Active, Passive & Impersonal Constructions of Classical Sanskrit

,

,

Active, Passive & Impersonal Constructions of Classical Sanskrit

. Nilotpala Gandhi

~~~~-.----------.~-

As a teacher, I cc .,,'.-

some what different Language studies. S~ trained in the descipli One fine day he me for being her gu with me doing the Sulekhakllmar from Makwana. I accepte· of hard·working and the subject is to be e students who can w( good marks in M.A. gold medals and a ~

Published by : Nilotpala Gandhi 30, Shivali Apts. Nr. Law Garden, Ellisbridge, Ahmedabad:6.

she was outstandin! Nilotpala had

u

got the Junior Rese~ She spent her full tim from 10-30 to 5-30 [ to study Sanskrit Gn

Price: Rs. 50-00

Manjusha' along w thorouguly. "

Printed by: .' '., ·.;.X· Bhikhalal Bhavsar

She started to !

···;,;R~rji~(i~hna Comput~C$

':3': Vijay House,

. classical Sanskrit.

.

sentenc'as, as whc

mo~i3~~i~r.,c~

'Nava Vadaj, Ahmedabad-380013.: .'

them which were rei Published by Gujarat University with the'.ijiid of U.G.C., New Delhi .

';'~i""

::

:~-..;.

-.. .

Foreword As a teacher, I could see that Nilofpala was hard·working, studious and some what different amongst other students. She had a deep insight in

,,,- ...-

Language studies. She was a graduate from M. S. University, Baroda and was trained in the descipline by Dr. Mahulkar. That training also helped her a lot. One fine day her father Justice Gheewala came to me and proposed me for being her guide for Ph.D. in Linguistics. There were four students with me doing their Ph.D.• Mr. Mallikarjunam from Banglore, Mrs. Sulekhakumar from Bhopal, Mr. Rajguru from Madurai and Mr. Manubhai Makwana. I accepted the proposal immediately because there is a scarcity \: .,-

of hard-working and intelligent students in the field of language studies. I~ the subject is to be established, there must be a team of genuine interested students who can work hard for a long time in the subject. She had obtained good marks in M.A. with Sanskrit Grammar and Linguistics and won three gold medals and a prize. Even while doing her P. G. Diploma in Linguistics she was outstanding. Nilotpala had understoodthe discipline of research very quickly. She gotthe Junior Research fellowship from the U.G.C. and started the research.

f'"

She spent her full time after research. She remained present in the department from 10-30 to 5-30 Dr. Arvind Bhandari and myself also got a good chance to study Sanskrit Grammar with her. We studied 'VaiyakaraQa-ParamalaghuManjusha' along with the Case Grammar and the Functional Grammar, thorouguly. She started to .gatherAciive,passi\l@andlm~~'r;dh~f:sentences from .'., . ~

".'

literaur~.

classical Sanskrit .,.,."

"

...,...."

"

noted'dtJw~~lf'the

facts about these

l>ent!'l~C~s as. who says, to whom, in W,hich contE:!xt and with which motila~t11J~~sr.coliecting a good data she selected some sentences from ".,

.c., New Delhi .".

She

~~

"Ii~J""

.

"

" "-

.-.

"

them which wer~'relevant~MJd useful to her study and then started to analyse "

.

.

. . . ...

.

(iii)

and interprete them. After passing through all these procedures she started to design and put her findings in natural course. One can see hbw gracefully the language is used and how elegantly the thesis is presented by a young

I have carried than a decade ba

girl who has just·passed her M.A. Examinations.

suggestions made some thoughts wh

Prof. A. S. Anantanarayana (former President of Linguistic Society of

them. I think that e

India, a great scholar of Sanskrit· and' the head of the Advanced centre in.

is a preparation fOI

Linguistics, Osmanr~ University, Hyderabad) was one of the. experts cif this

the race of the aCe

thesis and he greatly admired the thesis. He made some valua,ble suggestions

it is a problem-find

which are incorporated.

As we know, It explored much anc

This thesis is a valuable contribution in the field 'of Sanskrit and Linguistics. It is good to know that she is preparing this book.in Gujarati,

said with regard to

I: "

understood and p

too. I strongly believe that one should produce books in one's own mother-

examined the pari

tongue. He is not a scholar uptill he enriches his mother-tongue by his lot~

depth, the width

0:

of books in English which do not reach to the

thesis as an interdi

fellow native speakers. I am glad to know that she has started translating

theories say about

the book in GujaratL'She .has Prove9 herself as a successful teacher in this

mUlti-dimensions.

