Sanskrit

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Sanskrit ( ) n. An ancient Indic language that is the language of Hinduism and the Vedas and is the classical literary language of India
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{{Infobox Language|name=Sanskrit|nativename= |pronunciation=|region=India, Nepal [Indian census)]|fam3=Indo-Aryan languages|script=Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī script-based scripts|nation= (one of the List of national languages of India), |iso1=sa|iso2=san|iso3=san|notice=Indic-->

Sanskrit ( , for short ) is an ancient Indo-European classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism and Buddhism primarily, and utilised occasionally in Jainism. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and an ancestor of the modern Indo-Aryan languages. It has the same status in Nepal as well.

Its position in the cultures of South Asia and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek language in Europe and it has Proto-language (historical linguistics) into as well as influenced many modern-day languages of the world. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. Dating back to as early as 1700 BC, Vedic Sanskrit is the earliest attested Indo-Aryan language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.

The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and Sanskrit drama as well as scientific, technical, Hindu philosophy and Hindu scriptures texts. Today, Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of stotra and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India, and there are some attempts at Sanskrit revival.

The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini (grammarian), around 500 BC.

History manuscript on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol script, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century.

The language name is derived from the past participle 'self-made, self-done' of the verb 'to make self', where 'with, together, self' and (s)kar- 'do, make'. In modern usage, the verbal adjective has come to mean "cultured". The language referred to as "the language of cultured" has by definition always been a "high" language, used for religious and learned discourse and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people. It is also called deva-bhāā meaning "language of the gods". The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to circa the 5th century BC. It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for Vedic forms that had already passed out of use in Panini's time.

Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Iranian languages sub-family of the Indo-European languages family of languages. As such, it is part of the Satem group of Indo-European languages, which also includes the Balto-Slavic languages branch.

When the term arose in India, "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as . Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), which evolved into the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Hindi, Nepali language, Assamese language, Marathi, Konkani Language, Urdu, Bengali language etc.)

Vedic Sanskrit Sanskrit, as defined by , had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate dialects. However, they are very similar and only differ in a few points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Classical Sanskrit is considered to have descended from Vedic Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations, and religio-philosophical discussions which are the earliest religious texts of India, and the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional compilations. The current hypothesis holds that the Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BC. It is around this time that Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period.

Classical Sanskrit A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the Hindu Epics—the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The deviations from in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations"Oberlies, "A Grammar of Epic Sanskrit", p.XXIX. and not because they are pre-Paninean." Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations aarsha (आर्ष), or "of the rishis", the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper. Finally, there is also a language dubbed "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" by scholars, which is actually a prakrit ornamented with Sanskritized elements (see also termination of spoken Sanskrit). According to Tiwari ( 2004), there were four principal dialects of Sanskrit, viz., (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), (lit., middle country), (Eastern) and (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The first three are even attested in the Vedic , of which the first one was regarded as the purest ().

European Scholarship European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the Indo-European languages language family by William Jones (philologist), and played an important role in the development of Western linguistics.

William Jones (philologist), speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek language, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philology could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from Proto-Indo-European language, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

Phonology Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36 phonemes. There is, however, some allophone and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 phone

The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ach), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, Plosive consonants (Sparśa) and nasal consonants (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquid consonantss and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):

; ; An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of .

Vowels The vowels of Classical Sanskrit with their word-initial Devanagari symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant (), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and of /p/+vowel) in International Phonetic Alphabet, equivalent in IAST and ITRANS and (approximate) equivalents in English are listed below:

{] equiv. !! ITRANS equiv. !! English equivalent (General American unless stated otherwise)|-| |||| or || or ||a||a|| short near-open central vowel or schwa: u in bunny or a in about]: a in father (Received Pronunciation|-| ||||||||i||i||short close front unrounded vowel: i in fin]: ee in feet|-| ||||||||u||u||short close back rounded vowel: oo in foot]: oo in cool|-| ||||||||||R|| short retroflex approximant: r in burl] r in burl|-| ||||||||||LR|| short retroflex lateral approximant (no English equivalent)]|-| ||||||||e||e|| long close-mid front unrounded vowel: a in bane (some speakers)]: i in ice, i in kite (Canadian English)]: o in bone (some speakers)|-| ||||||||au||au|| a long diphthong: Similar to the ou in house (Canadian English)] are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians.

