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Ancient Sanskrit Online

Lesson 6

Karen Thomson and Jonathan Slocum

Indra, the mighty god whose heroic deeds first brought fertility to the world, is praised throughout the Rigveda. In killing the monstrous snake Vritra -- the name means 'hindrance', from the root /vr, vrnóti -- as described in the Lesson 3 text, he freed the waters and made terrestrial life possible: índra ósadhîr asanod áhâni, vánaspátîmr asanod antáriksam (III, 34, 10) 'Indra won the plants, the days, he won the trees ('forest-lords'), the atmosphere'. The relationship of the poets with the gods is reciprocal and complex. At the beginning of this lesson text Indra is described as yajñávrddha 'strengthened by worship', and elsewhere in the Rigveda this too is explained as a divine gift: ahám dâm grnaté pû´rvyam vásu, ahám bráhma krnavam máhyam várdhanam (X, 49, 1) 'I shall give to the singer the ancient boon, I shall make prayer the means of growth for me'.

Reading and Textual Analysis

The text is verses 2-6 of VI, 21 (462), from a powerful sequence of 30 songs addressed to Indra, many of which, like VI, 21, are among the oldest in the Rigveda. The metre is again tristubh. The poets' perception of themselves as belonging to a continuum of worship and praise, as described in verses 5 and 6, is a constant theme of the Rigveda: úd îratâm ávara út párâsa, ún madhyamâ´h pitárah somyâ´sah, ásum yá îyúr avrkâ´ rtajñâ´s, té no avantu pitáro hávesu (X, 15, 1) 'may they rise up, the more recent, the distant, and those from the middle past, the inspired fathers; may those who have left life, not harming, knowing Truth, the fathers, may they bring help at our invocations'.

tám u stusa índaram yó vídâno
gírvâhasam gîrbhír yajñávrddham
yásya dívam áti mahnâ´ prthivyâ´h
purumâyásya riricé mahitvám

sá ít támo avayunám tatanvát
sû´riyena vayúnavac cakâra
kadâ´ te mártâ amr´tasya dhâ´ma
íyaksanto ná minanti svadhâvah

yás tâ´ cakâ´ra sá kúha svid índrah
kám â´ jánam carati kâ´su viksú
kás te yajñó mánase çám várâya
kó arká indra katamáh sá hótâ

idâ´ hí te vévisatah purâjâ´h
pratnâ´sa âsúh purukrt sákhâyah
yé madhyamâ´sa utá nû´tanâsa
utâ´vamásya puruhûta bodhi

tám prchánto ávarâsah párâni
pratnâ´ ta indra çrútiyâ´nu yemuh
árcâmasi vîra brahmavâho
yâ´d evá vidmá tâ´t tvâ mahâ´ntam

Lesson Text

tám u stusa índaram yó vídâno
gírvâhasam gîrbhír yajñávrddham
yásya dívam áti mahnâ´ prthivyâ´h
purumâyásya riricé mahitvám

sá ít támo avayunám tatanvát
sû´riyena vayúnavac cakâra
kadâ´ te mártâ amr´tasya dhâ´ma
íyaksanto ná minanti svadhâvah

yás tâ´ cakâ´ra sá kúha svid índrah
kám â´ jánam carati kâ´su viksú
kás te yajñó mánase çám várâya
kó arká indra katamáh sá hótâ

idâ´ hí te vévisatah purâjâ´h
pratnâ´sa âsúh purukrt sákhâyah
yé madhyamâ´sa utá nû´tanâsa
utâ´vamásya puruhûta bodhi

tám prchánto ávarâsah párâni
pratnâ´ ta indra çrútiyâ´nu yemuh
árcâmasi vîra brahmavâho
yâ´d evá vidmá tâ´t tvâ mahâ´ntam

Translation

Him now I praise, Indra, who is wise,
Brought by song, by means of songs, strengthened by worship;
Of whom -- beyond heaven in greatness, wonderful --
The majesty exceeds the earth.
He it is makes the darkness, extending without distinction
With the sun to be distinct.
When do mortals, longing to worship the just law of you, the immortal one,
Not transgress it, O self-powerful?
Who does those things, where pray is that Indra?
What people does he frequent, among which settlements?
Which worship is blessed, O Indra, to your understanding,
To your wish; which eulogy, which the celebrant of many?
For at this moment there are belonging to you, O indefatigable one, those born aforetime,
Ancient friends, you who does much;
Those who are from the middle past, and those now existing,
And, O much invoked, observe the most recent one.
Invoking him, the more recent ones
Have reached out to your former ancient deeds of fame, Indra.
Just in as much as we understand,
So do we praise you, hero brought by prayer, mighty one.

