India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c7.s5.31

c7.s5.31

Chihaṇakantha, Maḍarakantha, Vaitulakantha, Paṭatkakantha, Vaiḍālikarṇakantha, Kukkuṭakantha, Chitkaṇakantha, the first one in *sūtra* VI.2.125 and the rest in *gaṇa*. The ending and the place-names seem to show that Pāṇini was drawing upon the linguistic material of the frontier country and its non-Aryan dialects. *Kanthā* was a Śaka word for a town as in the expression *kadhavara=kanthāvara* occuring in a Kharoshṭhī inscription: "Here belongs Sogdian expression *kanda-* "city", and Śaka *kantha* "city", earlier attested in *Markantha*" (Lüders, *JRAS.*, 1934, p. 516; also Sten Konow, *Corpus of Kharoshṭhī Inscriptions*, p. 43; *Śaka Studies*, pp. 42, 149, *kantha* "town" in feminine gender). H. W. Bailey also points out that the Persion word *kand*, Khotanese *kanthā*, Sogdian Buddhist Sanskrit *kndh*, Pashto *kandai*, Asica (the dialect of the Ṛishikas or Yue-chis) *kandā*, are all akin to Sanskrit *kanthā* (H. W. Bailey, Asica, *Transactions of the Philological Society*, 1945, pp. 22-23).