·field. I feel very proud introducing Nilotpala with this thesis to the academic

Many people

knowledge. There are

~

in progress. It is nc

scholarly world. May God bless her!

I take this opportur . Dr. Yogendra Vyas

Wishing her a brilliant scholarly future, health and a warm happy family life!

Ahmedabad), who: stages of the prepa sense of gratitude tl

Dr. Yogendra Vyas

347, Saraswatinagar,

University, Ahrneq~

:'.c~~·~':.r1~:::i

. ':.,'-',

Ahmedabad-3E\0015.

"

and whol.)ng(udgiri ~'l\.-

"

.•_•• ,''''''.

'.

to;Df;lI:(M. Mahulk

"

:./~~r~da),

,-.

--"-

who shm

linguistic way. I alsl who had inculcated my thanks are due valuable assistanci

(iv)

'"

.

Preface

dures she started ee how gracefully

I have carried out this research at a tender age, in the 80S i.e. more than a decade back. I have not added or altered anything except the

ented bya young

suggestions made by the refrees.1 wanted to publish it as it was. There are some thoughts which need more investigations, but I have not changed guistic Society of

them. I think that a Ph.D. thesis is not an accomplishment in itself, but it

vanced centre in,

is a 'preparation for'life-Iong researches. My thesis is my starting point in

he experts of this

the race of the academic field. It is not only the problem-solving one but

Ja,ble suggestions

it is a problem-finding one, too, As we know, the- fields of Phonology and Morphology of Sanskrit are explored much and have recieved much attention, but the same cannot be

of Sanskrit and book in Gujarati,

I:"

said with regard to Syntax. There are still ~ few aspects which are not well understood and passive is one of them. Sanskrit Grammarians have

1e's own mother-

examined the parts of speech to their utmost depth. But along with the

er-tongue by his

depth, the width of the subject should also be examined., So I took this,

not reach to the

thesis as an interdiciplinary one. I wanted to know what modern lingnistic

arted translating

theories say about the subject. So I tried to explore the subjeclthrough

ftil te?ch'er in this

multi~dimensions.

, to the academic

Many people had assisted me in differ,ent ways, while this, work was, in progress. It is not possible to make individual references to all of them. "

l.rm happy family

I take this opportunity to express my deep sense of gratitude to my guide , Dr. Yogendra Vyas (Director, School of Languages, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad), whose erudite and yet patemal guidance helped me at all stages of the preparaticn of this book. I must also express my equally deep

Yogendra Vyas

sense of gratitude to Dr. Arvind Bhandari (Proft. Dept. of Linguistics, Gujarat University, Ahmeq;3.bad) who had taken very keen interest in my progress . : )., '.l'·'· ,.. ,'

and who}.jngrWgl~ly assisted nie throughout. My hElartfelt thanks are due

""'"

.

. . :i.~; ..;--.',-", ..

,"

". ,:: ::. .,

"

_

.~.

.

,.iWmAJ. M. Mahulkar (Former Head, Deptof lingUistics, M. S. University,

"'

:

·,;>'>B~~oda),

who showed me a new direction to think about language in a '

linguistic way. I also feeigrateful to Dr. J. M.Shukla andDr. B. D. Pandya who had inculcated in me an active interest in Sanskrit Grammar. Similarly my thanks are due to Dr. T. S. Nandi and Dr. V. M. Bhatt who had offered valuable assistance. (v)

. . . . . - .. _ - - - _ ...

_---

I am extremely thankful to my parents who had encouraged me to finish the task and whenever I faltered they had injected a fresh dose of enthusiasm at the right moment. My parents-in-law were equally considerate and helped me in various ways. It is not a mere formality to express my sense of appreciation for the encouragement that I recieved from my husband Mr. Amul Gandhi, who on account of my busy hours had to bear with inconveniences, which he stoically did. Last but not the least I am also indebted to Mr. G. H. Barot for producing a neat and elegantly typed script. My thanks are due to Dr. Sunanda Shastri who has gone through the whole book and read the proofs. The authorities of Gujarat University and University Grants Commission are also entitled·to my thi::lI1ks for having offered me all the facilities for not only undertaking and completing the work but also having offered me the monetary help to publish my work

/-c.".

