The Sanskrit imperative (loṭ) — the mood of commands, polite third-person requests (astu "let it be"), and first-person self-exhortation (bhavāni "let me become"). Thematic verbs lose their 2sg ending entirely (bhava!); athematic verbs take -hi or -dhi, with the copula √as contracting to the famous edhi.
Thematic imperative: present stem + imperative endings. √bhū → bhava-. First-person forms are historically old subjunctives (Whitney §574); in all a-stems the 2sg takes no ending at all — «the bare stem stands as personal form» (Whitney §544).
| Thematic · bhū Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | bhavāni | bhavāva | bhavāma |
| 2nd | bhava | bhavatam | bhavata |
| 3rd | bhavatu | bhavatām | bhavantu |
| Thematic · bhū Ātmanepada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | bhavai | bhavāvahai | bhavāmahai |
| 2nd | bhavasva | bhavethām | bhavadhvam |
| 3rd | bhavatām | bhavetām | bhavantām |
The thematic imperative is built on the ordinary present stem. The endings fall into two historical layers. First-person forms (bhavāni, bhavāva, bhavāma active; bhavai, bhavāvahai, bhavāmahai middle) are really old subjunctives that the classical language reassigned to the imperative paradigm — this is why they show long -ā- and the primary-looking -i/-hai. Semantically they are self-exhortations: "let me become," "let us be."
The 2nd and 3rd persons take proper imperative endings. The one every student must memorise is the 2sg active: bare stem, no ending — bhava "be!", paśya "look!", gaccha "go!", jīva "live!". Never *bhavahi, never *bhavatu. The absence of an ending is precisely the signal of the command. In the middle, however, the 2sg is overtly marked: bhavasva.
The 3pl (bhavantu active, bhavantām middle) absorbs the thematic -a- into the nasal ending exactly as the present indicative does (bhavanti, bhavante). The middle 2du and 3du (bhavethām, bhavetām) show the same a + ā → e fusion familiar from the indicative (bhavethe, bhavete).
Uses. The imperative in Sanskrit is broader than an English "do it!" command. In the third-person singular it is the standard polite form — bhavatu "let it be so," paṭhatu bhavān "may the gentleman read." It also expresses permission and benediction (astu / tathāstu "so be it"), and in the first person, self-exhortation (bhavāni "let me become," bhavāma "let us be").
Prohibition. Sanskrit has no ordinary negative imperative. Whitney §574 identifies two surviving relics of the old subjunctive in the classical language: the first persons of the imperative (as above), and «the use of its other persons, with the negative particle mā, in a prohibitive or negative imperative sense». In practice this means mā plus an augmentless imperfect or aorist — Whitney §580 cites the Mahābhārata forms mā śucaḥ "do not grieve" and mā bhaiḥ "do not fear". Even in Whitney's own day, however, the classical language was already migrating to na + optative, which he calls «the prevalent construction» of the later period (§580). So the student learning the imperative needs to know: you do not negate it directly; you reach for a separate prohibitive construction instead.
Fill in the conjugation — 9 forms per pada.
| Thematic · bhū Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | |||
| 3rd | |||
| Thematic · bhū Ātmanepada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | |||
| 3rd | |||
Athematic imperative, typical case: √i "to go". Strong stem e- (before consonant) / ay- (before vowel); weak stem i- (before consonant) / y- (before vowel). 2sg ihi is the textbook vowel-stem athematic with -hi. Whitney §617 takes √i as his model for the class II active imperative and gives the full paradigm verbatim.
| Athematic · i Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | ayāni | ayāva | ayāma |
| 2nd | ihi | itam | ita |
| 3rd | etu | itām | yantu |
√i is the textbook athematic verb — the one Whitney (§614, §617) takes as his active model whenever he needs to show the canonical class II pattern. Two stems alternate by strength, and each stem has two allomorphs by the quality of the following sound:
For the imperative, the strong stem is used in exactly four forms — all three first persons plus the 3rd singular (highlighted in the paradigm table above). Everything else takes the weak stem. So 1sg ayāni (strong + vowel → ay- + -āni), 3sg etu (strong + consonant → e- + -tu), 3pl yantu (weak + vowel → y- + -antu). Mnemonic: all first persons + one king — the 3sg is the only non-first-person form that keeps the strong stem.
