कारकम्
Kāraka: the picture of a sentence
Every Sanskrit sentence has the action at its centre. The other words tell who does it, to what, with what, for whom, from where and where.
Rāma reads a book.
Tap any box in the diagram to see its role, case and question. Tap a word in the sentence above for its full details.
Six kārakas and two relations
Pāṇini counts six kārakas: agent, object, instrument, recipient, source and location. Relation (sixth case) and address do not attach to the action directly, so they are not kārakas.
- कर्ताWho does it?
- कर्मWhat? Whom? Where to?
- करणम्With what? By what means?
- सम्प्रदानम्To whom? For whom?
- अपादानम्From where? Away from what?
- अधिकरणम्Where? In what? When?
Kāraka is not the same as case
A kāraka is a meaning (a role); a case is a form (an ending). In an ordinary sentence the agent is in the first case, but in the passive the same agent appears in the third case:
रामः पुस्तकं पठति। (active)
रामेण पुस्तकं पठ्यते। (passive: the book is read by Rāma)
The passive gets its own lessons at a later level.