India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.27

c13.27

The numerous *Āyudhajīvī Saṅghas* in the Panjab and North-West India point to political conditions as existed before the rise of Mauryan Imperialism. Pāṇini treats of the development of *Saṅgha* polity as if it were at its zenith. Gradually *Saṅghas* began to decline and the march of the Greeks through their land completely exposed their political weakness. This made the *Saṅghas* unpopular and created a movement for their unification of which indications are found in Kauṭilya's *Arthaśāstra*. Pāṇini lived in the peak period of the *Saṅghas*, and an interval of about a century should be allowed for their decline against the rise of a centralised monarchy or empire. This would assign a date to Pāṇini a hundred years before the rise of Mauryan imperialism.