Indian Antiquary Vol 14

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 46

38
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(FEBRUARY, 1885.
from their work, we should hardly expect them to explain that it was the rare survival of an anciently little-used formation; but we have here another striking example of the great discordance between the real Sansksit and the grammarians' dialect, and of the insafficiency of the information respecting the former obtainable from the rules for the latter.
Again, the reduplicated or third form of aorist, though it has become attached to the Causative secondary conjugation, (by a process in the Veda not yet complete), as the regular aorist of that conjugation, is not made from the derivative causative stem, but comes from the root itself, not less directly than do the other aorist-formations-except in the few cases where the causative stem contains a p added to &: thus, atishthipat from stem sthapaya, root sthá. Perhaps misled by this exception, how ever, the grammarians teach the formation of the reduplicated aorist from the causative stem, through the intermediate process of convert. ing the stem back to the root, by striking off its conjugation-sign and reducing its strength. ened vowel to the simpler root-form. That is to say, we are to make, for example, abil. thuvat from the stem bhavaya, by cutting off aya and reducing the remainder bhav or bhau to bhú, instead of making it from bhá directly ! That is a curious etymological process; quite & side-piece to deriving variyas and varishtha from uru, and the like, as the Hindu grammarians and their European copyists would likewise have us do. There is one point where the matter is brought to a crucial test: namely, in roots that end in u or 1; where, if the vowel on which the reduplication is formed is an 1-vowel, the redaplication-vowel should be of the same character; but, in any other case, an i-vowel. Thus, in the example already taken, bhavaya ought to make abibhavat, just as it makes bibhavayishati in the case of a real derivation from the causative stem, and such forms as abíbhavat are, in fact, in a great number of cases either prescribed or allowed by the grammarians ; but I am not aware of their having boen ever met with in uso, earlier or later, with the single exception of apiplavam, occurring in the Satapatha-Bráhmana (VI. ii. 1, 8).
Again, the grammarians give a peculiar and problematic rule for an alternative formation
of certain passive tenses (aorist and futures) from the special 3rd sing. aor. pass.; they allow it in the case of all roots ending in vowels, and of grah, dsis, han. Thus, for oxample, from the root dd are allowed adáyishi, ddyishyate, dáyitá, beside adishi, dásyote, dátá. What all this means is quite obscure, since there is no usage, either early or late, to cast light upon it. The Rig Veda has once (I. 147, 5) dhdyís, from root dhd; but this, being active, is rather a hindrance than a help. The Jdim.-Brahmana has once (I. 321) ákhyáyishyante ; bat this appears to be a form analogous with huayishyate, &c., and so proves nothing. The Bhág.-Purána has once (VIII. 13, 36) táyitá, which the Petersburg Lexicon refers to root tan; but if there is such a thing as the secondary root tây. as claimed by the grammarians, it perhaps belongs rather there. And there remain, 80 far as I can discover, only astháyishi (Daiak. [Wilson), p. 117, 1. 6) and anáyishata (Ind. Sprüche, 6187, from the Kuvalayananda); and these are with great probability to be regarded as artificial forms, made because the grammar declares them correct. It seems not unlikely that some misapprehension or blunder lies at the foundation of these rules of the grammar ; at any rate, the formation is only grammarians' Sanskrit, and not even pandits', and it should never be obtruded upon the attention of beginners in the language.
Again, the secondary ending dhuam of 2nd pl. mid. sometimes has to take the form dhram. In accordance with the general euphonic usages of the language, this should be whenever in the present condition of Sanskrit there has been lost before the ending a lingual sibilant; thus : we have anedhuam from anesh + dhvam, and apaviðhvam from apavish + dhuam; we should further have in the precativo bhavishidhvam from bhavishi-sh-dhvam, if the form ever occurred, as, unfortunately, it does not. And, so far as I know, there is not to be found, either in the earlier language or the later (and as to the former I can speak with authority, a single instance of dhvam in any other situation-the test-cases, however, being far from numerous. But the Hindu grammarians, if they are reported rightly by their European pupils (which in this instance is hard to believe), give rules as to the change of the ending upon this basis only for the s-aorist. For the ish-aorist and its