Upasarga

Upasarga is a term used in Sanskrit grammar for a special class of twenty prepositional particles prefixed to verbs or to action nouns. In Vedic, these prepositions are separable from verbs; in classical Sanskrit the prefixing is obligatory.

The twenty prefixes (in Indic alphabetical order) are recognized in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi at 1.4.58-59, and are enumerated in the Pāṇini (#154):


 * 1) ati- "beyond"
 * 2) adhi- "over"
 * 3) apa- "away"
 * 4) api- "proximate"
 * 5) abhi- "to, towards"
 * 6) anu- "after"
 * 7) ava- "off, down"
 * 8) ā- "near"
 * 9) ut-/ud- "up(wards)"
 * 10) upa- "towards, near"
 * 11) dus-/dur- "bad, difficult, hard"
 * 12) ni- "down"
 * 13) nis-/nir- "away"
 * 14) parā- "away"
 * 15) pari- "round, around"
 * 16) pra- "forth"
 * 17) prati- "against"
 * 18) vi- "apart, asunder"
 * 19) sam-/saṃ- "with"
 * 20) su- "good, excellent"

By the usual rules of euphonic combination the two prepositions ending in visarga, ' and ', have the alternative forms nis-/nir- and dus-/dur- respectively. The listing has these variants, not the forms in pausa, and thus has twenty-two items in all.

A versified form of this list may be found in modern primers or textbooks: