India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s14.10

c8.s14.10

*AKĀLAKA VYĀKARAṆA*—Pāṇini's system of grammar became known to the ancients as a grammar without 'time' (*akālaka*). The *Kāśikā* repeats thrice the statement that Pāṇini was the promulgator of a grammatical treatise from which he excluded the discussion of the precise denotation of the various time-divisions (*Kāśikā*, II.4.21; IV.3.115; VI.2.14; also *Chāndravṛitti*, II.2.68, *Pāṇiny-upajñam akālakaṁ vyākaraṇam*). 'How much is the duration of the day, when does present (*vartamāna*) end and future (*bhavishya*) begin, what is *adyatana*, and how much interval of time makes *paroksha*, etc.?'—these are questions considered by Pāṇini as not coming within the province of grammar, but to be decided with reference to current usage (I.2.57, *Kālopasarjane cha tulyam*). *Patañjali* tells us that other teachers had entered into hair-splitting discussions about these matters (*Bhāshya*, III.2.123; II.123).