India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s1.42

c12.s1.42

The message delivered orally by a *dūta* was called *vāchika* (*Vācho vyāhṛitārthāyām*, V.4.35), and the action taken on it *kārmaṇa* (*Tad-yuktāt karmaṇo'ñ*, V.4.36; *vāchikaṁ śrutvā tathaiva yat-karma kriyate, Kāśikā*). Pāṇini refers to an officer called *kartṛi-kara* (III.2.21), an obscure word unrecorded in literature, but in Pali *kattā* denoted the king’s agent or messenger (Stede, Pali Dict., *Jāt.*, VI.259, etc.), whence the person who selected or appointed him must have been so called. ĀKRANDA—Pāṇini mentions special couriers called *ākrandika* (IV.4.38), deputed to an *ākranda* (*ākrandam dhāvati*). The *Kāśikā* takes it as a place of moaning or suffering (*ārtāyana*) which does not make sense. Kauṭilya defines *ākranda* as a friendly king in the rear of the *vijigīshu* (*Arth.* II.62, p. 31.) Kullūka on *Manu* VII.207 explains the word clearly saying that a hostile king in the rear was called *pārshṇigrāha* and a friendly king in the rear who would act as a countercheck to the enemy at the back was known as *ākranda* (*Śānti*, 69.19). Thus a messenger deputed to an *ākranda* king was called *ākrandika*.