The vowels and continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian , and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).

Additional points:

There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:

The diacritic called anusvāra, (IAST: ). It is used both to indicate the nasalization of the vowel in the syllable ( and to represent the sound of a syllabic or ; e.g. .
The diacritic called visarga, represents (IAST: ); e.g. .
The diacritic called chandrabindu, not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the anusvāra to indicate nasalization of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e.g. .

If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below ().
The vowel in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is . But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel. (Tiwari, 2004).
The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence and are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two mātrās. This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage (see above). These vowels are pronounced as long and respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong—vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to semivowels according to sandhi rules.
In the Devanagari script used for Sanskrit, whenever a consonant in a word-ending position is without any virāma (freely standing in the orthography: as opposed to ), the neutral vowel schwa () is automatically associated with it—this is of course true for the consonant to be in any position in the word. Word-ending schwa is always short. But the IAST a appended to the end of masculine noun words rather confuses the foreigners to pronounce it as —this makes the masculine Sanskrit words sound like feminine! e.g., shiva must be pronounced as and not as . Tiwari ( 2004) argues that in Vedic Sanskrit, अ indicated short , and became centralized and raised in the era of the Prakrits.

Consonants IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate International Phonetic Alphabet values in square brackets.

{|class="wikitable"|-!colspan="2"|!colspan="2"| Labial consonant
Ōshtya! Labiodental consonant
Dantōshtya!colspan="2"| Dental consonant
Dantya!colspan="2"| Retroflex consonant
Mūrdhanya!colspan="2"| Palatal consonant
Tālavya!colspan="2"| Velar consonant
Kanthya!colspan="2"| Glottal consonant|-!rowspan="2"| Plosive consonant
Sparśa! Aspiration (phonetics)
Alpaprāna| || || || || || || || || || || |colspan="2"||-! Aspiration (phonetics)
Mahāprāna| || || || || || || || || || || |colspan="2"||-!colspan="2"| Nasal consonant
Anunāsika!colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| m ||colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2"||-!colspan="2"| Semivowel
Antastha]
Drava|colspan="2"|||colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| l |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| r |colspan="2"||colspan="2"||colspan="2"||-!colspan="2"| Fricative consonant
Ūshman|colspan="2"|||colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| |colspan="2"||style="font-weight: normal"| |style="font-weight: normal"| |}

The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (), and is named in the table as such.

{] – Sprshta|-!!Unaspirated
Voiceless
Alpaprāna Śvāsa!Aspiration (phonetics)
Voiceless
Mahāprāna Śvāsa!Unaspirated
Voiced
Alpaprāna Nāda!Aspiration (phonetics)
Voiced
Mahāprāna Nāda!Nasal consonant
Anunāsika Nāda|-align="center"!Velar consonant
Kantya|
; English: skip|
; English: cat|
; English: game|
; somewhat similar to English: doghouse|
; English: ring|-align="center"!Palatal
Tālavya]
Mūrdhanya|
; No English equivalent|
; No English equivalent|
; No English equivalent|
; No English equivalent|
; No English equivalent|-align="center"!Apico-Dental consonant
Dantya|
; Spanish: tomate|
; Aspirated |
; Spanish: donde|
; Aspirated |; English: name|-align="center"!labial consonant
Ōshtya|
; English: spin|
; English: pit|
; English: bone|
; somewhat similar to English: clubhouse|
; English: mine|}

{|class="wikitable"|+ Non-Plosives/Sonorants|-!!Palatal
Tālavya!Retroflex
Mūrdhanya!Dental consonant
Dantya!labial consonant/
glottal consonant
Ōshtya|-align="center"!Approximant
Antastha])|
; English: love|; English: vase|-align="center"!Sibilant/
Fricative
Ūshman|
; English: ship|
; Retroflex form of |
; English: same| (glottal)
; English behind|}

Phonology and Sandhi The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l () is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart occurs in a single root only, "to order, array". Long syllabic r () is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. "mother" and "father" have gen.pl. and ). are vocalic allophones of consonantal . There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes, .