Grammar

26. The Perfect System: the perfect tense.

The sense of a continuum described in the introduction to the lesson, of both human and divine activity, is brought out by the usual function of the perfect tense. It can appear alongside the imperfect as a simple narrative tense, as in the Lesson 3 text: ví vájrena parisádo jaghâna 'he struck away the surrounding coils with a weapon'. It can also describe the present outcome of a previous action, as in the Lesson 1 text: prstó víçvâ ósadhîr â´ viveça 'invoked, he has entered all the plants'. But most often it describes a past action that continues into the present, and can be translated by the present tense, with the implication 'and always has', as in the first verse of this lesson text, 'whose majesty exceeds (áti riricé) the earth'.

Forms of the perfect are marked by reduplication, like ri-ric-é, from the root /ric 'leave'. The general rules of reduplication were given in section 13.2. In addition, in the formation of the perfect, when the vowel of the root is r it reduplicates as a or â: /vrdh, vâ-vrdh-. Reduplication is generally easy to recognise, but examples 156 and 157 below illustrate how a root with an initial sibilant followed by a hard consonant reduplicates.

The forms of the perfect tense that would occur from the root /kr 'do, make', which reduplicates with a prefixed ca-, are given in the table in order to show the endings. The table also shows how the root between reduplicating prefix and ending can vary, in this case kr, kár, kâ´r and kr. No first person dual forms occur, and the second person plural middle is formed from /dhâ only, dadhidhvé. Note that the first and third persons singular middle are identical, and that the endings may be attached with a connecting -i-, as in the 3rd person middle plural.

        Active           Middle    
    Singular   Dual   Plural   Singular   Dual   Plural
1   ca-kár-a       ca-kr-má   ca-kr-é       ca-kr-máhe
2   ca-kár-tha   ca-kr-áthur   ca-kr-á   ca-kr-sé   ca-kr-â´the   ca-kr-dhvé
3   ca-kâ´r-a   ca-kr-átur   ca-kr-úr   ca-kr-é   ca-kr-â´te   ca-kr-i-ré

Roots ending in -â, like /dhâ, take the anomalous ending -au in the first and third persons singular active, as in example number 155 below. A few roots, including /yam 'extend, stretch out', in some forms contract the reduplication and the root to e, as in the last verse of the lesson text, ánu yemur 'they have reached out'.

As in Greek, the root vid 'know' forms a perfect without reduplication and with present meaning. The form of the root is either vid- or ved-: véda 'I know, he knows', Greek oida; vidmá 'we know', Greek idmen. In the same way /vid forms perfect participles without reduplication and with present meaning; see examples 165 and 169 in section 27.1 below, and vídânas in the first line of the lesson text.

26.1. Moods of the Perfect System.

The endings are the same as the endings of the Present System, but the root is reduplicated.

27. Perfect participles.
27.1. Perfect active participles in -vâms.

The table below shows the masculine forms that are found. Note that in the instrumental, dative, ablative and genitive singular, and the accusative and genitive plural, -vâms- becomes -us-. These cases are often susceptible to change, and are called 'weak' -- compare the syncopation of the vowel in the same set of cases in the declension of râ´jan described in section 22 of the last lesson. Forms are given for cikitvâ´ms, from /cit, cétati 'perceive, observe'.

    Singular   Dual   Plural
Nom   cikitvâ´n   cikitvâ´msâ   cikitvâ´msas
Acc   cikitvâ´msam   cikitvâ´msâ   cikitúsas
Ins   cikitúsâ       cikitvádbhis
Dat   cikitúse        
Abl   cikitúsas        
Gen   cikitúsas       cikitúsâm
Voc   cíkitvas        

The feminine is made from the weak stem with the secondary ending -î, cikitúsî, and declines like devî´, as described in section 17.3. Only two neuter forms, both accusative singular, occur in the Rigveda, one of them, tatanvát, in the second verse of this lesson text.

27.2. Perfect middle participles.

Perfect middle participles are formed by adding the suffix -âna to the reduplicated stem, and follow the declension of adjectives in -a described in section 6.

28. Nouns of one syllable ending in consonants.

Monosyllabic nouns ending in consonants are ancient, and of frequent occurrence in Rigveda. Among the examples already encountered, all of which are feminine nouns, are vâ´c 'voice, speech', gír 'song', áp 'water', rís 'harm', vyús 'brightening', srídh 'failure, misfortune' and víç 'settlement, folk'. Two more feminine abstract nouns, çúbh 'splendour' and û´rj 'power' occurred in the vocatives çubhas patî and ûrjâm pate in examples 141 and 148. There are some masculines, like pád 'foot' (strong stem pâ´d-) and mâ´s 'moon, month', and a few neuter singulars, which have no ending in the nominative/accusative/vocative, like svàr 'sunlight' in the Lesson 4 text, and bhâ´s 'light' -- bhâ´svatî described dawn in example 100.