(vi)

- --~

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

aged me to finish se of enthusiasm erate and helped !SS

my sense of

my husband Mr. ad to bear with

irot for producing Sunanda Shastri

£he

Dfs. 'ants Commission

u:ope4'uL S- ~d '77le/n~o/

Ie facilities for not 19 offered me the

n~fio!¥a

JIU". $adice !1J. ~ Cfj/U!RA-ffluLa Yfthoae Uu/w£fo /V7WU9£edge

_umd

love fo" 9&/7l6ktd ~me 10 ~du/-ce /-

(vii)

Uu-,a,

~.

IN~

l- While studying Sanskrit

of passive construction attn: languages of the world, we the active construction is cor to myself was that why sue passive voice despite the psycho linguistically easily

i

of the two seemed attractivE constructions was made It

Contents

* * * 1.

To find out the reasons'

Forward

into Sanskrit gramatical trac

Preface

thrown some light on the su

Introduction

1

Some views of Sanskrit Grammarians on sentence'Constituents

3

sentence and distincitic constructions were studie On the other hand I d

2.

The meaning of the Passive

39

3. 4.

The Morphology of the Sanskr'it verbs & Participle's The Pragmatic Funciion of Sanskrit Passive

63 91

5.

Conclusion

. passive' sentences. They

129

(1 )

The. differE

(2)

The.const

(3)

The conte

I tried to find out as te two as far as meaning aSI accepted fact that there i as related to the truth-valui from the angle as to wile' between these two. Chap! of active and passive,. In modern Indian Ian and the number of partiGi (viii)

INTRODUCTION :'.~

.

.. ;: -,:

"

. ...•.•. :.. 'c.: .

l_ _ _ _ INTRODUCTION

I

__


While studying Sanskrit literature and sastras the frequent usage of passive construction attracted my attention. In all the major spoken languages of the world, we come acress the passive censtructien, but the active censtruction is censidered as basic. The questien that I pesed to myself was that why such an immense impertance is given to the passive veice despite the fact that the active voice is basic and psycholinguistically easily precessed than the passive. The analysis of the two seemed attractive, so the study of the Active and the Passive censtructiens was made the topic ef my study. To find out the reasons of the frequent usage of the passive, I looked into Sanskrit gramatical tradition. Whether the Sanskrit grammarians had threwn seme light en the subject was explored. Their views about overall sentence and distincition between the active and the

1

p~ssive

censtructions were studied. A short review is given in Chaper 1.

3

On the ether hand I decided ie explere three aspects of active & passive' ·sentences. They are

39 ; & Participles

63

91 129

(1 )

The difference ef meaning between the two.

(2)

The. censtructional difference between the two.

(3)

The context in which they are used.

I tried to. find eut as to. whether there is any difference between the two as far as meaning aspect is concerend. Hewever, it is a universally accepted fact that there is no differenceqf meaning b§lween the two· as related to. the truth-vaJue; The views ef mbdernsctJplarswere examined from the angle as to. whether

accerding:t(r.th~rTifhe·re is any difference

between these two.. Chapter 1/ deals with the semantico-syntactic aspect ef active and passive: In medern Indian languages, we have pseudopassive construction and the number of participial constructiens in VP is mere than the verbal

INTRODUCTION '

.. ,.:"

".

".: :":..

1

type. It became, therefore, necessary to ,find out whether these have their origin in Sanskrit. This aspect has been dealt with in Chapter III

requirements of the take illustrations fro!

by analysing morphological structure of the Active in contra-distinction to the Passive verb-phrase.

the language of Bh;

,

literary. I have, therefr

I

L.

also referred to Kali

The spoken sentence is the result of the interaction of many forces.

Uttara-Ramacharitan

Every speech community has its different concepts and for understanding that the study of the culture of the community is vitally essential.

In this way, I ha

Syntactic or morpho-phonemic forces are not the only sources of a spoken

the morphological ant

sentence. Behind an utterance there is a meaning system which is related

constructions. All thes,

to the culture. If a sentence is uttered in a particular way, then there

is no demarcating lin

are socio-culturalreasons behind it. If these were not to be probed the

of a sentence it is

study of the spoken sentence would be incomplete. So, the third aspect

The reason is that 11-.

is the utilisation of the Active and the Passive construction in the actual

pattern and social.tre interaction of these f

situation. Chapter IV deals with the effects of the extralinguistic forces on the speakers choice of sentence types. The Forces likely to effect

All though the tor with the Active and II'

speaker's choice would be : the context of utterance, the identity of the speaker and the listener, the relation between the two, the topic of

There is no di(fernce t aspects are concern·

the sentence, and the form of the conversation. These forces collectively mould an utterance.