Visarga is an allophone of and , and anusvara , Devanagari of any nasal, both in pausa (ie, the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant was inherited by Indo-Aryan languages from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratum influence of Dravidian languages. The nasal is a conditioned allophone of ( and are distinct phonemes— 'minute', 'atomic' sg. neutr. of an adjective is distinctive from 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent occurs only marginally, e.g. in 'directed forwards/towards' sg. masc. of an adjective). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows: or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.

The phonology rules to be applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāha).

Writing system i Shaivaite manuscript in the Sharada script (17th or 18th century)

Historically, Sanskrit was not associated with any particular script. The emphasis on orality, not textuality, in the Vedic Sanskrit tradition was maintained through the development of early classical Sanskrit literature. When Sanskrit was written, the choice of writing system was influenced by the regional scripts of the scribes. As such, virtually all of the major writing systems of South Asia have been used for the production of Sanskrit manuscripts. Since the late 19th century, Devanagari has been considered as the de facto writing system for Sanskrit,Sanskrit Grammar, William Dwight Whitney, 1889 quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskrit texts in the script.

Writing came relatively late to India, introduced from the Middle East by traders around the 5th century BC, according to a hypothesis by Thomas William Rhys Davids. Even after the introduction of writing, oral tradition and memorization of texts remained a prominent feature of Sanskrit literature. In northern India, there are Brahmi inscriptions dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, the oldest appearing on the famous Edicts of Ashoka of king Ashoka. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used. Later (ca. 4th to 8th centuries AD) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script, and was mostly displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the Bengali language script and, later, the Oriya script, were used.

In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada script in Kannada language and Telugu language speaking regions, Telugu script in Telugu language and Tamil language speaking regions, Malayalam language and Grantha script in Tamil language speaking regions.

Sanskrit in modern Indian scripts. May Shiva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods. (Kalidasa)

Romanization Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been transliteration using the Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1912. ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include Harvard-Kyoto and ITRANS, a lossless transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.

European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the mid 20th century, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in romanized transliteration.

Grammar Grammatical tradition Sanskrit grammatical tradition (, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the of , which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BC). After a century (around 400 BC) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāninian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pānini, wrote the , the "Great Commentary" on the and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote the commentry named Kāsikā 600 AD. Paninian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aforism). Here whole Mātrika (alphabet) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara.Kashinath V. Abhyankar, A dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar, Gaekwad's Oriental Series, No. 134, Oriental Institute, Baroda, 1986

Verbs Classification of verbs Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs divided into in two broad groups: athematic and Vowel stem. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. exponent (linguistics) used in verb grammatical conjugation include Prefix (linguistics)es, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, guna, and vrddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the gua-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the vddhi-grade vowel as ā + V.

Tense systems The verbs tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:

Present (Present tense, Imperfect tense, Imperative mood, Optative mood)
Perfect tense
Aorist tense
Future (Future tense, Conditional)

Present system The present system includes the present tense and Imperfect tense tenses, the optative mood and imperative mood moods, as well as some of the remnant forms of the old subjunctive mood. The tense stem of the present system is formed in various ways. The numbers are the native grammarians' numbers for these classes.

For athematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through

2) No modification at all, for example ad from ad 'eat'.
3) Reduplication prefixed to the root, for example juhu from hu 'sacrifice'.
7) Infixion of na or n before the final root consonant (with appropriate sandhi changes), for example rundh or ruadh from rudh 'obstruct'.
5) Suffixation of nu (gua form no), for example sunu from su 'press out'.
8) Suffixation of u (gua form o), for example tanu from tan 'stretch'. For modern linguistic purposes it is better treated as a subclass of the 5th. tanu derives from tnnu, which is zero-grade for *tannu, because in the Proto-Indo-European language and could be vowels, which in Sanskrit (and Greek) change to . Most members of the 8th class arose this way; kar = "make", "do" was 5th class in Vedic language (krnoti = "he makes"), but shifted to the 8th class in Classical Sanskrit (karoti = "he makes")
9) Suffixation of nā (zero-grade nī or n), for example krīa or krīī from krī 'buy'.

