India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s5.1

c12.s5.1

*JANAPADA AND JANAPADINS*—The country was divided into *Janapadas* demarcated from one another by boundaries (*Janapada-tadavadhyoścha*, IV.2.124). In Pāṇini *Janapada* stands for country, and *Janapadin* for its citizens. The derivative meaning of the term *Janapada* points to the early stage of land-taking by the *Jana* for a settled way of life. This process of the first settlement on land had completed its final stage prior to the time of Pāṇini. The *Janapadas* which were originally named after the peoples settled in them, dropped their tribal significance and figured as territorial units or regions. Pāṇini testifies to this process (*Sūtrakāṇḍa*, I.2.51-57) by stating that the names of the *Janapadas* did not take after their original settlers, but were then current as independent proper names for territorial units. He even goes to the extent of arguing that if the derivative meaning of such geographical names as Pañchāla was insisted upon, there might be cases in which with the disappearance of the derivative cause, the name of the country itself formed on that basis should disappear (*Lub-yogāprakhyānāt*, I.2.54; *Yoga-pramāṇe cha tadabhāve' darśanaṁ syāt*, I.2.55). This appears to be only a rational attempt to meet the views of extreme etymologists; it does not mean that in Pāṇini's time the essential relationship between the *Janapadas* and the *Janapadin* rulers had in any way weakened. We find that Pāṇini later on makes that relationship a real basis for his *sūtras*. For example, the *sūtra*, *Janapade lup* (IV.2.81) alludes to the name of a *Janapada* derived from its inhabitants but without any extra affix. Moreover, we find from Pāṇini's own statement that in the majority of the ancient *Janapadas* their original Kshatriya settlers still held sway and the political power was concentrated in their hands.