Learning Sanskrit – Class 16

There were just three of us in this class – apart from the teacher that is. Even the two school-going kids, who had religiously attended every class till now, were absent. The teacher covered an important topic – two actually.

The first topic was ‘Indeclinables’ - these are called ‘अव्यय' in Sanskrit. They are so called because they don’t change based on tense, plurality or gender. e.g. नम: should be used with 4^th case of the noun i.e. the form शिवाय of noun ‘शिव'. There were a dozen or so of such indeclinables.

The second topic was which cases should be used with which roots. e.g. the root / verb क्रीड, which means to play, uses 3^rd case of a noun e.g. कंदुकेन क्रीडति means ‘playing with a ball’. A dozen or so verbs to be learnt. What fun!