For thematic verbs, the present tense stem may be formed through

1) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with gua strengthening, for example, bháva from bhū 'be'.
6) Suffixation of the thematic vowel a with a shift of accent to this vowel, for example tudá from tud 'thrust'.
4) Suffixation of ya, for example dī́vya from div 'play'.

The tenth class described by native grammarians refers to a process which is derivational in nature, and thus not a true tense-stem formation. It is formed by suffixation of ya with gua strengthening and lengthening of the root's last vowel, for example bhāvaya from bhū 'be'.

Perfect system The perfect system includes only the perfect tense. The stem is formed with reduplication as with the present system.

The perfect system also produces separate "strong" and "weak" forms of the verb — the strong form is used with the singular active, and the weak form with the rest.

Aorist system The aorist system includes aorist proper (with past indicative meaning, e.g. abhū "you were") and some of the forms of the ancient injunctive (used almost exclusively with mā in prohibitions, e.g. mā bhū "don't be"). The principal distinction of the two is presence/absence of an augment – a- prefixed to the stem.

The aorist system stem actually has three different formations: the simple aorist, the reduplicating aorist (semantically related to the causative verb), and the sibilant aorist. The simple aorist is taken directly from the root stem (e.g. bhū-: a-bhū-t "he was"). The reduplicating aorist involves reduplication as well as vowel reduction of the stem. The sibilant aorist is formed with the suffixation of s to the stem.

Future system The future system is formed with the suffixation of sya or iya and gua.

Verbs: Conjugation Each verb has a grammatical voice, whether active, passive or middle. There is also an impersonal voice, which can be described as the passive voice of intransitive verbs. Sanskrit verbs have an indicative mood, an optative mood and an imperative mood. Older forms of the language had a subjunctive mood, though this had fallen out of use by the time of Classical Sanskrit.

Basic conjugational endings Conjugational endings in Sanskrit convey grammatical person, grammatical number, and grammatical voice. Different forms of the endings are used depending on what tense stem and mood they are attached to. Verb stems or the endings themselves may be changed or obscured by sandhi.

{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" colspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Active!colspan="3"| Middle|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-!rowspan="3"| Primary! First Person| mi || vás || más || é || váhe || máhe|-! Second Person| si || thás || thá || sé || ā́the || dhvé|-! Third Person| ti || tás || ánti, áti || té || ā́te || ánte, áte|-!rowspan="3"| Secondary! First Person| am || vá || má || í, á || váhi || máhi|-! Second Person| s || tám || tá || thā́s || ā́thām || dhvám|-! Third Person| t || tā́m || án, ús || tá || ā́tām || ánta, áta, rán|-!rowspan="3"| Perfect! First Person| a || vá || má || é || váhe || máhe|-! Second Person| tha || áthus || á || sé || ā́the || dhvé|-! Third Person| a || átus || ús || é || ā́te || ré|-!rowspan="3"| Imperative! First Person| āni || āva || āma || āi || āvahāi || āmahāi|-! Second Person| dhí, hí, — || tám || tá || svá || ā́thām || dhvám|-! Third Person| tu || tā́m || ántu, átu || tā́m || ā́tām || ántām, átām|}

Primary endings are used with present indicative and future forms. Secondary endings are used with the imperfect, conditional, aorist, and optative. Perfect and imperative endings are used with the perfect and imperative respectively.

Present system conjugation Conjugation of the present system deals with all forms of the verb utilizing the present tense stem (explained under Tense Stems above). This includes the present tense of all moods, as well as the imperfect indicative.