.

,,

transitive Verb roots a

I

.L

Unfortunately, while studying: Sanskrit we are deprived .of its spoken form, and hence, we would not be able to catch an intonational fact.

roots. Hence, imper: analysed.

However, this is more than amply compensated by the existence of vast Sanskrit literature. Literature is the mirror of a community. It, therefore, gives us an idea about the contemporary social structure and culture. While Sanskrit grammarians provide minute details of structure of words, functional approach is in a way missing. It would become therefore, necessary to comprehend the language' from this angle and to take illustrations from its literature. On account of the vastness of literature it was not possible to cover all the works of Sanskrit literature. The study is based basically on the used in Sanskrit language of drama. The reason is, that the langiJ.age ,-.drama is more akin to the colloquial language. There are limitations to the language used in Kavyas and Mahakavya's. It ·is fattered by the 2

SE

INTRODUCTION

~

. .. . --. . . '0,

"'1

.~'.~'.l~;;.'.,"

INTRODUCTION

:her these have

requirements of the metre. It was, therefore thought more practical to

:h in Chapter III

take illustrations from the dramatic form. Even in the dramatic works

mtra-distinction

the language of Bhasa, being simpler, seems more colloquial than literary. I have, therefore, examined all the major works of Bhasa. I have, also referred to Kalidasa's Abhijiiana- sakuntalam and Btlavabhuti's

of many forces.

Uttara-Ramacharitam and also sudraka's Mrchhaka\ikam.

lr understanding itally essential.

In_ this way, I have tried to examine the semantic. the syntactic, the morphological and the pragmatic forces of the active and the passive

rces of a spoken I which is related

constructions. All these forces are inter-related and inter-dependent. There

way, then there

is no demarcating line, which might tell us that upto a particular stage

o be probed the

of a sentence it is semantic and thereonwards synatactic and so

the third aspect

The reason is that the speaker unconsciously follows some linguistic

ion in the actual

pattern and social trends. It is the function of a linguist to analyse the interaction of these forces behirid an utterance.

linguistic forces 3 likely to effect

on.

All though the topics· of the thesis includes impersonal type along

, the identity of two, the topic of

with the Active and the Passive, it is treated as 1:1 type of passive only. There is no differnce between the two as far as meaning or construction aspects are conc;:erned. We get Passive construction by passivising

rces collectively

transitive Verb roots and the impersonal by p'assivis'ing intrasitive verbroots. Hence, impersonal constructions have not been separately analysed.

'edqf its spoken. ltonational fact. lxistence of vast dty. It, therefore, ure and culture.

•

'uctureof words, i

:ome therefore, gle and to take

"", .

lossible to cover basically on the Jsed in Sanskrit

.

'i'~

Ire limitations to fattered by the INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

-1-

:a·. ,. -.'-, ... /~

3

--~----CHAPTER=i--SOME-viEWS

OF SANSKRIT-----

four thousand aphorisl B.C. wrote Varttikas (, PaQini. Patafijali in the

GRAMMARIANS ON THE SENTENCE CONSTITUENTS

both. These three-PaQ VyakaraQa,sastra, wr VyakaraQa of Sanskrit of a great grammarian, wrote a book named Sa Unfortunately howevel

It is ali accepted and proved fact that only a human being is born with potentials to commL'nicate through highly complex and yet the most condensed system called language_ Many centuries ago, this magical aspect of human brain has attracted Indian Grammarians_ No Grammar can be perfect as no languag~ can be moulded in a mould of rules and regulations_ Languages are not s~8reo-typed and do not follow some logic strictly_ Language is ever-changing and so there are many alterations, additions, omitions and above HiI, exceptions. But the highly enlightened tradition, with PaQini at its top gave a grammar which is next to perfect.

it is frequently referred of Bhartrhari. Then we It contains approximat all the. topics concen VakyapadTyam has b tradition, because it , Philosophical School ( VakyapadTyam are wr Bhartrhari himself wrot

Without scientific equipments, with their grammatical intuitions only, Indian Grammarians described phonetic, syntactic and semantic rules - of Sanskrit. They did not examine language only at the Syntactic and Semantic levels.· They described it on Metaphysical level, too. They looked upon grammar as one of the six Darsanas i.e. Philosophical treatise. They called the word as sabdbrahman. Bhartrhari starts his VakyapadTyam with,

as swopagnaFka. In th .on Maha_bha$ya viz., _

~R~ ~ ~W
3'lI@Ollrl

~1ICll4C1iI~Clifu~t~ ClI<W:"l . . '.

