Sandhi Rules

[Shreyas P. Munshi]

Respected Scholars,
I need your help.
At one time I was told that sandhi is mandatory; now I hear it is optional. What is the correct rule. For example, in school we were told that "nrupaH jayati" will always be pronounced and written "nrupo (avagraha)jayati". "narAH Ime" would be pronounced and written "narA Ime" etc.
In the shloka "gururbrahmA gururvishNu", I found yesterday Devanagari printed "guruH brahma, guruH vishNu"etc.

Which is to be considered correct? Which one should I follow as a student?
Regards...Shreyas



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[Hnbhat B.R.]

The precise answer is the learner may chose whichever is easily understandable to him. 

If he wants to know पद and पदार्थ separately so as to identify the विभक्ति and other sentence factors, he can chose the split reading. 

It is common sense that if he wants to read or recite as a श्लोक in different meters, melodiously and fluently without break, he can chose the "sandhi" version. Try yourself, whichever is convenient for your purpose. 

Technically, "श्लोकपादः पदम्" and within the पद as a single unit for recitation, the rule was formed. Otherwise, even if it be a श्लोक, it is also after all a वाक्य, and becomes under the category of 

संहितैकपदे नित्या नित्या धातूपसर्गयोः ।

नित्या समासे वाक्ये तु सा विवक्षामपेक्षते ॥

which is based on practical grounds and if सन्धि is opted, it is obligatory that it should follow the सन्धि rules as also while splitting.

Otherwise Panini doesn't say anything, about it. All his rules, apply

"संहितायाम्" if "sandhi" of संहिता is opted, i.e. to be pronounced fluently without gap and all the rules follow then only.

The answer depends on the purpose of the learner and his standard. If he can automatically identify and relate the parts into a complete sentence without changing the order (which is also not mandatory for understanding the श्लोक). The other way is, if he only wants to recite it as a मन्त्र without bothering about their meaning, then also he can use the सन्धि form keeping the tune of अनुष्टुप् or any other metrical composition only by listening. Like the recitation of the वेद-s and even घणपाठि-s need not necessarily know the meaning, but only by recitation split or संहिता, and repeating in the prescribed order, they could be घनपाठिन्-s, unless they themselves want to know the meaning as per the commentaries or otherwise.

The same applies here also. If one wants to know the meaning, one can read the commentaries or the split version of the श्लोक and if he wants to recite it metrically, it is convenient to do so if in संहिता form. In short, there is no question of correctness of one or the other version.

-- 

Dr. Hari Narayana Bhat B.R. M.A., Ph.D.,
Research Scholar,

Ecole française d'Extrême-OrientCentre de Pondichéry

16 & 19, Rue Dumas

Pondichéry - 605 001

[Shreyas P. Munshi]

Highly obliged, respected Bhat Sir and Subhash Sir.

I dug up my sixty year old sanskrit school book by Prof Bhandarkar. There, in one foot note, he says "In Sanskrit two vowels cannot come together without coalescing". He has not mentioned anything about consonants.

I was looking for one more footnote which I think I had read while in school but could not locate it. As I remember, the footnote said (to the effect) that the sandhi rules are not prescriptive. In a normal flow of speech they automatically occur. I now realise that though there is space between words, in a fluent natural speech the spoken words are not separated as if spoken by a machine. And so what Bhat sir has said seems to be exactly the same.While learning and maybe teaching, the sandhi may be split but if the speech is fluent the sandh would have taken place in a natural way.
Prof Bhat Sir, your reply has come as a big relief to me. So also Subhash Sir's contribution.
...Shreyas
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:36:20 +0530 wrote
>Dear Sir,

Aperson who taught us Sandhi, quoted the same shloka.

And in the explanation of वाक्ये तु सा विवक्षामपेक्षते ॥
we were told that "only in spoken sentence or shloka", the sandhi is optional.
(reasoning being वाक्ये originates from root vaak - to speak)

And ofcourse, when one writes the anvaya of a shloka, or separates the various padas, sandhi can be split.
Is that a proper interpretation (regarding spoken) ?

- Subhash.

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[Nityanand Misra]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Shreyas P. Munshi <shreya...@rediffmail.com> wrote:

Highly obliged, respected Bhat Sir and Subhash Sir.

I dug up my sixty year old sanskrit school book by Prof Bhandarkar. There, in one foot note, he says "In Sanskrit two vowels cannot come together without coalescing". He has not mentioned anything about consonants.

That is not entirely true. There are cases where there is प्रकृत भाव, e.g. if the first one is प्रगृह्य as in the case of अमू आसाते, अमी ईशाः. हरी एतौ, गङ्गे अमू. There are more examples.


--
Nityānanda Miśra
Member, Advisory Council, Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University
Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, India
http://nmisra.googlepages.com
http://jagadgururambhadracharya.org/jrhu/donate

|| आत्मा तत्त्वमसि श्वेतकेतो ||
(Thou art from/for/of/in That Ātman, O Śvetaketu)
     - Ṛṣi Uddālaka to his son, Chāndogyopaniṣad 6.8.7, The Sāma Veda

[Hnbhat B.R.]

 

A person who taught us Sandhi, quoted the same shloka.

 

And in the explanation of वाक्ये तु सा विवक्षामपेक्षते ॥

we were told that "only in spoken sentence or shloka", the sandhi is optional.

(reasoning being वाक्ये originates from root vaak - to speak)

 

And ofcourse, when one writes the anvaya of a shloka, or separates the various padas, sandhi can be split.

Is that a proper interpretation (regarding spoken) ?

 

- Subhash.

