Vrddhi is a Sanskrit word meaning "growth" (cognate to English weird, Old Englishwyrd). In Panini's grammar, it is also a technical term for a group of long vowels. In Indo-European linguistics, it has become a term for the lengthened grade of the ablaut vowel gradation peculiar to the Indo-European languages. A vrddhi-derivation is a word that is derived by such lengthening, a type of formation very common in Sanskrit, but also attested in other languages.
Otherwise, the tie between inactive and active verbs clearly displayed by -ks- metathesized from -sk- would have been instantly blurred destroying the purpose for creating the suffix -ks- which was to give verbs a marking reversed from that given by the active marker suffix -sk-.
Note the one-time probable *ei-sk- 'to seek', that is, to go to perceive', a verb made active by the suffix -sk- versus a probable *ei'-ks- 'to ride' which became *ie-ks- with metathesis of active suffix -sk- to inactive suffix -ks; metathesis and vrddhi of the root *ei- to *ie-.
Circumflex pitch was assigned to new vrddhi vowels in affixes where many circum-flexes tended to arise from contractions of stem and affix, usually suffix vowels (Lithuanian nešėte 'you carried' where unstressed -i- indicates it once had circumflex pitch).
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