India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.44

c6.44

The Pāṇinian tradition was still current even after the lapse of about eight centuries after Patañjali. Yuan Chwang faithfully repeats the much older tradition contained in the *Mahābhāshya* with regard to the spread of Vedic learning in all its offshoots and branches, the origin of grammar, the growth of the Aindra system, chaos produced by different grammatical schools, and finally the emergence at this crisis of Pāṇini with his new grammar, his eminent qualities and method. (1) *ORIGIN OF ANCIENT LETTERS*—Yuan Chwang's account of the primeval beginning of knowledge is in the nature of introductory remarks. This accords with the tradition almost universal in India regarding the divine origin of different *śāstras* and the divine guidance received in the propagation of knowledge. Patañjali also transposes the scene to the divine world when he refers to the period of a thousand years of gods (*divya-varsha-sahasra*) during which time Bṛihaspati expounded the subject of letters (*śabda-pārāyaṇaṁ provācha*) to his divine pupil Indra (*Bhāshya*, I.5.).