India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c4.4

c4.4

No scholar of Pāṇini can do without the invaluable help offered by the commentaries, and I must record my indebtedness to Patañjali's *Mahābhāshya* and the *Kāśikā-vṛitti* without which this work would not have been possible. Prof. Max Muller was the first to point out 'that Pāṇini's *sūtras* were evidently from the beginning accompanied by a definite interpretation, whether oral or written, and that a considerable proportion of the examples in the *Bhāshya* must have come from this source (Weber, *History of Indian Literature*, p. 225, f. n.). As an instance we may point out that Patañjali himself refers to a *Māthurī-vṛitti* which as stated by Purushottamadeva in his *Bhāshā-vṛitti* (I.2.57), was a commentary on the *Ashṭādhyāyī*, and was originally taught by oral instruction (*tena proktam, na cha tena kṛitam*, *Bhāshya*, IV.3.101; II.315) and later on compiled in the form of a book. The subsequent commentaries including the *Mahābhāshya* largely drew upon the older material. As Prof. Kielhorn has put it, 'We may, in my opinion certainly assume, that like Pāṇini himself, both Katyayana and Patañjali have based their own works on, and have preserved in them all that was valuable in the writings of their predecessors (*Ind. Ant.* XVI.106). Each case, however, has to be viewed on its own merits, and in the absence of more convincing proof the citations in the *Kāśikā* should not be pressed too far as evidence for Pāṇini's own time.