The PPP

Introduction

This chapter is devoted to a topic that is almost as important and common as the compound. The subject is difficult to explain in grammatical terms. Fortunately, it is easy to understand intuitively:

• She will eat the frozen food.
• You could have been killed.

This sort of word is called the past passive participle in English. "Past passive participle" is a long term, and at this point in the guide it might not make sense. For the time being, then, let us just call this the PPP. The PPP is so common that nearly every verse in the Bhagavad Gita features at least one. It is the gītā of bhagavad-gītā, and it also gives us words like saṃskṛta and buddha. It is a common and powerful form, and it is a valuable one for us to know.

For that reason, this chapter is dedicated to the PPP. We will explore some related topics along the way. We will learn more of the Sanskrit verb prefixes, bringing our total to about 12. (If you forget a prefix or just want to look ahead, you can use the Prefixes list in the References section of the site.)