Bhagavad-gita Reader for Students of Sanskrit, Chapter 1, Verse 1: Word Study: dhṛtarāṣṭraḥ

Summary: This word study focuses on the word dhṛtarāṣṭraḥ, and examines it not only in a linguistic context (i.e. analyzing it as a Sanskrit compound), but also deals with the historical person Dhritarashtra, who is the speaker of the first verse of the Bhagavad-gita.

1. Dhritarashtra the king

Dhritarashtra is the first person mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita. He is the old राजा rājā (king) of the Kuru royal family, and also the father of the evil Duryodhana, the main instigator of the great Mahabharata war at Kurukshetra. Throughout the scriptures, Dhritarashtra is referred to by other names as well: “vaichitra-virya” (“descendent of Vichitra-virya”) and “prajna-chakshu” (“wisdom-eye”).

2. Basic Derivation

Dhritarashtra’s name is a compound (samāsa) made up of two parts. Its first part is derived from the verb root धृ dhṛ, which carries a sense of “to hold”. This verb root has then been tweaked in such a way as to produce the first part of the compound, धृत dhṛta (“held”), which is the noninflected stem of the past passive participle. To that first part of his name has been added the second part: the neuter noun stem राष्ट्र rāṣṭra, which means “kingdom”. Therefore, the combined effect of these two words is something like “held-the-kingdom”.

On the surface, धृत-राष्ट्र dhṛta–rāṣṭra look like a typical karmadhāraya compound of the adjective-noun variety, with a participle (धृत dhṛta) acting as an adjective, and with a noun (राष्ट्र rāṣṭra) at the end. But there is a problem: the person named Dhritarashtra is neither equivalent to the word “kingdom”, nor to the participle “held”. So where does the man, the person, the king himself, come in?

The man Dhritarashtra comes in as the owner, or bearer, of that trait which is described by the two conjoined words. He is the person who has “held-the-kingdom”. So although this compound initially, purely from its juxtaposition of a participle and a noun, may be thought of as a karmadhāraya, its correct classification is a bahuvrihi. As you may know, a bahuvrihi is a type of compound in which one needs a third, external object to explain the two members of the compound. In other words, the two members of a bahuvrihi compound are about a third thing — in this case, a king.

One possible equivalent of the धृत-राष्ट्र dhṛta–rāṣṭra compound would therefore be something like the following passive construction, in which the past passive participle acts as a main verb (as usual, invisibly accompanied by a real main verb, such as, for example, asti or bhavati), and where the performer of the action (i.e. the agent, the kartṛ) is in the instrumental case:

(+sandhi)   राष्ट्रं नरेण धृतम् [अस्ति] ।
(-sandhi)   राष्ट्रम् नरेण धृतम् [अस्ति] ।
(translit)   rāṣṭram nareṇa dhṛtam [asti].
(tr/eswo)   theˍkingdom byˍtheˍman held [is].
(tr/engl)   The kingdom [is] held by the man.

What is interesting to note here is that the word राष्ट्रम् rāṣṭram is in the neuter nominative singular. Consequently, since this is a passive construction with राष्ट्रम् rāṣṭram acting as a subject (or, expressed in traditional Sanskrit terminology, is the karman, the object of action), the participle stem धृत dhṛta must also be dressed up with a matching neuter nominative singular ending, thus forming धृतम् dhṛtam.

But if now राष्ट्रम् rāṣṭram is in the nominative singular form, then why does the invocation to the first verse of the Gita (which uses the word Dhritarashtra in its nominative singular form) not read धृतराष्ट्रम् उवाच dhṛtarāṣṭram uvāca?

The reason why the invocation does not read like that is simply because Dhritarashtra does not refer to some type of kingdom. Dhritarashtra is not a राष्ट्रम् rāṣṭram, whether a populous rāṣṭram, a free-from-taxes rāṣṭram, or a held rāṣṭram. Rather, Dhritarashtra is the person who holds the rāṣṭram. His grammatical gender (and his biological gender) is masculine, while the grammatical gender of the word राष्ट्रम् rāṣṭram is neuter.

So when we see the actual words of the Gita being धृतराष्ट्र उवाच dhṛtarāṣṭra uvāca (which without sandhi would be धृतराष्ट्रः उवाच dhṛtarāṣṭraḥ uvāca), we know that it is not some type of rāṣṭram that is speaking. The reason we know this is not because kingdoms never speak with words (for they might, just as rivers sometimes do); rather, the reason is purely grammatical: it is because the masculine noun stem धृतराष्ट्र dhṛtarāṣṭra has been equipped with a masculine singular ending, धृतराष्ट्रः dhṛtarāṣṭraḥ. Thus, we would then here immediately understand that the compound cannot be some ordinary adjective-noun karmadhāraya; it must be something else.

We may therefore conclude that even though a literal word-for-word translation of the compound धृत-राष्ट्र dhṛta-rāṣṭra would produce “held-the-kingdom” (which may be thought of as an adjective), its real meaning would have to include also a person: “the held-the-kingdom man” or “the man who holds the kingdom”.

VOCABULARY

धृ
धृत
राजन्
राष्ट्र
धृत-राष्ट्र
धृतराष्ट्र

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First published: 1 Mar 2013
Last revised: 2 Mar 2013