In devanagari, a compound word (samasa) is always written without a break, but in transliteration these are often shown hyphenated, for example: yvq j-l-i-l^q prathama- (first) purusa person = first person. A samasa is formed by simply placing the pratipadika (stem) forms together and applying the sandhi rules at the junction. One exception to this should be noted: if the pratipadika ends in -an, then the n is dropped, for example: atman (self) + jfiana (knowledge) => atmajfiana, self-knowledge. In declining the compound word, the vibhakti ending is added to the end of the compound as a whole, i.e. only the last member appears to decline, while earlier members retain their pratipadika form. Sanskrit makes extensive use of the samasa, very extensive use indeed; so much so, that it is unusual to find a sentence without a samasa. This makes expressions in Sanskrit at once concise and precise. Although a samasa may comprise many words, all the principles are covered in considering the joining of just two words (call them 'A' and 'B'); a more complex samasa is simply a case where A and/or B is itself a samasa. If the principal (more important) word of the compound is underlined, then the four classes of samasa may be indicated as: AB dvandva (meaning 'A and B') AB tatpurusa (A is in some case relationship to B) AB avyaylbhava (forms indeclinable (avyaya) functioning as an adverb) AB bahuvrlhi (serves as an adjective qualifying an external principal) Other types of samasa are subdivisions, or special cases, of these four main classes. There are few exceptions to the above: words such as atmane-pada and parasmai- pada where the case-affix of the first word is not dropped, are called a-luk samasa. 10.B.2 Joining Words in Writing Sanskrit is spoken without any break between words, and the written form reflects this: after the operation of sandhi, words are joined together in writing except after words ending in a vowel, anusvara or visarga. For example: Ideally, the virama ( ) may only be used at the end of a sentence.
