India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c10.s3.t1.56

c10.s3.t1.56

Pāṇini uses *Pada-vyākhyāna* for a text explanatory of the Pada-pāṭha, and its derivative *Pāda-vyākhyāna* denoted a commentary on such a text (*Ṛigayanādi-gaṇa*, IV.3.73). Such a commentary was intended to explain every word of the Vedic text, similar to the style of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* explaining the first eighteen Books of the *Yajurveda*. These commentaries were also known as *Anupada* works, of which a student was called *anupadika* (IV.3.60). Śaunaka mentions the *Anupada* work of the *Yajurveda*, which Mahīdāsa defines as the work which explained the text word for word (*Anupade anyat-padam kartavyam*). One of the Sāma *sūtras* is *Anupada-sūtra* in ten *prapāṭhakas*, which explains the obscure passages of the *Pañchaviṁśa Brāhmaṇa* and of the *Shaḍviṁśa Brāhmaṇa*, step by step (Weber, *H.I.L.*, p. 80).