3.2.115

परोक्षे लिट्

Operational rule vidhi

लिट्-लकार is used to indicate an action which was done yesterday or before and which was not seen by the speaker of the sentence.

Word by word (padaccheda)

Right context परोक्षे saptamī · ekavacanaSubstitute / term prathamā · ekavacana
  • Right context Saptamī (7th case): "when X follows", the operation applies to what precedes (1.1.66 तस्मिन्निति निर्दिष्टे पूर्वस्य). Also a condition or domain ("in the sense of").
  • Substitute / term Prathamā (1st case): in operational rules, the substitute or the thing introduced; in definitions, the term or its referent.

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Full reading

परोक्षे लिट्

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Commentary

The affix लिट् (Perfect Tense) comes after the verb in the sense of the past before the commencement of the current day and unperceived by the narrator.
The word परोक्ष 'unperceived' qualifies the words भूत 'past' and अनद्यतन 'non-current day' understood in this aphorism.

Well, are not the senses of verbs all unperceived, since they are mere words, and words cannot be perceived ? Exactly so; but in popular phraseology, the perception is imagined to attach to the agent with regard to certain verbs; this rule relates to cases where such perception does not take place. As, चकार 'he did'; जहार 'he took'.

It is evident that the लिट् (perfect) should not be used in the first person, i. e. when the agent of the action is the speaker or writer himself; for it is impossible that the action should not have been witnessed by him. But if by reason of some distracted, unconscious or absent state of mind, it is possible for the agent to speak of the action as one, of which he was not a conscious witness, the perfect may be used even in the first person. As सुप्तोऽहं किल विललाप 'indeed I prated while asleep'.

Vart:- The perfect should be employed (in denoting past time simply, whether of the current day or otherwise, and whether the action has been witnessed personally or not) if the sense is total denial of the action. As कलिङ्गेषु स्थितोऽसि ? नाहं कलिङ्गम् जगाम 'did you live in the Kalinga country ? I did not even go to the Kalinga country'; दक्षिणापथं प्रविष्टोऽसि ? नाहं दक्षिणापथं प्रविवेश.

Śrīśa Chandra Vasu, The Ashtadhyayi of Panini (1897), via ashtadhyayi.com.

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