Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 132

Meaning of the Accusative in Desiderative
121
Conclusion :
While desideratives are a common features of all languages for expressing speaker's desire, non-periphrastic finite desideratives are the peculiarities of only Sanskrit. Now, since the primary condition for the desiderative usage is that the speaker must necessarily wish for the accomplishment of an object, the accusatives express the objects wished for in the desiderative usages as in 'pākam cikīrsati' etc. (excepting that nominative expresses recipient of disadvantages) (when the san is used in the sense of fear) as in 'svā mumūrsati' etc.
Also, since the speaker wishes to accomplish an object by accomplishing an action first, the desiderative roots express the actions functioning as the objects of desire. Also, since the speaker wishes to accomplish the object by accomplishing the action by himself, the action and the desire have the same person (speaker) as the agent (samānakartyka).
Grammarians, especially Nageśa and others perceived that when the root-meaning such as the action is the object of desire and has the same agent as that of the desire, the same becomes a qualifier qualifying the desire, the qualificand, through the objected (karmatva) and the state of having the same agent (samanakartrkatva).
However, the real point of difference among the epistemologists is regarding the function and the relation of the accusative-meanings. Following the Mahābhāsya statement and general linguistic theory, Gangeśa has proposed that the accusative meanings such as the cooking are the objects and hence the qualificands of desire; whereas the root-meanings such as the action of doing are the means and hence the qualifiers of the desire. However, since such a theory contradicts the general grammatical convention that kāraka-meanings are related to the actions, and also since such a theory cannot avoid the incorrect accusative usages such as grham tisthāsati', Saundada and Gadādhara have proposed the theory that the accusatives must be admitted to be expressive of the objecthood relating to the rootmeanings (actions) and the same root-meanings are the objects and hence the qualificands of desire. Now, as regards the Mahābhāsya statement : Patañjali does not deny that accusative-meanings are the objects of the root