The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit

This chapter gives a detailed introduction to the main types of Sanskrit compound – hence its length. No memorisation of new forms is required, however, and simply reading through this material and using it for future reference should be sufficient.

GENERAL

A compound noun is a noun that consists of more than one stem. English examples include words such as toothpaste (consisting of tooth and paste), underworld, ruby-red, tree house or chewing gum. (Compounds in English are often not written as one word, but hyphenated or written as two separate words, while Sanskrit compounds are always written as one word. In what follows, some Sanskrit compounds will also be broken up by hyphens, yet that is solely to help you understand their structure.)

Compound nouns (or ‘compounds’) in Sanskrit basically function like compounds in English. Yet there is a crucial difference: in English, compounds usually refer to something more specific than just the sum of their parts. A blackboard, for example, is not just any board that is black, but a specific kind of flat surface on which to write with chalk. Sanskrit compounds, on the other hand, are often made up on the spot: a kind person can simply be called a kindperson, प्रिय-जन- (made up of प्रिय- ‘dear’ and जन- ‘person’); a message from Rāma may simply be a Rāma-message, राम-वचन- (राम- ‘Rāma’, वचन- ‘word; message’); and so on. As a result, compounds are very frequent in Sanskrit.

This chapter will describe the main types of Sanskrit compound. These ‘types’ are distinguished on the basis of the relation that the compound parts (or ‘members’) have to one another. Compare, for example, the English compounds blackbird and toothbrush: a blackbird is thus called because it is black; but a toothbrush is not a brush that is a tooth. Rather, it is a brush that is intended for one's teeth. The ‘types’ we distinguish go back to categories established by the ancient Indian grammarians. While they named several types by using an actual compound of that type (toothbrush would be a tatpuruṣa compound; see below), Western scholars use more descriptive/analytical terminology (a tatpuruṣa is called a ‘dependent determinative’). Both sets of terminology are commonly used and will thus be given and explained here.