India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s1.40

c10.s1.40

Pāṇini uses a number of terms to indicate the various methods employed in learning and education, *e.g.* extempore composition at the spur of the moment (*prakathana*, I.3.32); illuminating interpretation (*bhāsana*, I.3.47); true exposition of knowledge (root *vad* in the sense of *jñāna*, I.3.47, *samyag-avabodha*); presentation of divergent opinions (*vimati*, I.3.47, *vipralāpa*, I.3.50); enunciation of one's doctrines (*pratiśra-* *vaṇa*, VIII.2.99; or *pratijñāna*, e.g. *nityaṁ śabdaṁ saṁgirate*, 'he affirms that word is eternal', I.3.52); seeking after knowledge (*jijñāsate*, I.3.57). All these terms are indicative of *vāda* (debate) and *vivāda* (discussion) as a method of learning and approach to truth. This method of education is amply testified to in the Upanishads and also in Buddhist literature. Again, Pāṇini also refers to judges at the time of disputations (*madhye-kṛitya*, I.4.76), silencing of an opponent (*nivachane-kṛitya*, I.4.76) and restraining him by exposing his views (*nigṛihya anuyoga*, VIII.2.94), the words *nigraha* and *anuyoga* being regular terms of Nyāya dialectics. Forms of language to arrive at the truth by the process of reasoning (*vichāryamāṇānām*, VIII.2.97; *pramāṇena vastu-parīkshaṇam, Kāśikā*), and firmly establishing one's own position (*jñānam, prameya-niśchayaḥ*, I.3.36) are also referred to. The person who came out triumphant in the debate was the recipient of high honours (*sammānana*, I.3.36), and he was from that time regarded as the leading exponent of that subject or school. As an example the *Chāndravṛitti* mentions Pāṇini himself as leading in the science of grammar (*nayate Pāṇinir-vyākaraṇe*, I.4.82). Knowledge transmitted from teacher to pupil benefited by its expansion (*tāyana*, I.3.38) in the process. We know how the treatise of Pāṇini himself was enriched by his brilliant successors Kātyāyana and Patañjali. Sometimes it so happened that founders of schools became known not so much by their own works as by those of their pupils or followers shedding lustre on them. Pāṇini himself mentions the names of Kalāpin and Vaiśampāyana as teachers of this type whose discourses were so fruitful that they gave rise to different schools of thought, all within the domain of the subject-matter of those discourses (*Kalāpi-Vaiśampāyanāntevāsibhyaścha*, IV.3.104; Dr. R. K. Mookerji, *Ancient Hindu Education as Revealed in the Works of Pāṇini, Kātyāyana and Patañjali*).