India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s1.18

c10.s1.18

For example, Śākaṭāyana and Āpiśali were two great Āchāryas who lived before Pāṇini. They were the founders of different grammatical systems named after them, e.g. *Āpiśala*, the work of Āpiśali, whose students also were called Āpiśalas. Although the mode of indicating the students of such secular works, was grammatically identical with that for the students of Chhandas works, the fact is that such names as Śākaṭāyanīya and Pāṇinīya, as applied to a student, indicated his allegiance to one particular study, rather than to a broad literature such as that of a Vedic school. From the point of view of educational organisation the *Charaṇas* were the larger schools promoting the study of the entire Vedic literature and based on a fellowship of teachers and pupils, as distinguished from the more restricted grammatical schools confined to the study of a particular treatise or branch of learning and functioning independently of the *Charaṇas*.