about zradmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1523

zrad is not a preverb, but it is a gati before dhA "put", making a verb zraddhA meaning "put faith in, trust".

dadhAmi "I put"

zraddadhAmi "I trust"

zraddhA is a noun meaning "trust, faith".

meaning of san-endersmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1524

The fact that the sananta roots are called " desiderative" in Western grammars might give us the wrong impression that their main meaning is "desirous of". In fact, however, it looks like they main meaning is "planning to" or "about to". For instance, mumUrSavas will seldom mean "that wish to die", but rather "about to die", like Latin "morituri", or even "ready to risk their lives". Similarly yuyutsavas doesn't have to be "wanting to fight" necessarily, it often means "about to fight", or even "getting ready to fight".

Sometimes the affix san can't be translated as "want to" or "about to", but rather "having the intention, planning, thinking of". For instance, in the following story from the mahAbhArata, the form ditsitam ( dA + san + kta) cannot mean "what I want to give" or "what I am about to give", but only "what I was thinking of giving a moment ago" nakes sense. In times of yore, the daitya ilvala tested the mind-reading abilities of the sage agastya with this challenge --

ditsitaM yadi vetsi tvanM tato dAsyAmi te vasu

"if you know what wealth I thought of giving, then I'll give it to you"

here ditsitam is dA + san + kta (with sanimImA)

agastya passed the test with flying colors, figuring out not only what ilvala was thinking, but also what ilvala did not know --

agastya uvAca

gavAnM daza sahasrANi rAjJAm ekaikazo 'sura

tAvad eva suvarNasya ditsitanM te mahAsura

mahyanM tato vai dviguNaM rathaz caiva hiraNmayaH

mano-javau vAjinau ca ditsitanM te mahAsura

jijJAsyatAM rathasH sadyo vyaktam eSa hiraNmayaH

"you thought of giving each one of those kings

ten thousand kine and as many gold pieces

and to me twice that, and a gold chariot

and two horses fleet as the mind, O great asura,

ask around and you'll learn that your chariot is indeed made of gold"

is cintAyAJMcakAra one word or two?mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1525

When forming cintayAJMcakAra, first rule kAspra makes cint + Am'' + Nal, and then AmaH deletes the Nal. Therefore, the m of cintayAm is a wordfinal, and consequently when rule kRJcA compounds cintayAm in front of cakAra, rule monusvA works.

But, even so, cintayAJMcakAra works, for all other purposes, as if it were a single word -- you may not swap the two halves, and you may not stick other words in the middle. So, saying cintayAM ciraM cakAra for "he thought about it for a long time", or cakAra cintayAm, sux utterly.

cintayAJMcakAra being a single word, you may not spell cintayAJM cakAra with a space in the middle. In fact no one does that when using devanAgarI.

Yet, many Westerners use such a space when using Roman letters. For instance, the indology epics files do that. Do not plug cintayAJM cakAra into inria reader , however. As of 2024, you must delete the space for inria to understand you.

reduplication before yaG and yaGlukmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1526

Several weird rules apply to the reduplication before yaG and yaGluk, such as --

guNoyaGlukoH -- turn ik of the stammer into guNa

bhU + yaG → bobhUya

ru + yaGluk → roru

dIrgho 'kitaH -- lengthen stammer

jval + yaG → jAjvalya

nugatonunAsikAntasya -- some stammers get n at the end

kram + yaG → caGkrAmya

han + yaG → jaGghanya

ram + yaGluk → raMram

rIgRd-upadhasyaca ff -- some stammers get rI r ri at the end

nRt + yaG → narInRtya

rarity of past tensesmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1527

There are three past tenses: laG, liT and luG. In some styles of Sanskrit none of them is common, so you will seldom hear --

gRhANy apazyat "he saw a house"

gRhANi dadarza "he saw a house"

gRhANy adrakSIt "he saw a house"

Most past statements use kta and ktavatu affixes after the root to form past sentences, this way --

gRhANi dRSTAni tena "he saw a house"

gRhANi dRSTavAn saH "he saw a house"

This applies particularly to modern spoken Sanskrit, where past tenses are a rarity. For an example, in

this video you can hear the sentence

vaktum aham zikSitavatI "I learnt to speak"

One of the reasons that this happens is that as Sanskrit evolved into the Prakrits, then into the modern Indian languages, the past tenses were completely lost and replaced by the descendants of the kta and ktavatu constructions. So, if your native language is, say, Hindi, the kta sentences sound more "natural" than the laG luG liT.

Past tenses are so rarely used nowadays that even a sanskrit teacher will be amazed if you use one in conversation. If you don't believe me, watch this video.

strong, word and wimpy.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1528

When a nounbase is followed by an affix, one of these three things happens --

(1) The nounbase is before a strong affix

(2) The nounbase is a wimpy because of yacibham (it is before a yac weak)

(3) The nounbase is a word, either because of svAdiSva (it is before a valAdi weak) or because the affix after it was deleted (by svamor, supodhA etc).

For most nounbases this has no importance. However, some nounbases, for instance those that end in n, behave differently in the three cases, because of several rules. For instance --

When rAjan- is before strong, it becomes rAjAn- by rule rAjAnam, which works before strong.

When rAjan- is wimpy by yacibham, it becomes rAjn- by alloponaH, which works on the wimpy, then rAjJ- by stozz.

When rAjan is a word (by svAdiSva or otherwise), it becomes rAja- by nalopaHprA, which works on words.

Similarly, the base pratyac- ( prati + ac''') is pratyAJc before strong, pratIc when wimpy, and pratyag when word (see ac'''). And vid + vasu will turn into vidvAMs, vidvat or viduS (see vasossa).