Pronouns in Sanskrit are called sarvanāma (सर्वनाम, "name of all"), because they can stand for any noun. They behave somewhat differently from regular nouns: their declensions are irregular and they share a common set of endings that distinguish them from the noun paradigms.
Personal Pronouns
There are two genuinely personal pronouns: asmad (first person, "I/we") and yuṣmad (second person, "you"). Both lack gender and have separate forms for singular, dual, and plural.
Asmad (अस्मद्):
- Singular nominative: aham (अहम्, "I")
- Dual nominative: āvām (आवाम्, "we two")
- Plural nominative: vayam (वयम्, "we")
Yuṣmad (युष्मद्):
- Singular nominative: tvam (त्वम्, "you")
- Dual nominative: yuvām (युवाम्, "you two")
- Plural nominative: yūyam (यूयम्, "you all")
These pronouns also have enclitic short forms (mā, me, naḥ, tvā, te, vaḥ) used in casual or unemphatic position within a sentence.
There is no third-person pronoun proper; the demonstrative tad is used for "he, she, it, they."
Demonstratives
The chief demonstratives are:
- Tad (तद्) — "that"; the default third-person reference. Saḥ (सः, "he"), sā (सा, "she"), tad (तत्, "it") are its singular nominatives in the three genders.
- Etad (एतद्) — "this near at hand." Eṣaḥ, eṣā, etad.
- Idam (इदम्) — "this here." Ayam, iyam, idam.
- Adas (अदस्) — "that yonder, that distant one." Asau, asau, adaḥ.
Each demonstrative is declined for three genders, three numbers, and all the cases.
Interrogative and Relative
- Kim (किम्) — interrogative "who, what, which." Kaḥ, kā, kim.
- Yat (यत्) — relative "who, which." Yaḥ, yā, yat.
Sanskrit constructs relative clauses with a yat...tat pair: yo dharmaṃ rakṣati taṃ dharmaḥ rakṣati (यो धर्मं रक्षति तं धर्मः रक्षति, "whoever protects dharma, him dharma protects").
Other Sarvanamas
A larger set of words is treated as sarvanāma because they share the pronominal endings:
- Sarva (सर्व) — "all, every"
- Eka (एक) — "one, alone"
- Anya (अन्य) — "other"
- Ubha (उभ) — "both"
- Pūrva (पूर्व) — "former, eastern"
- Para (पर) — "other, further"
- Itara (इतर) — "other (of two)"
These words decline like sarva with sarvanāma endings rather than like ordinary adjectives.
The Pronominal Pattern
The pronoun endings differ from noun endings in a few characteristic ways:
- The masculine singular nominative often ends in -aḥ with a lengthened or distinctive vowel.
- The neuter singular nominative and accusative end in -t rather than -am.
- The masculine and neuter dative singular use -smai, the ablative -smāt, and the locative -smin.
- The feminine dative singular uses -syai, the ablative-genitive -syāḥ, and the locative -syām.
These distinctive endings make Sanskrit pronouns recognisable even out of context.
Use in Verse and Discourse
Because Sanskrit verbs already encode person and number, the personal pronouns are often dropped, used only for emphasis or contrast. The demonstratives, however, are everywhere — pointing out subjects, linking sentences, and structuring philosophical argument. In the Upaniṣads, the deceptively simple "tat tvam asi" (तत् त्वम् असि, "that thou art") shows how much weight three small pronouns can bear.
Pronouns may be small words, but they are the connective tissue of Sanskrit discourse.