Sanskrit nouns

Sanskrit nouns have eight vibhakti-s (lit. division) or cases, numbered in this order: nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, and vocative.[2] Of these eight vibhakti-s, Pāṇini identified six as kāraka-s (lit. doer of an action), or accessories to a verb. The six kārakas are the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases.[3] He defined them as follows (Ashtādhyāyi, I.4.24-54):

1. Kartā ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, Hartmut (1977). Grammatical literature. History of Indian literature. 5. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz. p. 94. ISBN 978-3447017060.)
2. Karman ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
3. Karaṇa ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
4. Sampradāna ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.
5. Apādāna (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.
6. Adhikaraṇa ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.

Pāṇini did not identify the genitive (Sambandha / 6th vibhakti) and vocative (Sambodhana / 8th vibhakti) as Kārakas.[4]

The basic scheme of suffixation is given in the table below and applies to many nouns and adjectives. However, according to the gender and the final consonant or vowel of the uninflected word-stem, there are sandhi rules dictating the form of the inflected word.[5]

A-stems (/ə/ or /aː/) comprise the largest class of nouns. As a rule, nouns belonging to this class, with the uninflected stem ending in short-a (/ə/), are either masculine or neuter. Nouns ending in long-A (/aː/) are almost always feminine. A-stem adjectives take the masculine and neuter in short-a (/ə/), and feminine in long-A (/aː/) in their stems. This class is so big because it also comprises both the Proto-Indo-European o-stems and eh₂-stems.

This class contains nouns of all three genders, but its most defining features are best preserved in the masculine forms. Feminine nouns may borrow part of their singular endings from the -ī and -ū classes, and neuters regularly use a derived consonant stem in -in or -un. They are considered part of this class by traditional grammars for etymological reasons, as well as the fact that adjectives in -i and -u complete their paradigms suppletively for the three genders with these forms.

These nouns, mostly feminine, have stems in -ā, -ī, -ū and genitive singular in ās. The -ī and -ū classes decline identically, while the -ā class have different dual and vocative forms, as well as inserts either -āy- or -ay- before oblique case endings beginning with vowels.

Many one-syllable root nouns in long vowels are inflected in principle as consonant stems, but the feminine ones may also use the longer singular endings of the class proper, in a similar way short -i and -u stem feminines do.

ṛ-stems are predominantly agental derivatives like dātṛ 'giver', though also include kinship terms like pitṛ 'father', mātṛ 'mother', and svasṛ 'sister'. The neuter equivalents of derivative agental nouns once again form secondary stems in -n, as in the -i and -u classes.

A single irregular noun, sakhi 'friend', has a stem in -i but declines similarly to this class:

Consonant stem nouns may have up to 3 different stems, as well as two special forms.

1. A special lengthened form for the masculine/feminine nominative singular
2. A special lengthened and/or nasalized form for the neuter nom/acc. plural
3. A strong stem, referred to by traditional grammars as aṅga, used for mas/fem. sing. acc, dual nom/acc and plur. nom.
4. A medium stem pada, used with oblique cases with consonant endings, as well as the neuter nom/acc. sing.
5. A weak stem bha, used everywhere else.

One or more of these stems may be identical for some words, but this is generally not regularly predictable from either the nominative singular or the citation form stem. The case endings themselves are the regular ones listed at the beginning of the page.

Inflection example of words with only one stem; note that the neuter plural still uses the special form.

Example of words with different stems:

1. rājā, rājñas (gen.sg. or bha), rājānas (nom.pl. or aṅga), rājabhis (inst. plur. or pada)
2. dyaus, divas (gen.sg. or bha), divas (nom.pl. or aṅga), dyubhis (inst.plur. or pada)
3. karma (nom.sg. or pada), karmaṇas (gen.sg. or bha), karmāṇi (special neuter nom.plur., here coinciding with the aṅga form of rājā above)

The masculine vocative can be a somewhat peculiar case. For the most part, if either the masc.nom.sing. or the aṅga stem ends with -n or some consonant cluster thereof, the vocative is this stem with a short vowel immediately before the -n; and in most other nouns it is identical to the nom.sing. As an example of an exception, the word cited as pathin "path" has the forms panthās, pathas, panthānas, pathibhis but vocative panthās instead of the expected panthan; a different consonant ending in the nom.sing. has taken precedence when it is not a cluster starting with n.

The numbers from one to ten are:

1. eka (एक)
2. dva (द्व)
3. trayas (त्रि)
4. catur (चतुर्)
5. pañca (पञ्च)
6. ṣaṣ (षष्)
7. sapta (सप्त)
8. aṣṭa (अष्ट)
9. nava (नव)
10. daśa (दश)

The numbers one through four are declined. Eka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dva appears only in the dual. Tri and catur are declined irregularly.

• Sanskrit pronouns and determiners