India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s5.13

c12.s5.13

EXECUTIVE—In *sūtra* V.1.58, Pāṇini refers to the numerical strength of a *Saṁgha* which Patañjali explains as consisting of five, ten, or twenty members (*pañchakaḥ*, *daśakaḥ*, *viṁśakaḥ saṁghaḥ*, V.1.58 and 59). In *sūtra* V.1.60, he speaks of a *varga* comprising five members called *pañchad-varga* or *pañchaka-varga*, and of another *varga* comprising ten members and named *daśad-varga* or *daśaka-varga* (*Pañchad-daśatau varge vā*). This seems to refer to the Executive of a *Saṅgha*. In the *Antagaḍadasāo*, recounting the subjects ruled by Kṛishṇa Vāsudeva at Dvārāvatī, reference is made to the ten principal Dāśārhas headed by Samudravijaya (*Samuddavijaya-pāmokhāṇaṁ dasaṇhaṁ Dasārāṇaṁ*), and to five Mahāvīras with Baladeva as their leader (P. L. Vaidya’s edition of *Antagaḍadasāo*, p. 4). The Dāśārhas were a clan forming part of the Andhaka-Vṛishṇi *Saṅgha*; a reference to ten of them with a Leader implies an Executive Body corresponding to the *Daśaka Saṅgha* of Patañjali on Pāṇini’s rule. Similarly the reference to Baladeva and his four deputies constituting the Pañcha-Mahāvīras corresponds to the Inner Group called *Pañchaka Saṅgha*. The *Mahāvagga* (IX.4.1) also speaks of five kinds of Saṅghas, namely, those which had a *Varga* of four, five, ten, twenty or more members.