While breaking down "sajjan" (a good person), Mayank thinks the vowel-sandhi rules from last year…
While breaking down "sajjan" (a good person), Mayank thinks the vowel-sandhi rules from last year will apply here too, and gets stuck because both joining parts seem to hinge on consonants. His sister says this is a different kind of sandhi. Who is on the right track?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: His sister is right, this is consonant sandhi — sat + jan = sajjan
Why
Mayank's confusion is reasonable — the vowel-sandhi rules were the first ones learned, so trying them first is a sensible instinct. But sandhi isn't limited to two vowels meeting; it also happens when two CONSONANTS meet, or a consonant meets a vowel, and this follows a completely different set of rules — व्यंजन संधि (vyanjan sandhi). 'सज्जन' splits as 'सत्' + 'जन', where the consonant 'त्' meets the consonant 'ज' at the join, and 'त्' changes to match 'ज', doubling it — giving 'ज्ज' — so 'सत्+जन' becomes 'सज्जन'. This is a genuinely different mechanism from vowels merging into a new vowel. Test it: 'उत्+नति' becomes 'उन्नति' the same way — a consonant ('त्') changing to match the next consonant ('न'), doubling it to 'न्न'. His sister is right: 'सज्जन' splits as 'सत्+जन' — this is व्यंजन संधि (consonant sandhi), governed by different rules from the vowel-merging sandhi learned earlier.
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