Athematic inflection The present system differentiates strong and weak forms of the verb. The strong/weak opposition manifests itself differently depending on the class:

The root and reduplicating classes (2 & 3) are not modified in the weak forms, and receive in the strong forms.
The nasal class (7) is not modified in the weak form, extends the nasal to ná in the strong form.
The nu-class (5) has nu in the weak form and nó in the strong form.
The nā-class (9) has nī in the weak form and nā́ in the strong form. nī disappears before vocalic endings.

The present indicative takes primary endings, and the imperfect indicative takes secondary endings. Singular active forms have the accent on the stem and take strong forms, while the other forms have the accent on the endings and take weak forms.{| class="wikitable"|+ Indicative|-!rowspan="2" colspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Active!colspan="3"| Middle|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-!rowspan="3"| Present! First Person| dvémi || dvivás || dvimás || dvié || dviváhe || dvimáhe|-! Second Person| dvéki || dvihás || dvihá || dviké || dviā́the || dvihvé|-! Third Person| dvéi || dviás || dviánti || dvié || dviā́te || dviáte|-!rowspan="3"| Imperfect! First Person| ádveam || ádviva || ádvima || ádvii || ádvivahi || ádvimahi|-! Second Person| ádve || ádviam || ádvisa || ádvihās || ádviāthām || ádvihvam|-! Third Person| ádve || ádviām || ádvian || ádvia || ádviātām || ádviata|}

The optative takes secondary endings. yā is added to the stem in the active, and ī in the passive.{| class="wikitable"|+ Optative|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Active!colspan="3"| Middle|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! First Person| dviyā́m || dviyā́va || dviyā́ma || dviīyá || dviīvahi || dviīmahi|-! Second Person| dviyā́s || dviyā́tam || dviyā́ta || dviīthās || dviīyāthām || dviīdhvam|-! Third Person| dviyā́t || dviyā́tām || dviyus || dviīta || dviīyātām || dviīran|}

The imperative takes imperative endings. Accent is variable and affects vowel quality. Forms which are end-accented trigger gua strengthening, and those with stem accent do not have the vowel affected.{| class="wikitable"|+ Imperative|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Active!colspan="3"| Middle|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! First Person| dvéi || dvéāva || dvéāma || dvéāi || dvéāvahāi || dvéāmahāi|-! Second Person| dvihí || dviám || dviá || dvikvá || dviāthām || dvihvám|-! Third Person| dvéu || dviā́m || dviántu || dviā́m || dviā́tām || dviátām|}

Nominal inflection Sanskrit is a highly inflection language with three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural, dual grammatical number). It has eight grammatical case: nominative case, vocative case, accusative case, instrumental case, dative case, ablative case, genitive case, and locative case.

The number of actual declensions is debatable. Panini (grammarian) identifies six karakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases . Panini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24-54):

Apadana (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.

Sampradana ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.

Karana ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.

Adhikarana ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.

Karman ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.

Karta ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, 1977: 94)

Possessive (Sambandha) and vocative are absent in Panini's grammar.

In this article they are divided into five declensions. The declension to which a noun belongs to is determined largely by form.

Basic noun and adjective declension The basic scheme of suffixation is given in the table below—valid for almost all nouns and adjectives. However, according to the gender and the ending consonant/vowel of the uninflected word-stem, there are predetermined rules of compulsory sandhi which would then give the final inflected word. The parentheses give the case-terminations for the neuter gender, the rest are for masculine and feminine gender. Both devanagari script and IAST transliterations are given.{|class="wikitable"! !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative
(Karta)| -स् -s
(-म् -m)||-औ -au
(-ई -ī)||-अस् -as
(-इ -i)|-! Accusative
(Karma)| -अम् -am
(-म् -m)||-औ -au
(-ई -ī)||-अस् -as
(-इ -i)|-! Instrumental
(Karana)| -आ -ā||-भ्याम् -bhyām||-भिस् -bhis|-! Dative
(Sampradana)| -ए -e||-भ्याम् -bhyām||-भ्यस् -bhyas|-! Ablative
(Apadana)| -अस् -as||-भ्याम् -bhyām||-भ्यस् -bhyas|-! Genitive
(Sambandha)| -अस् -as||-ओस् -os||-आम् -ām|-! Locative
(Adhikarana)| -इ -i||-ओस् -os||-सु -su|-! Vocative| -स् -s
(- -)||-औ -au
(-ई -ī)||-अस् -as
(-इ -i)|}

a-stems A-stems () comprise the largest class of nouns. As a rule, nouns belonging to this class, with the uninflected stem ending in short-a (), are either masculine or neuter. Nouns ending in long-A () are almost always feminine. A-stem adjectives take the masculine and neuter in short-a (), and feminine in long-A () in their stems. This class is so big because it also comprises the Proto-Indo-European o-stems.

