Terms and Data¶
The rules of the Ashtadhyayi accept a list of terms as input and produce a new list of terms as output. Let’s start by discussing what terms are and what information they contain.
Throughout this section, our working example will be ca + kṛ + a, a sequence of three terms. Depending on the data attached to these terms, this sequence can yield a variety of outputs:
- cakāra (“he/I did”, perfect tense)
- cakara (“I did”, perfect tense)
- cakra (“he did”, perfect tense)
Sounds¶
Our example has three terms, each of which represents a piece of sound. These “pieces of sound” usually represent morphemes, but that’s not always the case.
We’ll have more to say about these sounds later, but for now they’re pretty straightforward.
Saṃjñā¶
Each term has a variety of designations (saṃjñā) associated with it. These saṃjñā, which are assigned by the Ashtadhyayi itself, enable some rules and block others. By assigning names to different terms and changing which rules can be used, the system can guide the original input toward the desired output.
Our example uses the following saṃjñā:
| ca | kṛ | a |
|---|---|---|
| abhyāsa | dhātu | pratyaya |
| _ | _ | vibhakti |
| _ | _ | tiṅ |
| _ | _ | ārdhadhātuka |
In addition, ca + kṛ together are called both abhyasta and aṅga.
Some examples of what these saṃjñā do:
- dhātu allows the rule that creates the abhyāsa.
- abhyāsa allows a rule that changes ka to ca.
- ārdhadhātuka allows a rule that strengthens the vowel of the term before it.
it tags¶
Terms also use a second set of designations, which we can call it tags. Just a shirt might have a label that tells us how to wash it, a term might have an it that tells us how it behaves in certain contexts.
For example, kṛ has two it tags. The first is ḍu, and it allows kṛ to take a certain suffix. The second is ñ, and it allows kṛ to use both parasmaipada and ātmanepada endings in its verbs. it tags are attached directly to the term of interest, like so:
ḍukṛñ
We can remove it tags by applying some metarules. For some term T, the following are it tags:
- nasal vowels (1.3.2)
- at the end of T:
- consonants (1.3.3)
- but not {t, th, d, dh, n, s, m} when T is a vibhakti (1.3.4)
- at the beginning of T:
- ñi, ṭu, and ḍu (1.3.5)
- at the beginning of T, if T is a pratyaya:
- ṣ (1.3.6)
- c, ch, j, jh, ñ, ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ (1.3.7)
- l, ś, k, kh, g, gh, ṅ if not a taddhita suffix
it tags are not letters in any meaningful sense, and they have no meaning outside of the metalanguage of the Ashtadhyayi. In other words, all they do is describe certain properties; they have no deeper linguistic meaning and are not a fundamental part of Sanskrit. So if you see a term like ḍukṛñ, you should read it as:
kṛ with the it tags ḍu and ñ.
The it tags are often stated with the word it after them. Thus ḍvit and ñit. A term stated with its it letters is called the upadeśa of the term. Thus ḍukṛñ is the upadeśa of the root kṛ.
Usage¶
it tags are basically just saṃjñā that are expressed more tersely.
To illustrate how alike these two are, let’s return to our ca + kṛ + a example. We saw above that this sequence can yield three different results. But the result depends on the saṃjñā and it tags applied to the suffix a. As you read on, note how the different saṃjñā and it tags interact.
- If the upadeśa is just a, then rule 1.2.5 tags the suffix with kit. This prevents guṇa. After a few more rules, we get cakra for our result.
- If the upadeśa is ṇal, the suffix has ṇit, which causes vṛddhi. After a few more rules, we get cakāra for our result.
- If the upadeśa is ṇal, the suffix has ṇit. But if the suffix has uttama as a saṃjñā – that is, if it is in the first person – then ṇit is used only optionally. If we reject ṇit, then the ārdhadhātuka-saṃjñā causes guṇa. After a few more rules, we get cakara for our result.
The glossary describes the most common it tags and some of the roles they perform. Many it tags are overloaded to provide a variety of different functions.