India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.4

c6.4

*PĀṆINI'S GREATNESS*—Weber regards Pāṇini's grammar as "superior to all similar works of other countries, by the thoroughness with which it investigates the roots of the language and the formations of its words." (*History of Indian Literature*, p. 216). According to Goldstücker: "Pāṇini's work is indeed a kind of natural history of the Sanskrit language.” His grammar “is the centre of a vast and important branch of the ancient literature. No work has struck deeper roots than his in the soil of the scientific development of India.” Pāṇini's rules (*sūtras*) have been framed with the utmost conciseness and this dignified brevity is the result of very ingenious methods. His terminology adequately explaining all the phenomena of the language, demonstrates his great originality.