{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Masculine (kāma-)!colspan="3"| Neuter (āsya- 'mouth')!colspan="3"| Feminine (kānta- 'beloved')|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| kā́mas || kā́māu || kā́mās || āsyàm || āsyè || āsyā̀ni || kāntā || kānte || kāntās|-! Accusative| kā́mam || kā́māu || kā́mān || āsyàm || āsyè || āsyā̀ni || kāntām || kānte || kāntās|-! Instrumental| kā́mena || kā́mābhyām || kā́māis || āsyèna || āsyā̀bhyām || āsyāìs || kāntayā || kāntābhyām || kāntābhis|-! Dative| kā́māya || kā́mābhyām || kā́mebhyas || āsyā̀ya || āsyā̀bhyām || āsyèbhyas || kāntāyai || kāntābhyām || kāntābhyās|-! Ablative| kā́māt || kā́mābhyām || kā́mebhyas || āsyā̀t || āsyā̀bhyām || āsyèbhyas || kāntāyās || kāntābhyām || kāntābhyās|-! Genitive| kā́masya || kā́mayos || kā́mānām || āsyàsya || āsyàyos || āsyā̀nām || kāntāyās || kāntayos || kāntānām|-! Locative| kā́me || kā́mayos || kā́meu || āsyè || āsyàyos || āsyèu || kāntāyām || kāntayos || kāntāsu|-! Vocative| kā́ma || kā́mau || kā́mās || ā́sya || āsyè || āsyā̀ni || kānte || kānte || kāntās|}

i- and u-stems {| class="wikitable"|+ i-stems|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Masc. and Fem. (gáti- 'gait')!colspan="3"| Neuter (vā́ri- 'water')|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| gátis || gátī || gátayas || vā́ri || vā́riī || vā́rīi|-! Accusative| gátim || gátī || gátīs || vā́ri || vā́riī || vā́rīi|-! Instrumental| gátyā || gátibhyām || gátibhis || vā́riā || vā́ribhyām || vā́ribhis|-! Dative| gátaye, gátyāi || gátibhyām || gátibhyas || vā́rie || vā́ribhyām || vā́ribhyas|-! Ablative| gátes, gátyās || gátibhyām || gátibhyas || vā́rias || vā́ribhyām || vā́ribhyas|-! Genitive| gátes, gátyās || gátyos || gátīnām || vā́rias || vā́rios || vā́riām|-! Locative| gátāu, gátyām || gátyos || gátiu || vā́rii || vā́rios || vā́riu|-! Vocative| gáte || gátī || gátayas || vā́ri, vā́re || vā́riī || vā́rīi|}

{| class="wikitable"|+ u-stems|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Masc. and Fem. (śátru- 'enemy')!colspan="3"| Neuter (mádhu- 'honey')|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| śátrus || śátrū || śátravas || mádhu || mádhunī || mádhūni|-! Accusative| śátrum || śátrū || śátrūn || mádhu || mádhunī || mádhūni|-! Instrumental| śátruā || śátrubhyām || śátrubhis || mádhunā || mádhubhyām || mádhubhis|-! Dative| śátrave || śátrubhyām || śátrubhyas || mádhune || mádhubhyām || mádhubhyas|-! Ablative| śátros || śátrubhyām || śátrubhyas || mádhunas || mádhubhyām || mádhubhyas|-! Genitive| śátros || śátrvos || śátrūām || mádhunas || mádhunos || mádhūnām|-! Locative| śátrāu || śátrvos || śátruu || mádhuni || mádhunos || |-! Vocative| śátro || śátrū || śátravas || mádhu || mádhunī || mádhūni|}

