March 9, 2014

नमो  नमः |
We started the class reviewing the declensions of nouns that we have discussed until now: nominative, accusative, genitive and locative cases.

We then recalled how we call out to our Gods and offer our salutations:

ॐ नमः शिवाय | Salutations to Shiva.
ॐ नमो नारायणाय | Salutations to Narayana.
ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय | Salutations to Bhagavan vaasudeva.
सरस्वति  नमस्तुभ्यं ( नमः + तुभ्यं ) | Hey Saraswati, salutations to you.
तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमः | Salutations to that Sri Guru.
ॐ श्री परात्मने नमः | Salutations to the Revered Supreme Soul.
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः | Salutations to Her, Salutations to Her, Salutations, Salutations.

Hey, the good news is all of us are already familiar with chaturthi vibhakti, also known as the dative case.

Thus, when we salute someone, we use the dative case. There are other instances when dative case is used in sanskrit. We will learn them as we go.

Let us now understand, the pattern used to decline a noun in chaturthI vibhakti in all three genders in singular number.

Nominative Case	Dative Case	Dative Case description
रामः	रामाय	to Rama
कृष्णः	कृष्णाय	to Krishna
सीता	सीतायै	to Sita
देवी	देव्यै	to Devi
मित्रम्	मित्राय	to a friend

Well, for this vibhakti, we know the declensions for more than just the akaaranta pullinga shabda, aakaaranta striilinga shabda, iikaaraanta striilinga shabda and akaaraanta napumsakalinga shabda. But we will focus on these endings for now, until we explore all the vibhaktis.

In the previous session, we had discussed that the declension patterns are different in the case of pronouns. So let us look at chaturthii vibhakti for the pronouns that we know.

Nominative Case	Dative Case	Dative Case description
सः	तस्मै	to Him
सा	तस्यै	to Her
तत्	तस्मै	to that
त्वं	तुभ्यं	to you
अहं	मह्यं	to me

We chanted the first 5 verses from Chapter 14 of Bhagavad Gita, and concluded our class with that.

Assignment:

Please identify and write down a shloka or prayer that you know, in sanskrit, that has chaturthi vibhakti usage. 

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः |

March 2, 2014

नमो  नमः |
We reviewed the present tense verbs we had learned in the previous sessions, for the following subject/person: प्रथम पुरुषः  and उत्तम पुरुषः

We then discussed the verbs that the class had identified in Chapter 14 of Bhagavad Gita, matching the ending pattern ति, अन्ति, मि, मः
                                               प्रवक्ष्यामि, भवति, संभवन्ति, अनुपश्यति, अधिगच्छति
The exercise was to get us to start looking out for verbs in the sentences we come across. We reviewed what tense and person each one of these verbs are and discussed their meaning.

Homework review took us to the concept of verb prefixes:  उपसर्गः - upasargaH
Sanskrit language has 22 verb prefixes, those when prefixed to the verb, do one of the following:

• intensify the meaning of the verb
• modify the meaning of the verb, or,
• in some cases, imply the opposite meaning of the verb.

Click here for the list of the common upasargas.

We realized that by prefixing upasarga to the verb roots we have already learned, we can quickly increase our verb vocabulary:

आगच्छति  - to come

अनुगच्छति  - to follow, go along

अवगच्छति - to understand

प्रत्यागच्छति - to return, come back

Two or more upasargas can be prefixed to the dhatu as well. In the last example, prati and aa are added to the verb root / dhatu: gam.

Assignment: (Kids)
1. Write the pronouns I, We, He, She & It in singular and plural, in sanskrit, five times.
2. Form one sentence with each pronoun and the correct form of the verb that you have learned so far.

Assignment: (Adults)
Look out for verbs with upasargas in Gita or Proverbs or shlokas that you already know, and identify at least a couple of verbs with verb prefixes.


ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः |