कारके

Any thing that helps towards the accomplishment of an action is a karaka. Thus in 'cooking,' the fire, the furnace, the vessel, the cook are all helpers in the accomplishment of the action. Thus 'Rama cooks food in a vessel, by the fire from the furnace for his master.' Here Rama is agent karaka; 'food' is object karaka; 'vessel' is a locative karaka, fire is an instrumental karaka, 'furnace' is the ablative karaka and 'master' is the dative karaka.

The word 'karaka' thus is synonymous with the word cause (hetu) and occasion (nimitta). All the various causes and the occasions that are required to complete an action will be karakas. Out of the seven cases in which a sanskrit noun is declined, six represent such relation with an action. The Genitive or the sixth case can never be directly related with an action, and thus can never stand in the relation of a karaka to a verb.,