Help with a sentence?

[DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA]

At 12:22 AM 1/4/98 +0100, you wrote:
>Aplogies for the following elementary question. The Sanskrit
>list if of course the place for such queries, and I have asked
>the question there, but received no answer. Maybe my question
>was swamped by the noise of more interesting debates.
>--------------------------------------------------------------
>In a textbook I found the sentence:
>``kah khalu pati-patnyoor madhyee yad vrttam tat sarvam jaanaati?
>svasya maataa-pitroor api sarvam caritram jJaatum na zakyam''
>and I don't know what to make of ``svasya''. I wanna translate
>``who indeed knows all that which went on between husband and
>wife? the whole life of one's father and mother even it is
>impossible to know''... but for that I should have expected
>``svayoor maataa-pitroor api''. Can you help? Thanks. And Happy
>New Year to all.
>
>

What I understand from a Professor of sanskrit is that sva has two meanings
(applicable in this context) - one pronoun and another adjective (MMW  also
says so).

sva - oneself (pronoun)
sva - one's own (adjective)

In the case sva being used as a pronoun "svasya maataa-pitrooh" is correct.
If you use sva as adjective you should use "svayooh maataa-pitrooh".

Please do not thank me. I got it from Dr.P.Sriramachandrudu, Retired Professor
of Sanskrit,Osmania University, Hyderabad.

regards,

sarma.