Lesson 15 15.1 Introduction to Dhatu-Patha A word standing alone expresses a universal: in a sentence it refers to a particular, and its meaning is restricted according to the context. A word is thus given many meanings in the dictionary: the particular meaning is selected according to the context in which it is used. Nouns, which name things, 'freeze' an aspect of the activity of a dhatu; whereas verbs, which express the activity of a sentence, derive directly from the dhatu. A dhatu is therefore the most universal element of all words; and the Dhatu-Patha is a dhatu dictionary, as it were: it provides a sense of the underlying meaning of the dhatu — usually in just one word! The Dhatu-Patha (lit. 'Recitation of Roots') also encodes a wealth of grammatical information about the conjugation of verbs and the formation of nouns derived from each dhatu: much of this information will not be used at this stage of the study. This lesson is concerned with extracting the artha, or 'meaning', of each dhatu from the Dhatu-Patha, and its application in the study of the scriptures. 15.2 The Contents Page This lists the ten gana, or classes of dhatu conjugation. Each gana is named after the first dhatu in its section: for example, the first is J<lll^ g l u l , which word is formed from bhu-adi-gana, the class beginning with ^/bhu, where adi means 'beginning with'. The eleventh class, «h u S lK g l u l , is a class of dhatu derived from nouns, i.e. names that have come to be used as verbs. As an example of this class in the dictionary, see 2. Payasya in 586a, where 'Nom.' is the abbreviation for 'Nominal Verb'. (Note: 'Nominal' is the adjectival form of 'noun', and here means 'derived from a noun'.) The immediate utility of this page is that it connects the dictionary classification, e.g. cl.l, with that used in the Index, i.e. J-^T . Note that this publication makes use of alternate character forms to those we have been using in this course (see section 9. A. 2); and since the page numbers are also in devanagarT, note the numeral forms used (especially for 8 and 9).