 

It is a question of emotional response. If I say, Sanskrit has ceased to be a spoken language and the accent and other euphony system of a language were restored by Panini, and after Panini, it was taken as prescriptive Grammar than descriptive one as I had learned, I will be alleged of following Maxmuller and others for that.

If I say, practically, how many people speak Sanskrit as a spoken language, (not as a language that could be spoken after learning grammar, which can be done by any one and for any language) for daily needs as one learns to speak in childhood, I am not sure what will be precise number. If anybody can reply in precise form, it is welcome. In this sense it was called Sanskrit was not a Spoken language and not that it could not be spoken at all learning it with effort. When one learns his mother tongue, i.e. he learns by hearing to the language spoken by his parents and it is his spoken language for life at least in his region, it holds good. 

Now the question about वाक्य is grammatically derived on the structure of the sentece, एकतिङ् वाक्यम्, etc. in many different ways and it does not require it to be spoken or written. In either case, it is a वाक्य, whether written in metrical structure or recited orally, it is only श्लोकवाक्य. It doesn't make any difference in written or spoken language or वाक्य in its extended sense.

Depends on the necessity of the learner or user of the language only and it is this विवक्षा  which makes it clear वक्तुमिच्छा - one who speaks, i.e. the speaker. Like in spoken language, intonation causes the clarity of meaning and pause also helps. But fluent speech also will have this facility in spoken language.

This is my understanding of the last part of the कारिका, 

 

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

I believe the answer depends upon how much of a 'purist' you wish to become.  If one wants an 'easy' or 'fun' approach, which, to our consternation, is  increasingly becoming the guiding principled in today's educational system, one may get away by learning Sanskrit minus the sandhis.  if one wants to learn and use Sanskrit as it was used in its heyday, it has to be with sandhi.  I, for one, prefer the latter.

I may also point out that all old literature becomes meaningless and all poetry unrecitable, if sandhis are done away with.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, August 31, 2012.

[Hnbhat B.R.]

For me, it may be a folly or a wise thing if one follow the maxim :

"महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः"

according to the way one takes it and uses it. This also applies to this discussion also depending on the exposure to the huge amount of Sanskrit Literature at hand or at the disposal of the user. 

[Shreyas P. Munshi]

Respected Prof Nityanand Misra Sir,
What you have stated is highly demoralising for me! I was all the time under the impression that a book by none less than Prof R G Bhandarkar (In whose honour stands the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune)would be the ultimate book for a learner to go by.

What you have stated is perhaps at a very high level but that leaves a learner like me clueless. Which would be the ideal book to go by?

Another question that arises in my mind is about the use of conjunction 'cha'.

We were taught that at the end of a sequence, while intermediary 'cha' is optional, the 'cha' at the end of a sequence is mandatory. Not following that resulted in our losing marks.

And I find that in the famous prayerful verse taught to all children 'tvameva mAtA pitA tvameva, tvameva bandhushcha sakhA tvemeva', there is no 'cha' after 'pitA' and 'sakhA'. Why is it so? If it is poetic liberty, I have not found such liberties taken by Veda VyAsa or in many many subhAshita-s(or maybe with my inapt reading, I have not noticed them; would love to be cited) in ShrimadBhagvadGeetA!

"upAgataH sthitaH asmi aham"!!Kindly help.

Regards..Shreyas

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:59:41 +0530 wrote

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[Hnbhat B.R.]

Sorry, the other link for pdf version of Higher Sanskrit Grammar was broken. Here is the fresh 

Higher Sanskrit Grammar - M R Kale

Here is the Smaller Sanskrit Grammar by himself :

A Smaller Sanskrit Grammar - M R Kale

Hope both should work. The online hyper- linked scanned pages is to the Higher Sanskrit Grammar where you will find the complete Sandhi rules according to Panini.

[Hnbhat B.R.]

Dear Munshi,

A Good Sanskrit Grammar complete in itself for beginners should contain both the rules and the exceptions, in any given topic. In Sandhi, only the special conjunct forms are explained for the beginners, generally, without giving their exceptions following strictly the "sandhi" rules under the scheme of Panini, which contain both rules and exceptions, without which it would be incomplete. This is the case with the sandhi splitting and joining programs also available profusely on the net and only the rules are fed, which consider only joining of letters is "sandhi" and without "sandhi" separated with space and do not consider these exceptions as "sandhi"s. And end up with wrong forms many times.

You are sticking to your own preliminary and basic grammar. No body can help, if one does not want to go to higher level, and want to know everything to come to his level, in learning. Even

God helps those who help themselves

Please try to go to higher level of Grammar than ever stagnant in the primary level and listed among drop outs. Here is the Higher Level of Sanskrit Grammar written by Kale as the name itself suggests, it is not for beginners. In one link you can scroll over the sections you want through hyperlinks on the web page:

http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/KALEScan/disp1/index1.php?sfx=png

and here you can download the same in pdf format by clicking the link:

http://archive.org/download/highersanskritgr00kaleuoft/highersanskritgr00kaleuoft_bw.pdf

Please note that in the pdf, sometimes the visarga-s and anusvara-s might have been missing, due to clearing of scanned images. But in the above link, the rules are available covering all the sections of sandhi.

And for your question of the use of च, it is a much complicated issue grammatically used in 4 different shades and as a rule, it is never found beginning a sentence, though there is no rule prohibiting it. But it is common sense, that as a conjunct, it has to combine some thing word, verb or sentence preceding it. and its use at both ends is optional. Here is a scholarly discussion on the use of double conjuncts in another group:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/bvparishat/MjqmIHzdjVk/discussion

Hope you will find many inspiring ideas in the discussion, though not strictly technical.

Hope this will be helpful.