India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c4.5

c4.5

The aphorisms of Pāṇini are rich in historical and cultural material. It has been my effort here, firstly to evolve a classified presentation of the same, and secondly to broaden the scope of its interpretation by focussing on it as much light as was possible from comparative sources, utilising for the purpose the great traditional commentaries on Pāṇini's *Sūtras*, like the *Vārttikas*, the *Mahābhāshya*, the *Kāśikā* as supplemented by the more important subsequent explanations, and secondly early Indian literature both Vedic and classical. In the course of my readings during the last twenty years, with mind constantly switched on to Pāṇini, I found light from many a source—Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit, Brahmanical, Buddhist and Jain; and thus the work of understanding the true import of the cultural institutions in Pāṇini of which each word dealt with by him is a pointer gradually advanced. Words like *Jaya*, *Ashāḍakshīṇa*, *Rāja-pratyenas*, *Ārya-Brāhmaṇa*, *Ākranda*, *Grāmaṇī*, *Parishad*, *Chhandasya*, *Kāra*, *Haraṇa*—to name only a few out of hundreds—will bear testimony to the success of this method. Thus it has been possible to throw fresh light on a number of Pāṇini's *sūtras* by which their significance has been increased.