India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.12

c6.12

The genius of Pāṇini appeared at a critical point in the history of Sanskrit to solve the crisis confronting it. The days of Vedic Sanskrit had come to an end by the time of Yāska, and fresh forms were coming into use. A new regulating and authoritative grammar was needed for bridging the gulf between the Vedic language and the rising popular speech or the classical Sanskrit which had come to stay. It was Pāṇini's mastermind that saved the situation by devising a system which treated of the Vedic language on the one hand and the classical Sanskrit on the other with requisite synthesis and proper shifting of emphasis. Pāṇini’s concentrated contemplation and penance accomplished a supreme task under the grace of God, to which tradition so amply testifies.