Note that this distribution is not the same as in the athematic present indicative, where strong is confined to the singular (1sg emi, 2sg eṣi, 3sg eti) and every dual and plural form is weak. The imperative differs in two ways: (i) the 2sg loses its strong stem — present eṣi (strong) → imperative ihi (weak), because the 2sg imperative is morphologically the barest form in the paradigm, built on the weak stem with a clitic -hi/-dhi; (ii) the 1st dual and 1st plural acquire a strong stem — present ivaḥ, imaḥ (weak) → imperative ayāva, ayāma (strong, with long -ā-), because these forms are historically old subjunctives which the classical language grafted onto the imperative paradigm and which always took the strong stem.
The 2sg ihi is the clean case of the rule for vowel-stem athematics: weak stem + -hi. The same pattern gives yāhi "travel!" (√yā), brūhi "speak!" (√brū), śṛṇuhi "listen!" (√śru, class V). Contrast with consonant-stem athematics, which take -dhi: viddhi "know!" (√vid), addhi "eat!" (√ad). The copula √as (next tab) is the one verb where this tidy distribution breaks down into the irregular edhi.
Usage. etu "let him come / let him go" is one of the commonest polite imperatives in classical Sanskrit prose; ihi "go!" is the ordinary imperious command; yantu "let them go" appears constantly in ritual instructions. √i has no ātmanepada, so only the active paradigm is given.
Fill in the conjugation.
| Athematic · i Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | |||
| 3rd | |||
Athematic imperative, irregular: √as "to be" (copula). Strong stem as-, weak stem s-; the 2sg edhi, in Whitney's words, is formed «irregularly from as-dhi» (§636) — an opaque form that must simply be memorised. Paradigm and discussion in Whitney §636.
| Athematic · as Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | asāni | asāva | asāma |
| 2nd | edhi | stam | sta |
| 3rd | astu | stām | santu |
√as is pure athematic and uses the same strong/weak stem alternation as its present indicative, extended to cover the imperative. Strong stem as- appears in all three first-person forms (asāni, asāva, asāma — the subjunctive-origin set) and in the 3rd singular (astu). Weak stem s- appears in the 2nd and 3rd dual and plural (stam, sta, stām) and, residually, in the 3rd plural santu (historically s-antu, with the -a- belonging to the ending).
The 2sg is the famous crux. The regular athematic 2sg takes -dhi after a consonant stem and -hi after a vowel stem: ad-dhi "eat!" (√ad), vid-dhi "know!" (√vid), i-hi "go!" (√i), yā-hi "travel!" (√yā), brū-hi "speak!" (√brū), śṛṇu-hi "listen!" (√śru, class V). Class VIII √kṛ drops the -hi entirely and uses the bare weak stem kuru "do!"; class III reduplicating verbs with consonant-ending weak stems keep -dhi (juhudhi "pour!" from √hu). For √as, Whitney derives the 2sg «irregularly from as-dhi» (§636) — i.e., from the strong stem as- plus the normal consonant-stem ending -dhi — but the resulting edhi is so opaque to synchronic Sanskrit phonology that no rule produces it mechanically. It simply has to be memorised.
The 3pl of athematic verbs is -antu for most classes (santu, yantu, brūvantu), but reduplicating class III verbs take -atu on the bare weak stem: juhvatu (√hu), dadatu (√dā), dadhatu (√dhā). The rule follows the 3pl present: wherever the indicative has -ati, the imperative has -atu.
Usage. The imperative of √as — especially astu and santu — is everywhere in classical Sanskrit. astu / tathāstu means "so be it, amen"; bhavantu sarve sukhinaḥ "may all beings be happy" is a standard benedictory formula; mā bhaiṣīḥ "do not fear" shows the normal prohibition pattern (not *mā bibhīhi). √as has no ātmanepada, so only the active paradigm is needed.
Fill in the conjugation.
| Athematic · as Parasmaipada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st | |||
| 2nd | |||
| 3rd | |||