Long Vowel-stems {| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| -stems ( 'progeny')!colspan="3"| -stems ( 'thought')!colspan="3"| ( 'earth')|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural! Singular !! Dual !! Plural! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| || || | || || dhíyas| || || bhúvas|-! Accusative| || || , jás| dhíyam || || dhíyas| bhúvam || || bhúvas|-! Instrumental| || || | dhiyā́ || || | || || |-! Dative| jé || || | dhiyé, || || | bhuvé, || || |-! Ablative| jás || || | dhiyás, || || | bhuvás, || || |-! Genitive| jás || jós || | dhiyás, || dhiyós || | bhuvás, || bhuvós || |-! Locative| jí || jós || | dhiyí, || dhiyós || | bhuví, || bhuvós || |-! Vocative| jā́s || || | || || dhíyas| || || bhúvas|}

-stems -stems are predominantly Agent (grammar) derivatives like dāt 'giver', though also include kinship terms like pit́ 'father', māt́ 'mother', and svás 'sister'.{| class="wikitable"|-! !! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| pitā́ || pitárāu || pitáras|-! Accusative| pitáram || pitárāu || pit́n|-! Instrumental| pitrā́ || pit́bhyām || pit́bhis|-! Dative| pitré || pit́bhyām || pit́bhyas|-! Ablative| pitúr || pit́bhyām || pit́bhyas|-! Genitive| pitúr || pitrós || pitā́m|-! Locative| pitári || pitrós || pitu|-! Vocative| pítar || pitárāu || pitáras|}

See also Devi inflection, Vrkis inflection.

Personal Pronouns and Determiners The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another.

Note: Where two forms are given, the second is enclitic and an alternative form. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -tas; thus mat or mattas, asmat or asmattas.{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| First Person!colspan="3"| Second Person|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| aham || āvām || vayam| tvam || yuvām || yūyam|-! Accusative| mām, mā || āvām, nau || asmān, nas| tvām, tvā || yuvām, vām || , vas|-! Instrumental| mayā || āvābhyām || asmābhis| tvayā || yuvābhyām || |-! Dative| mahyam, me || āvābhyām, nau || asmabhyam, nas| tubhyam, te || yuvābhyām, vām || , vas|-! Ablative| mat || āvābhyām || asmat| tvat || yuvābhyām || |-! Genitive| mama, me || āvayos, nau || asmākam, nas| tava, te || yuvayos, vām || , vas|-! Locative| mayi || āvayos || asmāsu| tvayi || yuvayos || |}

The demonstrative ta, declined below, also functions as the third person pronoun.{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Masculine!colspan="3"| Neuter!colspan="3"| Feminine|-! Singular !! Dual !! Plural! Singular !! Dual !! Plural! Singular !! Dual !! Plural|-! Nominative| sás || tāú || té| tát || té || tā́ni| sā́ || té || tā́s|-! Accusative| tám || tāú || tā́n| tát || té || tā́ni| tā́m || té || tā́s|-! Instrumental| téna || tā́bhyām || tāís| téna || tā́bhyām || tāís| táyā || tā́bhyām || tā́bhis|-! Dative| tásmāi || tā́bhyām || tébhyas| tásmāi || tā́bhyām || tébhyas| tásyāi || tā́bhyām || tā́bhyas|-! Ablative| tásmāt || tā́bhyām || tébhyam| tásmāt || tā́bhyām || tébhyam| tásyās || tā́bhyām || tā́bhyas|-! Genitive| tásya || táyos || | tásya || táyos || | tásyās || táyos || tā́sām|-! Locative| tásmin || táyos || | tásmin || táyos || | tásyām || táyos || tā́su|}

Compounds One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German language. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however morphologically speaking they are essentially the same. Each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection. Some examples of nominal compounds include:

