One more doubt in Shri Matrubhootam

[nulls]

Hi,

After going through other threads on the kriti Shri Matrubhootam, I'm still left with this doubt In the anupallavi: in the line

"soma sakham nata shuka sanakam
nala kaamadi vijaya kamaneeyaangam"

why is dwitiya vibhakti used for "sanaka"? If the meaning of the phrase "nata shuka sanakam" is "one who is venerated by shuka & sanaka" then why dwitiya vibhakti only for "sanaka"?

[Sachi_R]

Sir
It is simple. In a samaasa, the declension will be based on the final word and if it is an adjective, its gender and case and number will depend on what it qualifies.

Since the entire song is on Shiva, all the adjectives refer to Shiva and are therefore declined in masculine singular accusative case.

When you say "nata-śuka-sanakam", you mean, I meditate on "him who has been bowed down to by the sages Shuka and Sanaka". So it has to be accusative case for him, which is dwiteeya singular as you rightly pointed out.

I will give another example.
"kamsa-cāṇūra-mardanam" meaning I bow down to "him who caused the death of Kamsa and ChaaNuura". Again Dwiteeya, singular.

In the Dikshitar song there are other instances of the same principle.

[nulls]

Thank you for your response Sachi_R!
In the case of "Kamsa Chanura mardhanam", the dwitiya vibhakti is for "mardhana" and not for "Chanura" - which I understand, but in Shri Matrubhootam, going by the same logic, I would have expected it to be "natam Shuka Sanaka" and not "nata Shuka Sanakam" as it is in the song. How would you explain this please?

[RaviSri]

It is not 'sanakam' only 'sanaka'. When 'naLa' is linked to 'sanaka' it becomes sanakannaLa, while singing.

[nulls]

Hmmm..

Ravisri, TK Govinda Rao's book, http://guru-guha.blogspot.com, the rasikas forum (Sahitya & Identification section) viewtopic.php?t=9004... all of them say it is "sanakam" and not sanaka......

Also, if this is the place where the raga mudra has been incorporated by Dikshitar as given in the following post
viewtopic.php?t=9004#p113687, then it looks even more unlikely that it is "Sanaka Nala" ... would Dikshitar have left it to the singer to interpret it correctly without basing it on solid grammar? Of course, this point is rather doubtful because Dikshitar could have meant the previous line to be the raga mudra one i.e. Soma sakham nata.. only here it is "khannata" and not "kannata"!

I feel we are missing something here..

[nulls]

On singing it again, it does sound like "kannala" when we sing "ka nala", you could be right. So it is "Sanaka Nala" & not "Sanakam Nala".

[Sachi_R]

Nulls,
nata-śuka-sanaka is a compound noun or samasta-pada. It is called a prātipadika. It gets the vibhakti pratyayas called subantas. In dvitīya vibhakti eka-vacana, it becomes nata-śuka-sanaka+m.

In Samskrita compound nouns are formed in many ways.
mardana meaning "one who caused the death of" comes at the end. nata meaning "one who is bowed down to by" comes in the beginning. There are many such different compound words. Look for them.
Remember that the compound noun is governed by the gender and case of the viśeṣya i.e. the original word it qualifies. Here it is
mātṛbhūta+m.
What TKG has given is correct.
naḷa is a part of the next compound noun.

[nulls]

Ohhk..... I understand now.....after you wrote nata-śuka-sanaka+m

Thanks, will certainly look out for these different types of compound words from now on! So "Sanakam" it is.

[thenpaanan]

naḷa is a part of the next compound noun.

Thanks for the engrossing exegesis.

How do we distinguish nala from naḷa as you have done here? I was under the impression that they were indistinguishable in Sanskrit. I've heard most people sing it as naḷa even though the texts write it as just nala.

-T

[Sachi_R]

Sir,
As I said before, it is extremely rare to see use of the hard ḷ in Samskrita. It is seen in Vedic mantras.
The pronunciation naḷa is a variant in many Indian languages including Kannada.
It is "kind of" accepted since Samskrita in its pure form is almost never heard and actually every speaker colours his Samskrita pronunciation with his mother tongue variants.
So it is a bit of a non-issue really.

[shankarank]

I think kvc had posted once about this:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27216&p=298660

Prof P Sankaran who taught us recitation in the IITM campus, mentioned that his father a Sanskrit teacher, as well as his Guru Prof. SrIkanThahkumAraswAmy , a BHU alumni ( IIRC) and hence a student of a Varanasi vedic school, who taught all the reciting profs in the campus, agreed that L of Sanskrit was to be pronounced in between the 'l' and 'L' of tamizh!

I think it came up during a discussion on how to intone the "l" in this passage in SrI durgha sUktam:

The "Im" is vaiṣṇa’vīṃ is never a closed mouth "m" , it is rather a dental/nasal 'n' and transition from "n" to "l" is somewhat retroflex and that's when that " ḷ" comes out.

nāka’sya pṛṣṭhamabhi saṃvasā’no vaiṣṇa’vīṃ loka iha mā’dayantām

It is interesting that this happens for na ḷa and nI ḷa in similar ways, i.e something that follows a dental consonant.

From an abhang: na ḷa , nI ḷa, jAmbhavanta - we always retroflex it a bit.

[Sachi_R]

Shankaran,
There are clear rules about pronouncing ṃ and m. Further the pronunciation of "anusvāra" changes based on rules of parasavaraṇa sandhi.