The word बिना can be used as an adverb meaning “without”.

It can be used with a participle to create an adverbial phrase. It is usually used with a perfect participle. The perfect participle assumes an invariable masculine singular oblique form. बिना may follow or precede the perfect participle.

Thus, this idiom has one of the following forms:

बिना [masculine singular oblique perfect participle]

[masculine singular oblique perfect participle] बिना

बिना + Perfect Participle

बिना is usually used with a perfect participle.

वे लड़के बिना बहस किए हुए एक साथ नहीं खेल पाते – “Those boys can’t manage to play together without arguing”

उसने बिना फाड़े हुए सावधानी से लिफाफे को खोला – “He opened the envelope carefully without tearing it”

This can be used with the participles of intransitive verbs too, such as होना:

यूनिकोड का इस्तेमाल करने से हम कोई भी भाषा में लिखा गया लेख बिना भ्रष्ट हुए भेज सकते हैं – “By using Unicode, we can send a document written in any language without it becoming corrupt”

बिना + Imperfective Participle

बिना can be used with an imperfective participle, although this use is somewhat limited, and it is less proper than the perfect participle. It cannot be used with every inflection of the main verb, for instance, with the present habitual in certain cases. Thus, it’s more general to use the perfect participle.

बिना समय बर्बाद करते हुए आदमियों ने काम करना शुरू किया  – “Without wasting any time, the men began to work”

Adjectival Use of बिना + Participle

बिना can be used with a participle as an adjective.

हमें बिना धोयी हुई सब्जियां नहीं खानी चाहिए – “We shouldn’t eat unwashed vegetables”

Using के

When the subject of the main verb and the subject of the participle are different, के is often used to explicitly differentiate them. The के is optional when the subject of the participle is inanimate.

राज के आये बिना हम बैठक कैसे शुरू कर सकते – “How can we start the meeting without Raj/Raj’s coming?”

बारिश (के) हुए बिना सब्जियां कैसे बढेंगी – “How will the vegetables grow without it raining”, i.e., “without the rain’s happening”.