(co-ordinative)These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. There are mainly two kinds of dvandva constructions in Sanskrit. The first is called itaretara dvandva, an enumerative compound word, the meaning of which refers to all its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the dual or plural number and takes the gender of the final member in the compound construction. e.g. rāma-lakşmaņau – Rama and Lakshmana, or rāma-lakşmaņa-bharata-śatrughnāh – Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna. The second kind is called samāhāra dvandva, a collective compound word, the meaning of which refers to the collection of its constituent members. The resultant compound word is in the singular number and is always neuter in gender. e.g. pāņipādam – limbs, literally hands and feet, from pāņi = hand and pāda = foot. According to some grammarians, there is a third kind of dvandva, called ekaśeşa dvandva or residual compound, which takes the dual (or plural) form of only its final constituent member, e.g. pitarau for mātā + pitā, mother + father, i.e. parents. According to other grammarians, however, the ekaśeşa is not properly a compound at all. (possessive)Bahuvrīhi, or "much-rice", denotes a rich person—one who has much rice. Bahuvrīhi compounds refer (by example) to a compound noun with no head -- a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example, "low-life" and "block-head" are bahuvrihi compounds, since a low-life is not a kind of life, and a block-head is not a kind of head. (And a much-rice is not a kind of rice.) Compare with more common, headed, compound nouns like "fly-ball" (a kind of ball) or "alley cat" (a kind of cat). Bahurvrīhis can often be translated by "possessing..." or "-ed"; for example, "possessing much rice", or "much riced". Tatpurusha (determinative)There are many tatpuruas (one for each of the nominal cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpurua, the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog. It would be called a "caturtitatpurua" (caturti refers to the fourth case—that is, the dative). Incidentally, "tatpurua" is a tatpurua ("this man"—meaning someone's agent), while "caturtitatpurua" is a Karmadharya, being both dative, and a tatpurua. An easy way to understand it is to look at English examples of tatpuruas: "battlefield", where there is a genitive relationship between "field" and "battle", "a field of battle"; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling"). (descriptive)The relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial, e. g. uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl. Amredita (iterative)Repetition of a word expresses repetitiveness, e. g. dive-dive 'day by day', 'daily'. Dvigu

Syntax Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free (with tendency toward Subject Object Verb).

Numerals The numbers from one to ten:

The numbers one through four are declined. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly:{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2"|!colspan="3"| Three!colspan="3"| Four|-! Masculine !! Neuter !! Feminine !! Masculine !! Neuter !! Feminine|-! Nominative| tráyas || || tisrás || catvā́ras || catvā́ri || cátasras|-! Accusative| trīn || || tisrás || catúras || catvā́ri || cátasras|-! Instrumental|colspan="2"| tribhís| |colspan="2"| catúrbhis| |-! Dative|colspan="2"| tribhyás| |colspan="2"| catúrbhyas| |-! Ablative|colspan="2"| tribhyás| |colspan="2"| catúrbhyas| |-! Genitive|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | |-! Locative|colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| | |}

Influence Modern-day India Influence on vernaculars Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on languages that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base. Especially among élite circles in India, Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. Of modern day Indian languages, while Hindi and Urdu tend to be more heavily weighted with Arabic language and Persian language influence, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese language, Konkani and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit vocabulary base. The national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is written in a literary form of Bengali (known as shuddha bhasha), Sanskritized so as to be recognizable, but still archaic to the modern ear. The national song of India Vande Mataram was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Anandamath', is in a similarly highly Sanskritized Bengali. Malayalam language, Telugu language and Kannada language also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary.

Revival attempts The 1991 Indian census reported 49,736 fluent speakers of Sanskrit. Since the 1990s, efforts to revive spoken Sanskrit have been increasing. Many organizations like the Samskrta Bharati are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularize the language. The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) in India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools, including but not limited to Christian missionary schools, affiliated to the ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is Hindi. Sudharma, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of Mysore in India since the year 1970.

Sanskrit is spoken natively by the population in Mattur village in central Karnataka. Inhabitants of all castes learn Sanskrit starting in childhood and converse in the language.

Symbolic Usage In the Republic of India and Indonesia, Sanskrit phrases are widely used as mottoes for variou

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