242 § 322. 322. Of the tenses, which constitute the indicative mood, the present is represented by one, the future by two, the past by four (aorist, imperfect, perfect, participles). Of the two futures, that in is the general expo- nent of the future. Likewise the aorist and the participles are the general exponents of the past. The other past tenses and the other future have but a limited sphere of employ- ment. We may remark that those limits are quite different from what one would expect judging from the names, by which Sanskrit tenses have been termed by European scholars. Sanskrit imperfect and perfect have nothing in common with their cognominal tenses in Latin or French or Greek, and the difference f. i. between the employ- ment of Skr. fenfer and aff can in no way be compared with that which exists between Lat. scripturus sum and scribam. Rem. Sanskrit makes no distinction between absolute and re- lative tenses. Hence, if one wants to denote what was about to be done in the past ¹), one employs the same tense which is ex- pressive of what is about to be done now, viz. the future. Simi- larly, the same past tenses, which signify that which is accom- plished now, may serve also for the expression of the action, which will be accomplished at some future point of time. Nàgàn. III, p. 55 format Teugui fienas l afdowd ga, here the past tense : has the value of the so-called futurum exac- tum of Latin, ego advenero. For this reason too, the present does also duty for the dura- tive of the past (327) and the past tenses are also significative of the remote past (339). but do not bear a common appellation. The Kâtantra names them far, by the same term which is used for the cases" of the nouns. See Kat. 3,1, 11-34 with commentary. 1) This was at the ontset the duty of the so-called conditional, but in classic Sanskrit this employment having fallen out of use, it is the future that is to express scripturus eram as well as scripturus sum. Cp. 347 R. 7
