there is a little something new. In this verse we meet the passive voice for the first time (except for the past passive participle, of course). We also have two cases of the imperfect.<hr>

<center>VERSE 13

tataH zankhAz ca bheryaz ca

paNavAnaka-gomukhAH |

sahasaivAbhyahanyanta

sa zabdas tumulo 'bhavat ||13||</center>

ANVAYA: tataH zankhAH ca bheryaH ca paNava-Anaka-gomukhAH sahasA eva abhyahanyanta | sa zabdas tumulaH abhavat ||12||

GRAMMATICAL COMMENTS

1. tataH here means “then, next, after that.”

2. zankhAH ca bheryaH ca paNava-Anaka-gomukhAH . As you should know by now, these are nominative plurals. zankhAH is masculine. bheryaH is feminine (the singular is bherI) and paNava-Anaka-gomukhAH is a compound word where three items are listed. This is called a dvandva-samAsa and is quite common. A dvandva samAsa always takes the gender of the last item in the list. If you say “wife and husband”, it will take the masculine gender. In this case, all three nouns are masculine, so the question doesn’t really arise.

3. sahasA means “suddenly”. This is a pretty common adverb. It’s actually the instrumental of an adjective sahas.

4. abhyahanyanta. This is a verb in the passive voice. It is in the imperfect tense and has a third person plural ending.

Some things to note about the imperfect tense. We already saw akurvata in verse 1, and abravIt in verse 2. We observed there that the imperfect tense is formed by taking the a- augment at the beginning of the verb stem before adding the imperfect endings. In abhyahanyanta, you will observe that this augment is tucked in between the prefix abhi and the verb stem han.

Now this verb here is plural, but it has the passive ending –anta. I mentioned in passing in verse one that akurvata was a middle voice. There are three voices in Sanskrit: active, passive and middle. English has active and passive voices, but there are very few languages that still have a middle voice. It also existed in ancient Greek and is one of the clues that Greek and Sanskrit have common roots. In classical Sanskrit, the middle voice has already become somewhat archaic and is barely distinguishable from the active voice in usage.

We will talk more about the middle voice later. But here it should be pointed out that middle voice and passive voice endings are exactly the same. The difference is that the passive voice adds a y in between the verb stem and the endings. That is the y after han here.

As far as the ending is concerned: We already have seen that -nt- combination. abhirakSantu was a third person plural imperative. abhirakSanti would be the third person plural singular. The present tense endings of the passive are also similar in the third person singular and plural -- ate and ante. So in the present tense, abhyahanyanta would have been abhihanyante.

At some point I am going to start giving entire conjugations and declensions. So try to get a grasp on some of this introductory material. It will make it easier when these come. In fact, third person singular and plural endings are far more common than any others, so it is a good idea to become familiar with these first.

4. abhavat is also an imperfect. This is the third person singular, “became”. “That sound became tumultuous.” So let’s just look at all those third person singular and plural endings, some of which we have already met.

<center><table border="5"><tr><td>tense<td>voice<td>singular<td>plural</tr><tr><td>present <td>active<td>-ati<td>-anti<td></tr><tr><td>present <td>middle<td>-ate<td>-ante<td></tr><tr><td>present <td>passive<td>-yate<td>-yante<td></tr><tr><td>imperative <td>active<td>-atu<td>-antu<td></tr><tr><td>imperative <td>middle<td>-atAm<td>-antAm<td></tr><tr><td>imperative <td>passive<td>-yatAm<td>-yantAm<td></tr><tr><td>imperfect<td>active<td>-at<td>-an<td></tr><tr><td>imperfect<td>middle<td>-ata<td>-anta<td></tr><tr><td>imperfect<td>passive<td>-yat a <td>-yanta<td></tr></table></center>

Translation: Then the conchshells, trumpets, drums, kettledrums and bugles were suddenly sounded. That sound became tumultuous.

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-18-2001).]

Tarun · July 23, 2001

Jagatji: you skipped verses 7, 8, 9.

1) for drupada putreNa tava ziSyena dhImatA, shouldn't it be drupadasya putreNa = by son of Drupada?

How do we know Drupada and putra are connected?

2) gerund and present participle sound same. tyaktvA is gerund?

tyaktvA turnam azeSa mandala pati-zrenim sadA tucchavat

Having given up...

What about chUtvA bhUtvA pralIyate. Similar gerund?

3) this verb dadhmau

dadhmau looks like a dual ending.

And you say it's stem is duplicated.

da is similar, though not = to dhma

Where's the stem? Where the duplication?

Please continue with Chapter 1.

Very nice explanations.

Thank you very much.

Jagat · July 27, 2001

Dear Tarunji,

Please excuse the delay in answering. I have been unable to spend much time on the Internet lately. For those who are interested in the three threads I had been working on, I will be back.

Your questions are good.

Quite right, I did miss verses 7-9. Sorry about that. Spaced out... I'll get back to them.

1) for drupada putreNa tava ziSyena dhImatA, shouldn't it be drupadasya putreNa = by son of Drupada? How do we know Drupada and putra are connected?

Compound words are like that. Some thing in English in certain circumstances. We deduce relations between juxtaposed words. Some of it comes from intonation in speech. In this case, our only alternative would be to assume that "drupada" is a vocative, but since no Drupada is being addressed here, the only alternative is to assume the relation with the following word.

