India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c6.96

c6.96

The antiquity and the genuineness of the Pāṇinian tradition are factors which must weigh with us in assessing the value of whatever commentaries are now left to us. Every commentary should be viewed as a link and a very important link too, in the chain of Pāṇinian interpretation. Dr. Kielhorn examining the question of the earlier authorities quoted in the *Mahābhāshya* made the significant recognition that 'Kātyāyana was acquainted with the works of other scholars who, before him, had tried both to explain and to amend Pāṇini's grammar, and who had subjected the wording of the *Sūtras* to that critical examination, which is so striking a feature of Kātyāyana's own *Vārttikas*,' and also that 'between him and Patañjali there intervenes a large number of writers in prose and verse, individual scholars and schools of grammarians, who all have tried to explain and to amend the works of both Pāṇini and Kātyāyana.' (*Ind. Ant.*, XVI. p. 106). The treatises of pre-Kātyāyana *vārttika* writers and pre-Patañjali exponents of *vārttikas* typified by such names as the Bhāradvājīyas, Saunāgas, Kuṇaravāḍava, Kroshṭrīyas, or more faintly symbolised in references like *kechid*, *apare*, have become mere shadows. But those ancient masters passed on the fruits of their labours to Kātyāyana and Patañjali. As observed by Kielhorn: ‘To what extent Kātyāyana and Patañjali were indebted to those that went before them, we shall never know; judging from the analogy of the later grammatical literature of India we may, in my opinion, certainly assume, that, like Pāṇini himself, both have based their works on, and have preserved in them all that was valuable in the writings of their predecessors.’ (*Ind. Ant.*, XVI. p. 106). This statement from one of the most eminent authorities on Indian grammar in recent times brings out the characteristic feature of the evolution of Indian grammatical tradition from Pāṇini to Patañjali, and the same with equal soundness holds good for the period from Patañjali to the *Kāśikā*.