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| Sanskrit:
The Mother of All Languages - Part II of III
A Glimpse of the Perfection of
Sanskrit Grammar
Click
here to read Part I - The
Origin of Sanskrit
Click
here to read Part III - Six
Unmatched Features of Sanskrit
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Sage
Panini conceived fourteen very distinct sounds from God Shiv’s
damru (small hand-drum which God Shiv holds in His
hand) and created the entire Sanskrit grammar called Ashtadhyayi.
Those Divine sounds are:
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There are total of 52 letters (16 vowels and 36 consonants).
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vowels are: |
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| The
consonants are: |
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A glimpse of the perfection of Sanskrit grammar can be seen
by the extensiveness of its grammatical tenses. There are
ten tenses: one form for the present tense, three
forms for the past tense and two forms for the future
tense. There is also imperative mood, potential
mood, benedictive mood (called asheerling,
which is used for indicating a blessing), and conditional.
Each tense has three separate words for each of the three
grammatical persons (first person, second person and third
person), and it further distinguishes if it’s referring to
one, two, or more than two people (called eakvachan,
dvivachan and bahuvachan). Then there are
three categories of the verbs called atmanepadi,
parasmaipadi and ubhaipadi. These forms
indicate whether the outcome of the action is related to the
doer or the other person or both. In this way there
are ninety forms of one single verb.
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Sanskrit
words are formed of a root word called dhatu. For
instance: kri root word means ‘to do,’ gam
root word means ‘to go.’ So, there are ninety forms
of each of these verbs like, karoti, kurutah,
kurvanti, and gachchati, gachchatah,
gachchanti etc. In English language there are only
a few words like: do, doing and done, or go, gone, going and
went; then some more words have to be added to express the
variations of the tense like: is, was, will, has been, had,
had had, etc. But in the Sanskrit language there are ready-made
single words for all kinds of uses and situations. |
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is elucidated with an example of kri-dhatu (parasmaipadi). |
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As
far as nouns and pronouns are concerned,
there are words for all the three genders and each
word has twenty-one forms of its own which covers
every situation. Then there is a very elaborate and precise
system of composing, phrasing, making a sentence, joining
two words and coining any number of words according to the
need. |
Regarding
Sanskrit vocabulary, there is a dictionary of the root words
and prefixes and suffixes called dhatu path
at the end of Ashtadhyayi. It has an abundance
of words and furthermore, Sanskrit grammar has the capacity
for creating any number of new words for a new situation or
concept or thing. |
There
is a detailed system of every aspect of the grammar. All the
aspects of the Sanskrit grammar along with the dictionary
were received as one packet from the very beginning along
with the Vedas. Moreover, from the historical and logical
point of view, since the very first day the linguists have
learned about the existence of the Sanskrit language, they
have seen it in the same perfect form. No ‘sound shift,’
no change in the vowel system, and no addition was ever made
in the grammar of the Sanskrit in relation to the formation
of the words. |
| In
the last 5,000 years, since the Sumerians uttered the communicating
words in a very limited scope and their wedge-shaped cuneiform
writing came into existence, there has been no such genius
born who could produce a grammar as perfect as Sanskrit.
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All
the languages of the world started in a primitive form with
incomplete alphabet and vowels, having only a few words in
the beginning which were just enough for the people to communicate
with each other. Even the advanced international language
of today, the English language, when it took its roots from
West Germanic around 800 AD, was in an absolutely primitive
form. As it developed, it assimilated about 30% of its words
from Latin and numerous words from French and Greek. Slowly
developing and improving its vocabulary, the style of writing
and the grammar from Old English (which had only two tenses)
to Middle English, to Early Modern English, and then to Modern
English, took a very long time. |
As
late as the beginning of the 17th century when its first
dictionary was published in London in 1604, there were
only 3,000 words. The title of the dictionary was, “A
Table Alphabetical, conteyning and teaching the true writing
and understanding of hard unusual English wordes, borrowed
from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine or French & c.”
Somewhat similar is the story of all the ancient and modern
languages which started from a very primitive stage of their
literal representation with no regular grammar. Proper grammar
was introduced at a much later date as their society reached
a significant level of communication. |
From
the exacting nature of the pronunciation of its 52 letters
to the science of word formation, there has never been any
kind, class or nature of change in the science of Sanskrit
grammar. Sanskrit has been in its perfect form since the very
beginning. |
Click
here to read Part I - The
Origin of Sanskrit
Click
here to read Part III - Six
Unmatched Features of Sanskrit
|
This
article was compiled from, “The
True History and the Religion of India” by Dharm Chakravarty
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati. This landmark encyclopedia of authentic
Hinduism gives detailed information on related topics such as the
perfection of Sanskrit grammar, the six unmatched features of the
Sanskrit language, and the origin of Sanskrit grammar. © 2004
The Vedic Foundation
This article may be reprinted with permission in writing from
The Vedic Foundation. |
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