* Perfect is always used, and the Aorist never occurs. On the contrary, when the persons in the story are represented as speaking with one another they use the Aorist, and the only sense that can be attached to it in these cases is that of the English Present Perfect; in other words, it indicates simply the completion of an action or an action that has just or recently been done. The reason why the Aorist occurs in these cases only is that there is no scope for recent past time in mere narrations; and things that have just or recently occurred can come to be spoken of only when persons are talking with each other. The piece given at the end of this book contains passages remarkably illustrating what I say. The story goes:"Haris'chandra said to Varuna, 'Let a son be born to me and I will then offer him as a sacrifice to you." 'Well,' said Varuna. Then a son was born to him. Then said Varuņa, 'You have got a son, sacrifice him to me now.' Then said Haris'chandra, 'When a victim becomes ten days old, then he is fit to be sacrificed. Let the boy become ten days old, I will then sacrifice him to you.' 'Well,' said Varuna. The boy became ten days old. Then said Varuna, 'He has become ten days old, sacrifice him now to me;' and thus it proceeds. Now in this and the remaining portion of the Khanda the verbs "said" (occurring several times), "was born," "became," and others that are used by the narrator speaking in his own person, are always in the Perfect; while "have got," "has become," &c., used by Varuna with reference to the boy, are in the Aorist. The latter clearly refer to a time just gone by. In the same manner, in the story of Nâbhânedishṭha, related in the fourteenth Khanda of the Fifth * In the passage noticed below, we have स ह संनाहं प्रापत्, where प्रापत् is the Aorist of with Д, and is used in the narration of a past event, but in the whole of the Brahmana there is, so far as I can recollect, not a single instance besides this where the narrator uses the Aorist in speaking of a past action. The evidence being then so overwhelming, some other explanation must be attempted in the present case, and this example ought by no means to be taken to invalidate the position in the text. Perhaps ་ when the reading of Vedic looks was fixed, प्रापत् and प्रामोत् which occurs immediately after, were, through mistake, made to exchange places. Panchiká, the verbs अभाक्त, अभाक्षुः, अदु:, and अदित used by Nâbhânedishṭha, and evidently, from the context, denoting events that have just happened, are in the Aorist, as also arr: used by Rudra. While when the author, in narrating the story, speaks of certain things as having taken place, he invariably uses the Imperfect, these events from his point of view having occurred at a remote past time. Similar instances in which the Aorist on the one hand, and the Imperfect or the Perfect on the other, are used exactly in the same way, occur in 1-23, 2-19, 3-33, 4-17,* 6-33, 6-34, 7-27, 7-28, 8-23+; while narratives, in which the Perfect or the Imperfect only is used, and where there is either no conversation, or when there is, it is only with reference to present or future time, are innumerable. 7–26 and 5-34 may also be consulted. We thus see that the so-called Aorist denotes recent past time or the mere completion of an action, and thus resembles the English Present Perfect. And this is confirmed by what Pânini says on the subject. The Sûtras which give the senses of the three past tenses are लुङ् 3–2–110; अनद्यतने लङ् 3-2-111; परोक्षे लिंट for 3-2-115. They are thus to be interpreted:-"? or the Aorist indicates past time; or the Imperfect shows a past action done previous to this day; and for the Perfect, a past event which took place before this day, and which was not witnessed by the speaker." Now the first Sûtra gives a general rule, the second is an exception to it, and the third an exception to this again; the past time, therefore, left according to Pâṇini's system of rules and exceptions, for लुङ् to indicate, is, that is to say, this day's. can also The cows held a sacrificial session with the object of getting horns; after a year they got horns, and then they say to themselves: – यस्मै कामायादीक्षामयापाम तमुत्तिष्ठामः i. e. "The object for which we undertook this sacrificial ceremony we have got. We now rise or break up." Here is the Aorist of to obtain,' and evidently means 'have got or obtained;' while is the Imperfect of, and certainly does not indicate an event that has just happened. † Some of thespassages have been given in the lessons on the Aorist. by these Sûtras indicate past time generally, i. e. express simply the completion of an action without reference to any particular time. For, the category past time can admit of three divisions only according to the principle indicated in the Sûtras, viz. past time generally and not specifically, the past time of this day, and the past time previous to this day. The last is taken up by and fee, and the first two belong, therefore,to लुङ.By another Sútra नानद्यतनवत्क्रियाप्रबन्धसामीप्ययोः Pânini, 3-3-135, expresses recent and continuous past action, in addition. So that according to Pânini, indicates (1) past time generally, (2) the past time of this day and not previous to this day, and (3) recent past time. Now all these characteristics we find in the English Present Perfect and not in the Indefinite Past. For, first, if we want to express simply the completion of an action, i. e. past time generally without reference to any particular past time, we do not use the Indefinite Past in English, but the Present Perfect. 