Masculine/Feminine   Singular   Plural
Nom   [-s]   -as
Acc   -am   -as
Ins   -â   -bhis
Dat   -e   -bhyas
Abl   -as   -bhyas
Gen   -as   -âm
Loc   -i   -su
Voc   -   -as

Because of the phonological rule that prohibits two consonants at the end of a word, as described in section 18 of Lesson 4, the -s of the nominative singular is always lost, giving a range of endings according to the rule of permitted finals: of the nouns listed above the forms vâ´k, gî´r (the vowel is also long before endings beginning with consonants, see example 176 below), and vít (from víç) are found in the text. áp 'water' lengthens the initial vowel in the nominative plural, as in example 177. In the weak cases the accent often moves to the ending.

The dual masculine/feminine endings are similar to those for the masculine nouns in -a described in section 6: pâ´dâ or pâ´dau 'two feet', ablative padbhyâ´m, locative padós.

Monosyllables are also regularly found at the end of simple compounds, as in the vocative puru-krt 'doing much' in this lesson text, and ratna-bhâ´j 'dispensing treasure' which occurs in the Lesson 4 text in the genitive, ratnabhâ´jas.

29. Comparative and Superlative.

As in Greek, there are two ways of forming both the comparative (English better, wiser) and the superlative (best, most wise). The secondary formation, which adds the endings -tara (Greek -tero) for the comparative, and -tama (compare Latin -timo, ultimo, English ultimate), for the superlative, occurs most frequently. The more ancient forms of the primary formation, -îyâms, like Greek -iôn, Latin -ior (comparative) and -istha, -isto, (superlative) occur only slightly less frequently in the Rigveda, but become progressively less common in the later language.

29.1. Primary formation.

The masculine endings of the comparative in -î-yâms are parallel to those of the perfect active participle in -vâms, with the weak form -yas-: nominative singular návîyân 'newer', dative singular návîyase (vocative návîyas). In addition, neuter singular forms occur frequently: the nominative/accusative ending is -yas. The endings of the oblique cases are the same as for the masculine. The feminine again is formed by adding the secondary suffix -î to the weak stem, návîyasî. The shorter form of the suffix without -î- is also found, návyâms, and some comparatives, like vásyâms 'better', are always formed in this way. No dual forms occur.

Superlatives in -istha follow the declension in -a given in section 6.

29.2. Secondary formation.

The majority of adjectives in -tara and -tama also decline regularly as adjectives in -a as described in section 6.

A few adjectives formed with -tara or the reduced forms -ra and -ma, having affinity with pronouns, exhibit some forms that are like yá, as described in section 11. The numeral éka 'one' in section 25 of the last lesson similarly showed elements of both declensions. The Lesson 3 text contains an example of such a word: úttara 'higher', used with a temporal sense, 'future', occurs with both adjectival and pronominal endings. In this lesson text the adjectives madhyamá, literally 'most in the middle', ávara 'lower, more recent' and avamá 'lowest, most recent', all similarly used in a temporal sense, behave in the same way. In the last verse of the lesson text ávarâsas 'the more recent ones' is the nominative plural masculine adjectival form. But in the first line of X, 15, quoted in the Textual Analysis at the beginning of this lesson, úd îratâm ávara [ávare] út párâsah 'may they rise up, the more recent, the distant (fathers)', ávare shows the nominative plural masculine pronominal ending.

30. Interrogatives.

Interrogatives are distinguished by an initial k-, like Latin qu- (quis, quid, quando, quomodo). The pronoun ká 'who, which, what?', repeated four times in the third verse of the lesson text, follows the usual pronominal declension described in section 11, with the addition of an alternative neuter nominative and accusative form, kím. This has already been encountered in a compound adjective in the first verse of the Lesson 3 text: kim-yú 'what-desiring?' An old nominative singular masculine is preserved in the indeclinable forms nákis and mâ´kis, Greek mêtis, 'not any one'.

ká forms a number of derivative interrogatives, like ka-tamá 'which of many?', also in the third verse of in the lesson text. The form is that of a secondary superlative in -tama, as described above, and there is a parallel comparative form, ka-tará 'which of two?' Both these follow the pronominal declension. Of other derivatives of ká, the indeclinables kadâ´ 'when?', kúha 'where?', and kathâ´ 'how?', the first two of which also occur in the lesson text, are regularly found.

The particle cit 'even, all' following ká gives an indefinite or general sense: 'whoever, whatever, anyone, anything'.