70 Colorado College Studies. 



dtrd 'bharisyat prd tdm jdnitri vidiisa uvaca (R.V. ), 'him, 

 who was going here to carry ofip Vritra's wealth, his mother pro- 

 claimed to the knowing one'; catayum gam akarisyam ( A.B. ), 

 'I was going to make (should have made) the cow live a hun- 

 dred years.'" (Sec. 950.) 



Of the other three modes, Subjunctive, Optative and Im- 

 perative, but little need be said. The Subjunctive proper 

 early became nearly extinct. "Its fundamental meaning," 

 says Whitney, Sec. 574, "is perhaps that of requisition, less 

 peremptory than the Imperative, more so than the Optative." 

 The Optative soon replaced it. Command, requisition, wish, 

 with no sharp line of division between, would characterize the 

 shades of thought expressed by these three modes. Whitney 

 says they may all be specialized uses of forms originally 

 equivalent — having, for instance, a general future meaning. 

 "This, however, (in Skr. as in other languages) is by no 

 means always of the same force; the command shades off into 

 a demand, an exhortation, an entreaty, an expression of an 

 earnest desire. The Imperative also sometimes signifies an 

 assumption or concession; and occasionally by pregnant con- 

 struction, it becomes the expression of something conditional 

 or contingent; but it does not acquire any regular use in de- 

 pendent clause-making." ( Sec. 572. ) 



As our desires naturally find utterance in the form of a 

 request or an entreaty, the Optative often becomes a mild 

 Imperative. It can also express what is generally desirable 

 or proper, or w^hat should or ought to be and th as become the 

 mode of prescription. It may also weakly signify what may' 

 or can be, what is likely or usual, and thus become a softened 

 statement of what actually is. "In dependent clauses, with 

 relative pronouns and conjunctions, it becomes a regular 

 means of cxj)ression of the conditional and contingent, in a 

 w^ide and increasing variety of uses. Thus, in A.V., we have 

 in imp. : catdm jiva carMah, ' do thou live a hundred autumns ' ; 

 ubhaii tau jivatam jarMasti, ' let them both live to attain old 

 age'; — in subj., adyd jivani, 'let me live this day'; catam 

 jivati carMah, 'he shall live a hundred autumns'; — in opt., 

 jlvema carddam catdni, 'may we live hundreds of autumns'; 



