In this topic, we are going to cover two verb roots: gam and vad.

गम् → गत्वा
gam → gatvā
Go → having gone

वद् → उदित्वा
vad → uditvā
Speak → having spoken

Now, what has happened here? It’s very simple.

  • According to the old system, when gam weakens to gm it produces gmtva which are hard to pronounce, but instead, it becomes ga and turns out to be gatva.
  • Similar is the case with vad, instead of becoming vditva, which is again very hard to pronounce; it becomes ud, hence giving us uditva

Now why such complex rule?

Well, there is a logical answer for this too.

In gerund, the nasal sound is removed from certain roots; gam falls into that category of roots. Hence, it loses its m and gives us ga, which ultimately becomes gatva. The same is the case with vad too. But vad is not as simple as gam root,

Hence Sanskrit provides us with a new feature here for such words. It is called “Samprasarana” it basically means “to extend” Samprasarana can make vowels turn into semivowels and semivowels into vowels. There are three major changes in Samprasarana, they are:

  • y → i
  • v → u
  • r → ṛ

These roots are strengthened in the following way;

Weak Medium Strong
i, ī *ai, *ia *āi, *iā
u, ū *au, *ua *āu, *uā
ṛ, ṝ *ar, *ra *ār, *rā

An important thing about Samprasarana is that its roots are strengthened backward.

तॄ → तीर्त्वा
tṝ → tīrtvā
cross → having crossed

लभ् → लब्ध्वा
labh → labdhvā
obtain → having obtained

Verbs following Samprasarana are most likely to change in the gerund form, which demands a weakened vowel and a suffix that starts with t.

दृश् + त्वा → दृष्ट्वा
dṛś + tvā → dṛṣṭvā
see → having seen

Now, why this change occurred?

• Two tongue consonants of a different point of pronunciation cannot be together.
• If they are, then both of them become retroflexed.
• Roots that end in “c” will always have their “c” turned into a “k”. and roots that end in “j” will occasionally have their “j” turned into a “k”, depending on the verb root. Some of the examples of it are given below

वच् → उक्त्वा
vac → uktvā
speak → having spoken

युज् → युक्त्वा
yuj → yuktvā
join → having joined

शुच् → शुचित्वा
śuc → śucitvā
Speak → having spoken

सृज् → सृष्ट्वा
sṛj → sṛṣṭvā
Release → having released

We have so far studied that verbs can be transformed to medium and strong level, however, there are verbs in Sanskrit that cannot be strengthened to strong or even medium level. They are nind, jiv and, cint.

The reason why they cannot be transformed is that they are heavily double syllables, which means that their syllables are already very strong, even if we remove them. they are words with extra consonants even if we put them ao class they can only be transformed from nind to nindana, ji to jayana, and jiv to jivana