In the previous Units we studied the declension table of masculine a-ending noun ‘buddha’ and learnt the usage of various cases.

Please note that the usage of the cases remains the same across all the nouns, adjectives, numbers and declinable participles.

E.g. an ablative form of any noun will always indicate separation / origin / cause – ‘from’ – irrespective of the gender or termination of the noun. In other words, whether the noun is a-ending masculine, u-ending neuter, ī-ending feminine or any other adjective / participle, whenever we come across its ablative form, it will invariably indicate separation / origin / cause – ‘from’.

In the coming Units of our course, we will be learning various types of nouns along with their declension. In each case, we will just learn the declension table and translate some Pali sentences into English. We will apply the same rules that we have learnt so far for translating various cases of these new nouns.

Let us revise this usage of cases once again before learning new types of nouns.

• Nominative : subject of a sentence
• Accusative : object of a sentence or destination
• Instrumental : by, with, through someone / something
• Dative : beneficiary / recipient (indirect object)
• Ablative : separation, origin (place / cause)
• Genitive : relation / possession
• Locative : location or time
• Vocative : for addressing purpose