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India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s1: Section 1. Introductory

India as Known to Pāṇini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashṭādhyāyī c7.s1

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Section 1. Introductory

c7.s1.1

The most important contribution of the *Ashṭādhyāyī* to the history of ancient India is its geographical information. The country, its mountains and ocean, forests and rivers, natural and territorial divisions (*janapadas*), towns and villages receive their full share of attention in the linguistic material dealt with by Pāṇini. It is here that the grammarian can be credited with having created his material in a very real sense by undertaking an original survey of the place-names in the vast area of the country stretching from Kamboja (Pamir region) and Kāpiśī (Begrām in Afghanistan) to Kaliṅga (Orissa) and Sūramasa (Sūrmā Valley in Assam). The question may be asked as to the *raison d'etre* of the rich geographical information that a work proclaimed to deal with grammar contains.

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The answer to this may be understood in this way. Place-names form an integral part of language which it is the object of grammar to discuss and regulate. The analysis which Pāṇini has given of the underlying meanings which relate names of places to social life and background, shows conclusively that such names do not originate by mere accident, but are the outcome of social and historical conditions with which a people are intimately connected. These conditions are reflected in language in the geographical names. An etymological approach to the place-names of a country reveals to us many a forgotten chapter of history and settlement on land, and the contribution that Pāṇini makes in this respect through his grammatical expositions possesses abiding historical value. He has given a list of endings of place-names by which geographical places are classified. Most of the names of the geographical places originate, as he points out, from one or the other of the following factors:

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(1) 'this object is found in a particular place;'
(2) 'the place was founded (*nirvṛitta*) by such and such a person;
(3) 'the place was the abode (*nivāsa*) of such a person, or a community;' and
(4) 'the place is located in proximity (*adūrabhava*) to a known object.'

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It will thus appear that places are here distinguished for their founders, their economic products, their historical associations and their proximity to monuments. These four descriptions are termed *Chāturarthika*, 'suffixes with four-fold meaning'.

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Pāṇini also instances places which have lent their names to persons as the places of their own residence (*nivāsa*), such as *Māthura*, or of their ancestors (*abhijana*, IV.3.90), such as *Saindhava*, 'one whose ancestors lived in Sindhu'. Besides persons, commodities may also be associated with places as their origin, e.g., the wine (*phalaja-madhu*) known as *Kāpiśāyana* which was known after the place of its origin called Kāpiśī (IV.2.99). Animals also were called sometimes after the places of their origin, e.g., *Rāṅkava* or *Rāṅkavāyaṇa*, a bull bred in the Raṅku country (IV.2.100); or *Kāchchha*, a bull of Kachchha country (IV.2.134). There may also be other associations of names with places under the general rule stated in the *sūtras* IV.2.92145 (*Śaishika*), e.g., *Kāśika*, 'the cloth woven at Kāśī' (IV.2.116). An assemblage of meanings can be seen in *Kāchchhaka* which used to denote (a) an inhabitant of Kachchha, (b) the turban (*chūḍā*) peculiar to its poeple, (c) their mannerisms in speech (*jalpita*) and laughing (*hasita*). The term *Saindhava* is also cited under this rule with reference to the above peculiarities of its people.

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Another class of geographical names is that of regions or provinces (*vishaya*, IV.2.52-54), called after their peoples, e.g., *Śaiba*, the region of the Śibis; *Āprītaka*, the region of the Āprītas (=Afridis); *Mālavaka*, the region of the Mālava people. Similarly, *Rājanyaka* (of the Rājanya tribe), *Traigartaka* (Kangra), *Vāsātika* (of the *Vasātis* or the Ossadioi, Sibi in Baluchistan), *Vairāṭaka* (Bairāṭ in Jaipur), *Audumbaraka*, and so forth. The names according to *vishaya* seem to be based on the ethnic distribution of population over particular areas for the time being without reference to the form of government.

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Places were also named after the nature of their polity. Thus Pāṇini divides *janapadas* into two classes, firstly *janapadas* under monarchy (*Ekarāja*) enumerated in *sūtras* IV.1.168-176; and secondly *janapadas* as republics (*Saṅgha*), such as Vāhīka where flourished the Āyudhajīvī Saṅghas (Military Republics).

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The suffixes applied to these names point to the types of government (*Tadrāja*) associated with their names.

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This in short illustrates Pāṇini's scientific classification of place-names on the basis of the principles underlying their formation.

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Names of rivers, forests and mountains are noticed not in connection with any social or historical significance, but as examples of linguistic peculiarity, such as vowel-lengthening (VI.3.117-120) or cerebralisation (VIII.4.4-5).

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Kātyāyana and Patañjali following Pāṇini add more examples to his. For instance, under Sālvāvayava (IV.1.173) Patañjali mentions the names of the states belonging to the Sālva Janapada (*Bhāshya*, II.269); under *sūtra* IV.1.172 illustrating names of countries beginning with the letter *n*, Nichaka and Nīpa (II.269); and under the Rājanya *gaṇa*, Vasāti, Devayāta, Bailvavana, Ambarīshaputra and Ātmakāmeya, which probably go back to Pāṇini himself (IV.2.52; II.282).

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