India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s3.t1.124

c10.s3.t1.124

Thus, instead of tying himself down to the treatment of age-old topics, such as accentuation, cerebralization, vocalization, letter-coalescence, formation of compounds and declension of nouns and verbs, Pāṇini extended the scope of his investigation to include all kinds of words taken from the different departments of language and current usage. The result of this approach is visible in Pāṇini's exhaustive treatment of the *Kṛidanta* and *Taddhita* suffixes. He investigated in great detail the manifold *vṛittis* or meanings expressed by words through suffixes. Yāska informs us that the subtle distinctions of meanings of words are not always free from doubt (*viśaya-* *vatyo hi vṛittayo bhavanti*, Nir. II.1). In his linguistic laboratory, as it were, Pāṇini collected and classified all possible meanings in which words were used, and grouped them under suitable headings as *hita*, *saṁpādi*, *arha*, *alamartha* (VI.2.155), *kṛita*, *rakta*, *vikāra* (VI.3.39), *aṅka*, *saṅgha*, *lakshaṇa*, *dharma*, and several hundreds of others. The activities of all grades of persons in society, such as a musician, hunter, shoe-maker, cook, salesman, trader, ferryman, author, mendicant, devotee, farmer, cowherd, prince, councillor, *etc.*, were analysed and taken note of grammatically. He thus viewed *Loka* in all its comprehensiveness as the primary source of material for a living grammar. This attitude towards the reality of life resulted in the secularization of knowledge and is patent in the *Ashṭādhyāyī* which for the most part served the *Bhāshā* or the spoken language of Pāṇini's time and was not tied to the chariot-wheels of Vedic schools. Kātyāyana and Patañjali also frequently appeal to current usage as the final authority (*Loka-vijñānāt siddham*, I.1.21; I.77; I.1.65; I.171).