top
Dr. Madhusudan Mishra

Though it is possible to reconstruct a few clauses of the agglutinative stage of Indus, we can not do it. We have been led to strange languages through this process. It is a grammarian who, at certain stage of the stream of a language, takes it to be static and begins to describe it. He never looks behind, and does not also look ahead. If his description is accepted by the speakers, the language is, as it were, arrested, and it is not allowed to go forward.

We have seen several stages at the agglutinative phase of Indus itself. Therefore, if we stop at the very initial stage, it is hardly different from the isolating Indus. If we go to the last stage, it is not different from the Vedic language.

In the middle there are two stops. At the first stop, the tense and mood have been indicated, with further specification of the different persons. Similarly, the cases too have been broadly specified. At the next stop, the numbers have been specified in verbs and nouns.

Therefore, it is worthwhile to quote a few scattered texts which can represent the agglutinative stage of Indus.

1. i-ti ha A-Sa
   
   This-manner, say, past-be = Thus, they say, it was.
   
   This is the earliest stage of the agglutinative Indus, where the oblique case and the past tense have been distinctly marked.
   
   Wherever there is ha in the BrAhmaNa and Upanisad texts, it is the verb ‘to say’ of the isolating stage: tasya ha putra Asa = He had, it is said, a son. sa ha uvAca = He, it is said, spoke. Similarly, ha sma is the reduced form of *ha sa-ma = It is said, be-past (it was). This sma (be-past) later became a past postposition in Sanskrit: gacchati sma = he goes-past (he went). Similarly, hi (because) was a verb ‘to assert, confirm’: tvaM hi bala-dA asi = You, I confirm, are the giver of strength. Su (well) could be a verb, meaning ‘I bless: jarAM su gaccha = To the old age, I bless, you go.
   
   There is an agglutinative Indus form in the RV (7,103,7c):

2. (saMvatsarasya tad ahaH) pari S-Tha
   [On that day of the (new) year,] around be-past [= you have surrounded (the pond)].
   
   Here the verbal part (S-Tha) itself belongs to the advanced agglutinative stage, where Sa-Tha (verb + past affix) have coalesced, representing the central point of the agglutinative Sa-Tha and the inflexional Vedic *s-ta, now available in Hindi thA (it was). It is remarkable that this stha has no ending, which could be -m (to agree with ahas n.). It is quite comparable to another participle s-ma (= Sa-ma ‘be-past’).

3. tata ma-ha (Father time-perfect = The father has grown old). It contracted as  tatA-maha (grandfather) in the early Vedic language. It was later replaced by pitA-maha.

4. nana ma-ha (Mother time-perfect = The mother has grown old). It contracted as nanA-mahI (grandmother) in the early Vedic language. It was later replaced by mAtA-ma-hI.

5. ku ca ra (had been on the earth). Later explained as roaming at will. It has not been analysed in the pada- text.

6. go cara (had been in the view), later becoming a lexeme.