Verse 3.10.1

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of verse 3.10.1:

प्रत्यक्ता परभावश्चाप्युपाधी कर्तृकर्मनोः ।
तयोः श्रुतिविशेषेण वाचकौ मध्यमोत्तमौ ॥ १ ॥

pratyaktā parabhāvaścāpyupādhī kartṛkarmanoḥ |
tayoḥ śrutiviśeṣeṇa vācakau madhyamottamau || 1 ||

1. The fact of being co-inherent with the egosense or being different from that, arc attributes of the agent or of the object. The first and second person suffixes arc the special morphemes which give expression to them.

Commentary

With Being as Process as expressed by a verb, Time, Person Aspect and Number are also conveyed. Therefore, after dealing with Time, something is going to be said about Person.

[Read verse 1 above]

[One of the characteristics of action or process as expressed by a verb is that it is associated with certain notions. Time is one of them and it has been dealt with in the previous chapter. Person is another notion so associated. There are three persons, the First, Second and the Third or the Best, the Medium and the First, according to Sanskrit terminology. The First and the Second Person, as notions, arc properties of the agent or the object. The First and the Second person suffixes are the special morphemes which give expression to these notions. The First person, as a notion, means the fact of the action co-existing with the ego-sense in the Self. It is a property of the agent or the object as expressed by the verbal suffix and it is understood from both kinds of suffixes: parasmaipada and ātmanepada. From the words pace and pacāmi, we understand that the speaker is the person who cooks and this is due to the presence of the first person suffixes. Thus, the fact of the act of cooking being associated with the speaker himself is the notion of the first person and the suffix is the morpheme which expresses this notion. The notion of the second person is explained as paratvam, to distinguish it from the first person which is pratyaktā. Paratvam means the fact of being different from the speaker. It is also caitanya, conscious Self. The second person as a notion can also be a property of the agent or the object as in pacasi, pacyase. The second person suffix is its special expression. Pratyaktā, the fact of being co-in-herent with the ego-sense, and parabhāva, the fact of being different from that are both possible only in sentient beings, normally.]

But we sometimes find the first and second person suffixes even when the agent of the action is something insentient as in the sentence: O! Stones! listen! (ṣṛṇota grāvāṇaḥ) How to explain this?