825. All these varieties are bound together and made into a single complex system by certain correspondences of form and meaning. Thus, in regard to form, they are all alike, in the indicative, augment-preterits to which there does not exist any corresponding present; in regard to meaning, although in the later or classical language they are simply preterits, exchangeable with imperfects and perfects, they all alike have in the older language the general value of a completed past or "perfect", translatable by have done and the like.
826. The aorist-system is a formation of infrequent occurrence in much of the classical Sanskrit (its forms are found, for example, only twenty-one times in the Nala, eight in the Hitopadeça, seven in Manu, six each in the Bhagavad-Gītā and Çakuntalā, and sixty-six times, from fourteen roots, in the first book, of about 2600 lines, of the Rāmāyaṇa: compare 927 b), and it possesses no participle, nor any modes (excepting in the prohibitive use of its augmentless forms: see 579; and the so-called precative: see 921 ff.); in the older language, on the other hand, it is quite common, and has the whole variety of modes belonging to the present, and sometimes participles. Its description, accordingly, must be given mainly as that of a part of the older language, with due notice of its restriction in later use.
827. a. In the RV., nearly half the roots occurring show aorist forms, of one or another class; in the AV., rather less than one third; and in the other texts of the older language comparatively few aorists occur which are not found in these two.
b. More than fifty roots, in RV. and AV. together, make aorist forms of more than one class (not taking into account the reduplicated or "causative" aorist); but no law appears to underlie this variety; of any relation such as is taught by the grammarians, between active of one class and middle of another as correlative, there is no trace discoverable.
c. Examples are: of classes 1 and 4, adhām and dhāsus from √dhā, ayuji and ayukṣata from √yuj; — of 1 and 5, agrabham and agrabhīṣma from √grabh, mṛṣṭhās and marṣiṣṭhās from √mṛṣ; — of 1 and 2, ārta and arāt from √ṛ; — of 2 and 4, avidam and avitsi from √vid find, anijam and anāikṣīt from √nij; — of 2 and 5, sanéma and asāniṣam from √san; of 2 and 7, aruham and arukṣat from √ruh; — of 4 and 5, amatsus and amādiṣus from √mad; — of 4 and 6, hāsmahi and hāsiṣus from √hā; — of 1 and 2 and 4, atnata and atanat and atān from √tan; — of 1 and 4 and 5, abudhran and ábhutsi and bódhiṣat from √budh, ástar and stṛṣīya and
