India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s1.6

c8.s1.6

Pāṇini uses the Vedic term Brahman (V.1.7) and also Brāhmaṇa for the caste (*Brāhmo' jātau*, VI.4.171). He seems to find a distinction between them taking the former in a cultural reference as shown in the derivative *brahmaṇya* (*Brahmaṇe hitam*) to indicate what appertains to the spiritual welfare of a Brāhmaṇa (*Brāhmaṇebhyo hitam*, *Bhāshya*, V.1.7; II.339), and reserving the term Brāhmaṇa for the caste based on birth (son of a Brahman). This point is also explained by Patañjali stating that ‘although the two terms Brahman and Brāhmaṇa are synonymous (*samān-ārthau etau . . . Brahman-śabdo Brāhmaṇa-śabdaścha*, II.339), yet the affix *yat* is added only to Brahman to have the form *brahmaṇya*.