~

I,

'.

(~m~~) .

'Q'P~ (crw; '1:) I (~mfA"CIi"()'

[-(A) Sentence (has ) a verb along With Avyaya, Karaka and ViSesaQa; and (A) §'entence (has) a verb]

ounded by Acharya lms which contains

These definitions'd'@note the presence of a single verb in a Simple sentence. It says that f6e're must be one verb in a sentence. A verb is equated with a senfe'nce.

LNSKR'rrGRAMt!lARIANS...

SOMEVIEWSOFSANSKRrrGRAMMARIANS...

... '

5

The meaning of a sentence includes some action (in which certain participants participate). Sanskrit grammarians describe the Notional and the Morphological levels of a sentence. The Chief Characteristic of a sentence is its completeness of the . meaning. The completeness of the meaning does not depend .on the number or the kind of words. A sentence is complete when it has a verb which denotes an action and the .other words which are its accessories. Only a noun or only a verb is not able to complete the meaning. If only a noun is spoken then it has some action which is to be understood by the listener. If only the verb is spoken then also the listener has to understand some noun as its accessory. To make communication easy and effective, sometimes, only single words are spoken and yet they are understood. It is our habit to supply s0l!le required word missing in an utterance . to bring about the completeness in the meaning, for example one asks.
tp('f

is a change of state of the concerned

object caused by an action. This result (G1C'i") may ·be actually brought about or imposed. e.g. in

tm: ~ (God stays), there is nothing which

is brought about by the State oftm... According to, Sanskrit grammatical tradition, the characteristics of an Action (~) is as follows.

[The totality c1 considered as an c

An Action is not perceptible. The means ar~:visible, but the means

It is said -

are not actions. The speaker absiractsthe actionthrough various states . ;:.'-::

,"

.. 'j 6.' '.:

~?MEVIEWS OF SANSKRrr GRAMMARIANS..,

SOMEVIEWS OF SANSKRrr'

"', L>: ' . .

of objects and conceptualizes its meaning of Action. The action is looked upon as seperate from the means. Action cannot be seen just like means,

into classes such I Particles (Rr,SOME'VJEWS OF SANSKRrr GRAMMARIANS ... '.,' :'.',; :,. . :,",

.-

.~:

~ .- ~.: " ~

SOMEVIEWS OFsANsKRn

:ing' in totality or

the particular number; and the tense are the adjective of action.]

nature.] 'ned Karakas get

l'I'ifTlfil~k PsPm I the part of the lhed. It requires !

(The karaka which is denoted by the suffix til! and which also shows

the medns (the

According to Bharjrhari Vrt denotes action in general and suffix (til!) modifies that action.*5 Pal!ini introduced lakara as an abstract morpheme to denote a nUi!1ber of allomorphs. til! is a substitute (i',r' - ,~~T). in the place of Lakara. According to Nagesha til!

(i"TR:m

means ;n' '1~~41 fu~T"I

ur of the Karakas,

~~'t"I - 4i1{4ifi1~~ ~~lljlo;H~ ;mt I (on "r4iT,:r~ in

:ted sentence all

p.244) Suffix til! (Ladesh) denotes a particular number (~ Ptr~'t"I), a

·rding to the role

particular moment of time (~~'t"I) (which also includes Moods (:acl')

d {144i1 {4i Hl&lil 1-

a particular karaka (i.e.(4iill or

4i1l-

Wf+l'.

4i1{4ifil~N) or mere action (~).

1e distinguishing I. Here the word of the action and All the Karakas

One of the three categories of the meani'ng denoted by the suffix is Time(4iTC'f).

their subordinate

Time is a means of measuring Action. An action is abstract, it cannot

, they loose their

be measured in other ways. VRt denotes action in general, but 4iTC'f

:tion. The object:

particularizes that action. It has already been discussed that action is

r different Karaka

that which has. sequence.

of Action (PsPm) . some linkage as

~

\~

,«'''''-~ {! I{ili~ ~'j-q

As has been discus denoted by VRt. "1
in the sentence. /~'.

-.'

·22:

: SOMEVIEWSOFsANSKRrrGRAMMARIANS ... ..•.

SOMEVIEWS OF SANSKRrr GI

he case is seven. Each

Grammarians believe that the power that lies within the object is qmqi"

Bhartrhari says-

Ncr

g to the