There is a crucial difference between how Sanskrit and English use verbs. In a sentence that describes more than one action, English typically uses a chain of finite verbs:
She leaves the house, goes into the forest and sits down.
After she left the house and went into the forest, she sat down.
Sanskrit, on the other hand, frequently has no more than one finite verb in a sentence. Other verbs appear in non-finite form, either as absolutives (also sometimes called gerunds) or as participles. Literally translated, Sanskrit would say:
Having left(absolutive/participle) the house and having gone(absolutive/participle) into the forest,
she sat(finite verb) down.
This section will introduce you to the most frequent of these non-finite forms, the absolutive and the ta-participle.
FORMATION AND MEANING OF THE ABSOLUTIVE AND THE TA-PARTICIPLE
Both of these are formed by adding a suffix to the zero-grade root of a verb. The suffix added in the case of the absolutive of simple verbs is -tvā, that of the ta-participle is -ta-.
The absolutive of a verb ‘x’ means ‘having x-ed’. For example:
√द्रु ‘to run’ –› द्रुत्वा ‘having run’
√कृ ‘to do’ –› कृत्वा ‘having done’
√गम् ‘to go’ –› गत्वा ‘having gone’ (on the zero grade of √गम् –› Chapter 7)
(Absolutives of compound verbs, i.e. verbs that have a preverb (to be introduced in Chapter 10), add -tya if they end in a short vowel, and -ya otherwise. For example, अप-√द्रु ‘to run away’ (अप- = ‘away’) –› अपद्रुत्य ‘having run away’; प्रति-√लिख् ‘to write back’ (प्रति- = ‘back’) –› प्रतिलिख्य ‘having written back’.)
The ta-participle of a verb ‘x’ has a past passive meaning ‘having been x-ed’. For example:
√भृ ‘to carry’ –› भृत- ‘having been carried’
√कृ ‘to do’ –› कृत- ‘having been done’
If a verb cannot sensibly form a passive, the ta-participle has active meaning:
√भू ‘to become/be’ –› भूत- ‘having become’
√गम् ‘to go’ –› गत- ‘having gone’
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