India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s1.41

c10.s1.41

*CHARAṆA, THE VEDIC SCHOOL*—*Charaṇa* represents the type of educational institution in which one particular recension or *Śākhā* of the Veda was studied by a group of pupils called after the original founder and organized as a corporate body (*charaṇa-śabdaḥ śākhānimittikaḥ purushesbu vartate*, *Kāśikā*, II.4.3). The various branches of sacred literature were developed under the aegis of the *Charaṇa* organization, *viz.* the Chhandas text which was originally enounced by a *Ṛishi*, its Brāhmaṇa embodying the liturgical, religious, and philosophical doctrines developed in relation to *yajña*, and later on the Kalpa works dealing with systematised sacrificial ritual better known as Śrautasūtra. This elaboration of literary types had gone on in the *Charaṇas* prior to the time of Pāṇini (cf. *sūtras* IV.2.66; IV.3.105). In fact different Vedic *Śākhās* and *Brāhmaṇa* works were considered such an integral constituent of a *Charaṇa* that they were thought of only in terms of the students who studied them and who actually constituted the *Charaṇa*. The *Śākhās* no longer remained mere books, but developed into institutions comprising under their aegis such works as the *Brāhmaṇas*, *Āraṇyakas* and *Śrauta-sūtras*, etc. Pāṇini speaks of a still wider basis, *viz.* the development of a new type of literature represented in the *Dharmasūtras* (*Charaṇebhyo dharmavat*, IV.2.46; *Charaṇād-dharmāmnāyayoḥ*, *Vār.* on IV.3.126). This marked a further stage in the evolution of the *Charaṇa*, and also marked its final phase, because at the time as *Dharma* or Law was introduced in the curricula of a *Charaṇa* many especialised branches of learning were coming into existence independently of and outside the organisation of the Vedic schools. The *Nirukta* of Yāska and the grammar of Pāṇini are examples of this later development. It is not possible to trace their association with one particular Vedic school. In fact we owe to Patañjali the significant statement made with regard to the *Ashṭādhyāyī* that it was not attached to any particular Vedic school, but was claimed by all Vedic schools as their common study: