Dear all,
 
First, a very belated thank-you to those who replied both on- and off-list, and thanks especially to Nagaraj Paturi and Victor D'Avella for providing references to additional discussions by vaiyākaraṇas and for drawing my attention to the usages of "asti" recorded in the Vedic Concordance. By the way, I realized from Dr. D'Avella's off-list response that I had already made a mistake when I posed the question: Speijer §2 cites one example of what he takes to be a copular "asti," but the other example is of copular "asmi," which is of course acceptable by all accounts.

I may also note that even the one example of copular "asti" that Speijer cites from the Pañcatantra of Viṣṇuśarman seems to me to admit of a different interpretation, having read it in context. In the 1925 edition, p. 74 (I have not located the corresponding passage in Edgerton's critical edition, if there is one), the full sentence is "tad asmākaṃ svāmī Vainateyo [= Garuḍo] 'sti." I admit that the force of "tat" here (repeated at the beginning of the next sentence) is not completely clear to me, but it clearly has a connective function. In any case, when read in context, the sentence is introducing the idea that the birds have a "master" for the first time, and is not meant to answer a question like "yuṣmākaṃ svāmī kaḥ?" ("who is your master?"). So I would be inclined to read this instead as an example of the extremely common construction, "X(ṣaṣṭhī) + Y(prathamā) + verb of being," meaning "X has/have Y." Hence "asti" could be read (quite naturally, I think) as retaining its existential meaning here as well.

I am still far less qualified to speak on the Vedic idiom than I am on the Classical, but it seemed to me that "asti" tended to have a markedly "adessive" meaning in the passages that I briefly checked from the Concordance. The strongest candidate for a truly copular usage seemed to be in 5.39.1:

yád indra citra mehánā́sti tvā́dātam adrivaḥ ǀ
rā́dhas tán no vidadvasa ubhayāhasty ā́ bhara ǁ

Jamison and Brereton translate:

What is given by you in profusion, bright Indra, possessor of the stone,
that largesse bring here to us with both hands full, you finder of goods.

"mehanā" (which has here been translated as an adverb, "in profusion") is apparently a point of some dispute, but in any case, the collocation of "asti" with "-dātam ... naḥ" makes me feel that, even here, the "adessive" force of "asti" is not irrelevant. Perhaps one could try over-translating: "That bounty, O bright Indra, which is [here] for us, being given by you ... "?

Best wishes,
Jason


Quoting Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com>:

> Usages cited in the concordance include NP NP sentences with asti
> used as copula. 
>
>    On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 3:15 PM Nagaraj Paturi
> <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A Vedic Concordance 
>>
>> by Maurice Bloomfield
>>
>> https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.15782
>>
>> https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.15782/2015.15782.A-Vedic-Concordance-1906.pdf
>>
>>        On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 1:50 PM Nagaraj Paturi
>> <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Substitution of asti in a 'verbless' (equational , NP NP sentence)
>>> is based on the theoretical position that a sentence without a verb
>>> is not possible. 
>>>
>>> astitvenānuṣakto vā nivṛttyātmani vā sthitaḥ /
>>> artho 'bhidhīyate yasmād ato vākyaṃ prayujyate // BVaky_2.427 //
>>> KRIYāNUṣAṅGEṇA VINā NA PADāRTHAḥ PRATīYATE /
>>> SATYO Vā VIPARīTO Vā VYAVAHāRE NA SO 'STY ATAḥ // BVaky_2.428 //
>>> sad ity etat tu yad vākyaṃ tad abhūd asti neti vā /
>>> kriyābhidhānasaṃbandham antareṇa na gamyate // BVaky_2.429 //
>>>
>>>            On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 1:30 PM Nagaraj Paturi
>>> <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> asti in theory is discussed in the shaastra texts of
>>>> Vyaakarana Nyaaya and Meemaamsaa for different purposes. 
>>>>
>>>> In Vyakarana , Vakyapadiyam discusses asti as 'implied' (or
>>>> present in the 'deep structure' ) at several different occasions. 
>>>>
>>>> For example, it mentions it as implied when a single word works as
>>>> a sentence. 
>>>>
>>>> yac cāpy ekaṃ padaṃ dṛṣṭaṃ caritāstikriyaṃ kva cit /
>>>> tad vākyāntaram evāhur na tad anyena yujyate // BVaky_2.270 //
>>>>
>>>>                On Sat, May 4, 2024 at 11:17 PM
>>>> jason.cannon-silber--- via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> _Dear members of the Indology listserv,
>>>>>
>>>>> I have recently been wondering about the nature of the copula in
>>>>> Sanskrit grammar (both in theory and in practice), and
>>>>> specifically whether and how often the form /asti/ is used as a
>>>>> copula in Classical Sanskrit. I am sorry if this subject has been
>>>>> raised before on this list, but from my search of the archives it
>>>>> seems it has not been addressed directly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Any user of Sanskrit will know that there need be no word meaning
>>>>> "to be" (i.e., no copula) in a sentence expressing that "X is Y"
>>>>> (i.e., a nominal sentence). But from the exchange between Profs.
>>>>> Deshpande and Bronkhorst in the pages of /Annals BORI/, I gather
>>>>> that at least some /vaiyākaraṇa/s understood there to be a
>>>>> "silent," copulative /asti/ in such nominal sentences
>>>>> as /Devadattaḥ pācaka odanasya/ or even /Rāmo gataḥ/. (Whether
>>>>> Pāṇini himself was likely to have had such an understanding was
>>>>> there the /vivādāspada/.)
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand, I have been told by someone whose knowledge of
>>>>> Sanskrit usage I hold in high esteem that authors of classical
>>>>> Sanskrit almost never use /asti/ in this way, and that such usage
>>>>> might even be considered wrong. This same person has suggested to
>>>>> me that (part of) the reason for this may lie in the fact that
>>>>> technical terms derived from the form /asti/ (please bear in mind
>>>>> that I am speaking here only of the form /asti/, not of forms of
>>>>> the root /as-/ in other tenses, persons, or numbers), such as
>>>>> /āstika/ or /astitva/, are invariably connected with /asti/'s
>>>>> existential (or perhaps "adessive") meaning. I have noted that
>>>>> Speijer seems aware of no such avoidance, and gives a couple
>>>>> examples of what he understands to be copulative /asti/ from the
>>>>> story literature (/Sanskrit Syntax/ §§2-3).
>>>>>
>>>>> I would therefore like to know if there is any literature
>>>>> discussing this avoidance (or perhaps even proscription)
>>>>> of using /asti/ as copula. A pre-modern discussion would be
>>>>> especially interesting, but I would also appreciate further
>>>>> secondary resources, or even your own thoughts.
>>>>>
>>>>> With best wishes,
>>>>> Jason Cannon-Silber_
>>>>>
>>>>> ________________________________________________
>>>>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>>>>> INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
>>>>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology_
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>> _-- _
>>>>                                                                   
>>>>                                                                   
>>>>                           _Nagaraj Paturi_
>>>>                  _ _
>>>>                                      _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>>>
>>>>                  _Dean, IndicA_
>>>>                  _BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra_
>>>>                  _BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University,
>>>> Ramtek, Maharashtra_
>>>>                  _BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru._
>>>>                  _Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha
>>>> Samsthanam, Bengaluru_
>>>>                  _Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, _
>>>>                  _FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School
>>>> of  Liberal Education, _
>>>>                  _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>>>                  _ _
>>>>                  _ _
>>>>                  _ _
>>>
>>>      
>>> _-- _
>>>                                                                     
>>>                                                                     
>>> _Nagaraj Paturi_
>>>                _ _
>>>                                  _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>>
>>>                _Dean, IndicA_
>>>                _BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra_
>>>                _BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University,
>>> Ramtek, Maharashtra_
>>>                _BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru._
>>>                _Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha
>>> Samsthanam, Bengaluru_
>>>                _Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, _
>>>                _FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School
>>> of  Liberal Education, _
>>>                _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>>                _ _
>>>                _ _
>>>                _ _
>>
>>    
>> _-- _
>>                                                                     
>>                                            _Nagaraj Paturi_
>>              _ _
>>                              _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>
>>              _Dean, IndicA_
>>              _BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra_
>>              _BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek,
>> Maharashtra_
>>              _BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru._
>>              _Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha
>> Samsthanam, Bengaluru_
>>              _Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, _
>>              _FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School
>> of  Liberal Education, _
>>              _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>>              _ _
>>              _ _
>>              _ _
>
>  
> _-- _
>                                                                       
>                   _Nagaraj Paturi_
>            _ _
>                          _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>
>            _Dean, IndicA_
>            _BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra_
>            _BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek,
> Maharashtra_
>            _BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru._
>            _Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam,
> Bengaluru_
>            _Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, _
>            _FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School
> of  Liberal Education, _
>            _Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA._
>            _ _
>            _ _
>            _ _