'I read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe' necessarily implies some particular time when the action of reading was done; in other words, the sense of the sentence is not complete without the specification of some time. We must add some such expression as 'two years ago,' or the particular time must be understood from the context. But when we say 'I have read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe' there is no such necessity. Secondly, the English Present Perfect like the Sanskrit लुङ् can denote, if it denotes any specific time at all, the past time of this day only. For 'I have read the book to-day' is good English; but 'I have read the book yesterday' or 'a year ago' is not. And, thirdly, the Present Perfect, as is generally admitted, denotes recent time in English. My object has been to render this as much a Sanskrit Reading Book as a book on Sanskrit Grammar; in other words, not only to teach Grammatical forms to the student but to enable him to construe Sanskrit. I have, therefore, in addition to the sentences composed by myself, given in nearly all the lessons a good many extracts containing examples of the particular rules, from original Sanskrit works, such as the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, the Upanishads, the Mahâbhârata, Kâdambarî, the Panchatantra, and the Raghuvans'a. With the same object, three long prose pieces, illustrative of three different styles, and one poetical, have been given at the end. One of the former is from the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, chosen on account of its richness in verbal forms and the strength, purity, and simplicity of its style. The English sentences have, of course, all been composed by me. I hope Teachers and Students will find this book useful. Such improvements as experience may show to be necessary will be made in subsequent editions. Ratnagiri, 8th April, 1868. R. G. B. SECOND EDITION. The observations made in the Preface to the last edition as to the sense of the Aorist have been confirmed by several passages I have met with in the Samhitâs of the Vedas and in Brâhmaņas other than the Aitareya. But since this is hardly the place for an elaborate essay on the subject, I forbear to make any addition to what I have already said on the subject. I have only re-cast the remarks contained in the Preface on the meaning of the Sûtras of Pânini bearing on the question. Bombay, R. G. B. PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Grammar was not an empiric study with Pânini and the other ancient grammarians of India. Those great sages observed carefully the facts of their language and endeavoured always to connect them together by a law or rule and to bring these laws again under still more general laws. Sanskrit Grammar has thus become a science at their hands, and its study possesses an educational value of the same kind as that of Euclid and not much inferior to it in degree. For, to make up a particular form the mind of the student has to go through a certain process of synthesis. He has to mark the mutual connections of the rules he has learnt, and in each given case, to find out which of them, from the conditions involved, hold good in that case and to apply them in regular succession, until he arrives at the form required. A mere unscientific teaching of the forms as such and mixing them up unconnectedly into a list, our grammarians never resorted to, so long as they could trace a resemblance even between two of them if not more. it Convinced of the utility of this system, I tried in this book, to adhere to Pânini so far as was convenient or practicable, and to give his general rules instead of splitting them up into the particular cases they comprehend. In this manner also I was able to compress a great deal of matter into a comparatively small space. But the book necessarily became difficult, since, instead of placing a ready-made form before the student gave him only the rules and required him to constitute it for himself. Experience, however, both as a learner and as a teacher has taught me that Sanskrit Grammar learnt according to the latter method is more easily and longer remembered than if learnt empirically. And I maintain that the book, as it was, was not at all difficult, in the hands of a good teacher. But to meet the views of those who think otherwise, I have, in this edition, increased the number of examples without interfering with the system, and added explanations |