India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.89

c6.89

An intensive study of the *Kāśikā*, reveals its immense indebtedness to the *Mahābhāshya*. In the first verse the author explicitly states his dependence on the *Bhāshya* and also on an earlier commentary which unfortunately is left unnamed (*Vṛittau Bhāshye*). Even the perusal of a few *sūtras* will show how completely the *Kāśikā* relied on Patañjali for its material and the stock of its examples. The numerous illustrations in the *Bhāshya* on IV.3.42 are bodily taken by the author of the *Kāśikā*, who did his work intelligently and not as a mere copyist of the older material. In discussing the meaning of Prāchya-Bharata (II.4.66) the *Kāśikā* replaces *Auddālakāyana* of Patañjali by *Ārjunāyana*, the name of a tribe nearer to its own time. (*cf.* reference to Ārjunayāna in the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta).