India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.23

c6.23

By his inner qualities of head and heart Pāṇini was able to appreciate the views of others in a spirit of detachment and with balanced judgment. He avoided extreme views and preferred the path of synthesis between conflicting theories. For example, it is well-known that the question whether a word denotes a whole class (*ākṛiti*) or only an individual (*vyakti*) was being debated amongst the grammarians at an early stage. Later on this became the subject of a sharp controversy between Vājapyāyana and Vyāḍi (*Bhāshya*, I.2.64; I.242,244), but Pāṇini seeing truth in either accepted both positions as explained by Patañjali.