The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit

CARDINAL NUMBERS

Unlike in English, Sanskrit numerals (i.e. the words for numbers) have more than one form. The words for one, two, three and four are adjectives with different forms for the different genders. From five to ten, numerals behave like nouns in that they have different forms for the different cases, but are the same regardless of the gender of the word they qualify.

The word for one, एक-, has already been introduced (–› Chapter 22). It appears in all three numbers. In the dual and plural, it needs to be translated as ‘some, a few’. The word for ‘two’ has forms only in the dual; from ‘three’ up there are only plural forms. The citation forms (द्वि-, त्रि- etc.) are the stem forms used in compounds, such as द्विपद्- ‘biped, two-footed’ or त्रिलोचन- ‘three-eyed’.

As you can see, the words for ‘five’, ‘seven’, ‘eight’, ‘nine’ and ‘ten’ decline in the same way, including an endingless nominative shared by all. ‘Six’ employs the same endings, but the paradigm is slightly complicated through the internal sandhi of the stem-final retroflex. ‘Eight’ has two sets of forms: one formally comparable with that of the other numbers, and an older one ending in -au in the NOM SG and having a stem-final long ā (instead of short a) everywhere else. For higher numbers, cf. e.g. Whitney, A Sanskrit Grammar (§§475–89).

ORDINAL NUMBERS

Ordinals are the terms referring to the order of numbers – first, second, third etc. In Sanskrit, they all are a-stem adjectives in masculine and neuter, and ī-stems in the feminine.

प्रथम- ‘first’ षष्ठ- ‘sixth’

द्वितीय- ‘second’ सप्तम- ‘seventh’

तृतीय- ‘third’ अष्टम- ‘eighth’

चतुर्थ-, चतुरीय- ‘fourth’ नवम- ‘ninth’

पञ्चम- ‘fifth’ दशम- ‘tenth’