India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s15.t1.22

c8.s15.t1.22

The names in this *sūtra* seem to refer to minor deities who were propitiated to grant the boon of a son, to be named after them. Most probably these were names of *Yakshas*. Viśāla is definitely a *yaksha* named in the assembly of Kubera (Sabhāparva, 10.16). Śevala, who gives *śeva* or treasure, also seems to be a *yaksha*. Śevalendra would then denote, Kubera (lord of Śevala), and a child born by propitiating him was called Śevalendradatta, or by the shortened names Śevalika, etc. Even Vedic gods were worshipped as *yakshas* in folk religion. According to the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta (*Dīghanikāya*, 32) Indra and Varuṇa are both *yakshas* like Maṇibhadra. Aryamā was closely related with child-birth and invoked for easy delivery (*Atharva*. I.11.1). A child would thus be named after him, but the use of the name is rare, only one instance being recorded at Bharhut as Ayama (Lüder's *List*, No. 813). Varuṇa was also the name of a *Lokapāla* and of a *Nāgarāja*. Its use is frequent in the *Kumbha Jātaka* (V.12). Kātyāyana's *vārttika* on this *sūtra* begins with Varuṇa, not Śevala. It shows that the *sūtra* formed part of an earlier grammar from which Pāṇini borrowed and recast it by adding three names of tutelary deities famous in his days *viz.* Śevala, Supari and Viśāla. But Kātyāyana retained for purpose of reference in his *vārttika* the original form of the *sūtra* as it began with Varuṇa.