What I hope will be a fairly interesting grammatical question.
I'm still on the Story of Sāvitrī and Satyavān in the Mahābhārata and I reached this verse, which I found quite complex grammatically:
अन्तर्हितायां सावित्र्यां जगाम स्वगृहं नृपः ।
स्वराज्ये चावसत्प्रीतः प्रजा धर्मेण पालयन् ॥ १-२० ॥
The first half is fine. We begin with a locative absolute construction: अन्तर्हितायां सावित्र्यां "at the disappearance of Sāvitrī, when Sāvitrī vanished", जगाम "he went" स्वगृहं "to his own home" नृपः "the king".
"When Sāvitrī vanished, the king went to his own home."
स्वराज्ये "in his own kingdom" चा = च "and" वसत् = अवसत् "he lived".
It's the next four words I think are quite tricky and I wouldn't mind a second opinion.
पालयन् is an interesting word. It seems to be a present, active, participle, declined in the nominative singular, masculine to agree with the king. Exactly what this word is, though, is quite interesting. In his entry for पाल्, Monier-Williams has this much to say:
So in other words, when we have waded through all the abbreviations, Monier-Williams reckons it's what I would call a denominative of pāla- "guard, protector, keeper; protector of the earth, king", although he concedes it's also regarded as a causitive of √pā- "watch, keep, preserve; protect; govern".
To me, the most likely analysis is that this is a denominative of pāla- and the meaning of पालयन् is either "protecting", or, I think, "ruling, governing" would be a better translation. And it would be a participle qualifying नृपः, so he "lived in his own kingdom, ruling/where he ruled ..." स्वराज्ये अवसत् पालयन्" (without saṃdhi).
धर्मेण is then easy "righteously, virtuously".
प्रजा is really interesting. Because it seems to be pra- + jā- and, since jā is a monosyllabic ā- stem, the paradigm has a lot of forms which are the same. Saṃdhi means this could be prajā or prajāḥ and there are an awful lot of jāḥ-s in the jā- paradigm.
I think it is probably an accusative plural (prajāḥ). "He lived in his own kingdom, where he ruled his people righteously", however, I can't overlook the possibility that is an instrumental singular.
The reason for that is this extra word प्रीतः, which seems to be masculine singular, qualifying the king. But it's a past passive participle in form, and I can't overlooked the possibility of "loved by the people" प्रीतः प्रजा.
So, do we go with "The beloved king lived in his own kingdom, where he ruled his people righteously", or do we go for "he lived in his own kingdom, where, beloved by his people, he ruled righteously", or something else altogether?
I have to say, I'd be particularly interested in a second opinion on the derivation of the word पालयन्.
For what it's worth, one translator (whom I've so far found much less reliable) has gone with:
Which agrees very nicely with what I've got, whereas another (generally more reliable) translator has gone with:
Of course, we must allow for the fact translators often aim for natural, readable translations, (as I am) and might alter the grammar and phrasing, but all the same, I'd be interested in other people's opinions.
I'm still on the Story of Sāvitrī and Satyavān in the Mahābhārata and I reached this verse, which I found quite complex grammatically:
अन्तर्हितायां सावित्र्यां जगाम स्वगृहं नृपः ।
स्वराज्ये चावसत्प्रीतः प्रजा धर्मेण पालयन् ॥ १-२० ॥
The first half is fine. We begin with a locative absolute construction: अन्तर्हितायां सावित्र्यां "at the disappearance of Sāvitrī, when Sāvitrī vanished", जगाम "he went" स्वगृहं "to his own home" नृपः "the king".
"When Sāvitrī vanished, the king went to his own home."
स्वराज्ये "in his own kingdom" चा = च "and" वसत् = अवसत् "he lived".
It's the next four words I think are quite tricky and I wouldn't mind a second opinion.
पालयन् is an interesting word. It seems to be a present, active, participle, declined in the nominative singular, masculine to agree with the king. Exactly what this word is, though, is quite interesting. In his entry for पाल्, Monier-Williams has this much to say:
So in other words, when we have waded through all the abbreviations, Monier-Williams reckons it's what I would call a denominative of pāla- "guard, protector, keeper; protector of the earth, king", although he concedes it's also regarded as a causitive of √pā- "watch, keep, preserve; protect; govern".
To me, the most likely analysis is that this is a denominative of pāla- and the meaning of पालयन् is either "protecting", or, I think, "ruling, governing" would be a better translation. And it would be a participle qualifying नृपः, so he "lived in his own kingdom, ruling/where he ruled ..." स्वराज्ये अवसत् पालयन्" (without saṃdhi).
धर्मेण is then easy "righteously, virtuously".
प्रजा is really interesting. Because it seems to be pra- + jā- and, since jā is a monosyllabic ā- stem, the paradigm has a lot of forms which are the same. Saṃdhi means this could be prajā or prajāḥ and there are an awful lot of jāḥ-s in the jā- paradigm.
I think it is probably an accusative plural (prajāḥ). "He lived in his own kingdom, where he ruled his people righteously", however, I can't overlook the possibility that is an instrumental singular.
The reason for that is this extra word प्रीतः, which seems to be masculine singular, qualifying the king. But it's a past passive participle in form, and I can't overlooked the possibility of "loved by the people" प्रीतः प्रजा.
So, do we go with "The beloved king lived in his own kingdom, where he ruled his people righteously", or do we go for "he lived in his own kingdom, where, beloved by his people, he ruled righteously", or something else altogether?
I have to say, I'd be particularly interested in a second opinion on the derivation of the word पालयन्.
For what it's worth, one translator (whom I've so far found much less reliable) has gone with:
Which agrees very nicely with what I've got, whereas another (generally more reliable) translator has gone with:
Of course, we must allow for the fact translators often aim for natural, readable translations, (as I am) and might alter the grammar and phrasing, but all the same, I'd be interested in other people's opinions.
In fact, all those years ago, my textbook was Madhav Deshpande's Saṃskr̥tasubodhinī and I don't think he really devotes much attention to it (without wishing to disparage him if it's my memory that's at fault) - presumably because many of the forms of that paradigm are not very common in the later language?