Sanskrit梵文天城体美版教材 第10章.pdfVIP

Lesson-10 General introduction to the tenses. In Sanskrit, verbs are associated with ten different forms of usage. Of these six relate to the tenses and four relate to moods. We shall examine the usages now. Six tenses are identified as follows. The tenses directly relate to the time associated with the activity specified in the verb, i.e., whether the activity referred to in the verb is taking place now or has it happened already or if it will happen or going to happen etc. Present tense: There is only one form for the present tense. Past tense: Past tense has three forms associated with it. 1. Expressing something that had happened sometime in the recent past, typically last few days. 2. Expressing something that might have just happened, typically in the earlier part of the day. 3. Expressing something that had happened in the distant past about which we may not have much or any knowledge. Future tense: Future tense has two forms associated with it. 1. Expressing something that is certainly going to happen. 2. Expressing something that is likely to happen. Verb forms not associated with time. There are four forms of the verb which do not relate to any time. These forms are called moods in the English language. English grammar specifies three moods which are, Indicative mood, Imperative mood and the Subjunctive mood. In Sanskrit primers one sees a reference to four moods with a slightly different nomenclature. These are, Imperative mood, potential mood, conditional mood and benedictive mood. Since the nomenclature differs we will have to see what the moods in Sanskrit actually refer to. The ten forms of usage of the verb are each given a name in Sanskrit and all the names start with the akshara . Hence the forms are called the ten lakaras (Even though two of the forms do not strictly start with , the term applies) 1.