[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953) › c13.7 # India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c13.7 India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī c13.7 - **Language:** English ### [c13.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13.7) \*PĀṆINI AND BUDDHISM\*—The fact that Maṅkhali Gosāla was a contemporary of the Buddha and also known to Pāṇini helps us to understand some of the \*sūtras\* dealing with a few terms which have greater association with Buddhism, \*e.g.\* \*Nirvāṇa\* (VIII.2.50); \*Kumārī Śramaṇā\* (maiden nuns, II.1.70); \*chīvarayate\* in the sense of 'donning the monk's robe' as explained by the \*Kāśikā\* (\*saṁchīvarayate bhikshuḥ\*, III.1.20), and the religious \*Saṅgha\* called \*Nikāya\* which did not know the distinction of upper and lower (\*anuttarādharya\*). Such a \*Saṅgha\* was a typical Buddhist institution. It had been the custom among the primitive religious wanderers to be organised under a head who was called master (\*Satthā\*). But the Buddhist sect after his decease developed on different lines, which was looked upon by contemporaries as somewhat strange. The headship was abolished, all members of the \*Saṅgha\* were on a footing of equality. The principle of obedience to a Master was watered down to respect and reverence for elders and politeness for equals. For the discharge of the functions of its collective life, the whole body of monks constituted a perfectly democratic community. This is exactly the nature of the new religious \*Saṅgha\* envisaged in the significant Paninian term \*anauttarādharya\*, III.3.42). The political \*Saṅgha\* called \*Gaṇa\*, although professing to be democratic, worked on a different model in which some were \*rājānaḥ\* and the others commoners. These institutions mark out a date for Pāṇini after the Buddha. - [Previous: c13.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13.6) - [Next: c13.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13.8) - [Up: c13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13) ## Cites (1) - [Aṣṭādhyāyī](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.vyakarana.astadhyayi-school.astadhyayi.8.2.50) — Pāṇini, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.agrawala-1953.c13.7) · Pramāṇa