India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c14.17

c14.17

The printed editions of the *Gaṇa-pāṭha* led to the statement (*ante*, p. 74) that the two *gaṇas*, *Saṅkalādi* (IV.2.75), *Arihaṇādi*, *etc.*, (IV.2.80) alone give about 500 names. The correct figure in the collated text of these two *sūtras* is only 260. However, the grand figure of 500 recorded by the Greek geographers of Alexander's campaign now finds solid support from the *Ashṭādhyāyī* presenting us with an exhaustive list of the important towns and villages of north-west India. The agreement between these two figures shows the perfection of Pāṇini's method in surveying his linguistic data. The great teacher, in the words of Yuan Chwang, wandered about asking for knowledge and collected a multitude of words. During the course of his fact-finding mission he seems to have omitted nothing of value, and also evolved a simple and clear scheme of classification by which this vast and complex material of geographical names was reduced to order and made an integral part of his grammar.