India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s2.6

c10.s2.6

A writer on grammar is named *śabdakāra* (III.2.23), or *śābdika* (IV.4.34, *śabdaṁ karoti śābdiko vaiyākaraṇaḥ*). The literature of commentaries (*vyākhyāna*, IV.3.66) was also growing and was the work of learned men who were inspired to produce them by their mastery of the original works. The highest intellectual output of the age was, however, the work of master-minds and original thinkers like Āpiśali, Yāska, Śākaṭāyana and Pāṇini, who discovered and opened up new fields of knowledge. The literary efforts of these geniuses were aptly called *upajñā*, new knowledge promulgated, or *ādya āchīkhyāsā*, knowledge presented for the first time (*sūtras* II. 4.21, *Upajñopakramaṁ tadādyāchīkhyāsāyām*; IV.3.115; VI.2. 14). An indication of the great pains which these pioneers of learning took in order to enrich their subjects is given by Patañjali when he speaks of Pāṇini as *mahatā yatnena sūtraṁ praṇayati sma*, i.e. 'he planned and composed the *sūtras* with strenuous effort'. Pāṇini himself speaks of a perfect *sūtra* as *pratishṇāta*, 'immersed', i.e. emerging out of concentrated thought (VIII.3.90, *sūtraṁ pratishṇātam*). The simile appears to be taken from the maturity attained by one who had become a *snātaka*. He also refers to the linguistic forms expressive of the devotion of an author to his work (*bhāsana*, *jñāna*, *yatna*) expressed by the root *vad* in the Ātmanepada, as *vadate chārvī Lokayate*, 'the Chārvī teacher shows himself brilliant in the exposition of the Lokāyata doctrine.' I.3.47).