India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s1.56

c10.s1.56

(8) *Intellectual Ideal*—The *Charaṇas* were the custodians of the cultural traditions created by generations of their students and teachers. These traditions were recorded in their literature built up through the ages. We have seen how Pāṇini is acquainted with the various types of literature as the output of the *Charaṇas*, *viz.* (1) the Vedic Śākhā texts, (2) Brāhmaṇa works, (3) Kalpa works, (4) the Dharma-sūtras (*Charaṇebhyo dharmavat*, IV.2.46). With the development of the *Dharma-sūtra* or legal literature there set in a process of gradual separation between the secular and scientific studies on the one hand and religious and ritualistic on the other. The *Ashṭādhyāyī* itself is an example of this process at work, which introduced new subjects of study besides those traditionally comprised within the *Charaṇas*. For instance, the *parishads* of the Vedic *Charaṇas* themselves took the lead in promoting such studies, as phonetics, linguistics, grammar, and the like, which later on became independent of Vedic studies and were cultivated in their own schools. The *Pārshada* work of each Vedic school concerned itself with linguistic and grammatical questions which gave scope to the rapid growth of these studies. It is to be remembered that whereas an individual *Charaṇa* specialised in its own text or *Śākhā* of the Veda, and developed its related Brāhmaṇa and Sūtra, the different *Charanas* of the same Veda possessed in common their *Pārishada* work or *Prātiśākhya*, conceived as belonging to all the offshoots or branches (*śākhās*) of the same Vedic tree (*Śākhādibhyo yaḥ*, V.3.103; *Śākheva śākhyaḥ*).¹