LOCATIVE AND GENITIVE ABSOLUTE
The participle construction commonly referred to as the locative absolute consists of a noun or pronoun and a participle that both stand in the locative case. It is best translated into English as a temporal clause (introduced by ‘when’, ‘while’ or ‘after’), with the noun functioning as the subject and the participle as the main verb.
गते तस्मिन्
‘when he had gone, the men sat down’ (lit. ‘at him having gone’)
उद्यति सूर्ये
‘when the sun rises/at sunrise (उद्-√इ ‘to go up, rise’), he enters the forest’ (lit. ‘at the rising sun’)
The locative absolute is much more frequent than the similar genitive absolute, which consists of a noun or pronoun and participle in the genitive case. While the locative absolute is usually to be translated as a temporal clause, the genitive absolute may have purely temporal or also concessive meaning (translated with ‘although’):
मैत्रवारुणिः समुद्रमपिबत् (…) सर्वलोकस्य पश्यतः
‘the son of Mitra and Varuṇa drained/drank up the ocean
with the whole world looking on
while the whole world was looking on
although the whole world was looking on’
(Mahābhārata 3.103.3)PRONOUNS IV: ENA- ‘THIS’
एन- ‘this’ is a demonstrative pronoun used only when there is no emphasis on that which the pronoun refers to. The paradigm of this pronoun is called defective, meaning incomplete, as only a few forms are actually in use. They are the following:
VOCABULARY
√वृष् (I वर्षति, -ते) ‘to rain’
√सेव् (I सेवते, -ति) ‘to attend, frequent (a place); to serve’
√त्रा (IV त्रायते; II त्राति) ‘to rescue, protect’
√दिश् (VI दिशति) ‘to show, point out’
सुर- (m.) ‘god’
असुर- (m.) ‘demon’
ईश- (m.) ‘lord, master’
अप्सरस्- (f.) ‘heavenly nymph’
राक्षस- (m.) ‘demon’
बाहु- (m.) ‘arm’
स्कन्ध- (m.) ‘shoulder (of a person); trunk (of a tree); branch/division (of an army)’
ऋषभ- (m.) ‘bull’
गति- (f.) ‘gait, walk; path’ (–› √गम्)
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