2) gerund and present participle sound same. tyaktvA is gerund?

Present participle = "doing" (agrees with subject in number and gender) e.g. zRNvan "hearing." Use this when the action is going on simultaneously with the action of the main verb.

Gerund = "having done" (in Sanskrit indeclinable) e.g. zrutvA "having heard."

Use this when the action went on prior the action of the main verb. But whereas in English we would say, "I came, I saw and I conquered", in Sanskrit we would say, "Agatya dRSTvA ajayam."

There are also "verbal nouns" like "zravaNam" which also come out in English as "doing" ("hearing"), but they are used as nouns.

tyaktvA tUrNam azeSa-maNDala-pati-zreNiM sadA tucchavat

Having given up... exactly.

What about bhUtvA bhUtvA pralIyate. Similar gerund?

Yes. The repetition of bhUtvA indicates repeated action. We would translate "comes into being and is destroyed, again and again."

3) dadhmau looks like a dual ending.

It does, doesn't it? But it's not. There are several things ending in -au. (locative singular of nouns ending in -i or -u, for example). You have to have sufficient knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to be able to recognize them.

And you say it's stem is duplicated.

da is similar, though not = to dhma

Where's the stem? Where the duplication?

There are complex rules for reduplication. I didn't want to get into all the explanations above. Basically, all compound consonants are reduced to their first member's unaspirated form. All aspirated (i.e., with the "h" included) consonants are reduplicated by their unaspirated form. That explains why dhma is reduplicated by simply "da".

zrU is reduplicated with zu. So for the perfect, you have zuzrAva, for the desiderative, you have zuzrUSayati, etc.

Tarun · July 28, 2001

Jagatji: Non-aspirated duplicated dadhmau appears in text 12 & 15.

1) So if we want to espress "He really blew it" in Sanskrt we'd say "sah tat eva hi dadhmau" or sa hy eva tat dadhmau"

At least figuratively.

So many au endings in Sad GosvAmyaSTakam.

2) Bhag 1.1.16 zuzruSoH zraddadhAnasya

Looks like 2 in a row. 2 what in a row?

As Costello said to Abbott in their reknowned routine "Who's on First", 'I don't even know what I'm talkin' about.'

So if zru is duplicated by zu = zuzru, then r is being treated as an aspirant rh like in Greek?

rhombus, rhetoric, rhapsody, rheumatism

Just a thought. Please continue. Ready for more.

Tarun · August 6, 2001

asmAkaM tu viziSThA ye

tAn nibodha dvijottama

nAyakA mama sainyasya

saMjnArthaM tan bravImi te ||7||

-------------------

bhavAn bhISmaz ca karNaz ca

kRpaz ca samitiNjayaH

azvatthAmA vikarNaz ca

saumadattis tathaiva ca ||8||

--------------------

anye ca bahavaH zUrA

mad-arthe tyakta jIvitAH

nAnA zastra praharaNAH

sarve yuddha vizAradAH ||9||

Tarun · August 8, 2001

Yesterday in class we came across a BhAgavatam verse in 1st Canto, Chapter 19 "Zukadev's Appearance" with the word vavande.

1st syllable duplicated!?

Tarun · January 9, 2002

Jagatji: can you continue?

Can we pick up where we left off?

In depth analysis of 1-2 verses/week is more than enough.

Jagat · February 10, 2002

This seems like a worthwhile endeavor, so I will indeed try to get back to it, Tarunji.

The -au ending is masculine dual in nominative and accusative. The form here is interesting as Srinivas Acharya divides the six goswamis into three pairs, and then makes all the adjectives agree with the dual form.

There are two kinds of alankaras, sabdalankara and arthalankara, sound and meaning. The way things sound is very important in Sanskrit--you get a lot more alliteration and internal rhyme (usually based on inflection) in Sanskrit poetry than you do in English, though line-end rhyme is rarer.

Jagat

Jagat · February 10, 2002

zuzrUSoH zraddadhAnasya

Though reduplication is present in both the above words, it is not being used in the same way in both examples. Reduplication takes many different forms and is used in the imperfect tense (as in vavande), in the desiderative, in the third conjugation in the present tense (and in some irregular verbs), and in the intensive (which is quite rare outside of kavya literature.

zuzrUSu <-- derived from /zru, "to hear"; desiderative form, "one who desires to hear." The noun meaning "desire to hear" is zuzrUSA (feminine). This has come to mean "service" and "servant," since one who wishes to hear from the guru must serve him. The -oH ending is either ablative ("from, than") or genitive ("of"). So "of one who wishes to hear."

zraddadhAnasya <-- You will recognize that this word is related to the familiar zraddhA, "faith." This word is unusual in that it is a combination of a rare prefix "zrad" and the verb root "dhA", which has many, many derivatives in various forms including most words that have dhi in them (though not "buddhi").

The dhA root is in the third conjugation, which reduplicates the root in the present tense. The third person singular is dadhAti. So if you want to say, "I have faith in him," you would say, "tasmin zraddadhAmi."

Another verb of this class is dA (dadAti, dadAmi buddhi-yogaM tam).

zraddadhAna is a present participle "having faith". the -asya ending is genitive. So zuzrUSoH zraddadhAnasya means "of one who is serving (with the desire to hear) and has faith."

Sign In

Going through the Gita

Recommended Posts

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Join the conversation

Support the Ashram