Lesson 13 13.1 Words Beginning with Sa- The prefix sam- ('altogether', expressing conjunction, union, completeness) is very common, and thus there are many words beginning with it; since the final -m is often replaced with the anusvara, difficulties may arise if the rules for pronouncing the anusvara are not thoroughly practised. In looking up words containing the anusvara it is essential to sound the word, replacing the anusvara with its savarna nasal where applicable, and then look up the word in the standard alphabetical order with that substituted nasal. For example, in the word "MM <SM the anusvara is sounded as the savarna JT and is then found in the dictionary where one would expect to find "H ^-y <SM; similarly for ^FTrT, look up <H$rM; for ^T$TT, ^TT; and for ^Tfa, ^TT^; etc. There are two points to bear in mind here: firstly, the tradition followed by Monier- Williams makes this nasal substitution only before a sparsa (the twenty-five from ka to ma); and secondly, one needs to make the same nasal substitution for the anusvara for the words in the dictionary, i.e. sound them! Do remember that in the dictionary the anusvara before an antahstha is not substituted with a nasal: for example, the anusvara in "H 3K is not substituted and therefore, in the dictionary order where the anusvara appears before the consonants, "H ^K will be before "H g K which in turn will be before HH^hrH, the last being in the dictionary order of "H f^* C^ . As an illustration of the importance of sounding the words, examine the third column of page 1125 of the dictionary: the last three words given in devanagarT script are "H'T'lrt, "H |>*, and "H ch"^ — and that is the alphabetical order in sound! This principle applies wherever the anusvara occurs, and not only to words beginning with sam-. For example, in column two of page 124 is the entry 3l^<H in devanagarT, and derived from it (and hence transliterated) is the next entry word aham (note the anusvara): the samasa formed with aham — (-yati, -yu, -vadin etc.) are listed in alphabetical order — but note that the sparsa (-karana, -kartavya, etc.) are listed after the antahstha and usman. Again, the anusvara is sounded with its replacement savarna nasal to give 3T^!~|p7 j r (and, of course, W follows the anusvara in the alphabetical order).
