India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s6.5

c8.s6.5

It means that the word *bhojya* is irregularly derived in the sense of *bhakshya*. To this Kātyāyana raises an objection that *bhakshya* is not to be taken as a synonym of *bhojya*, since *bhojya* includes all articles of diet, both solid and liquid, while *bhakshya* denotes only solid food. Kātyāyana suggests that the proper word to express the sense of *bhojya* is *abhyavahārya*, 'worthy of being taken in.' Patañjali disagrees with Kātyāyana and defends Pāṇini by saying that in such older examples as *ab-bhaksha* and *vāyu-bhaksha* (one who takes in water or air) even non-solid substances occur as the object of *bhakshaṇa*, and hence Pāṇini's idiom in equating *bhojya* with *bhakshya* is unobjectionable. All subsequent commentators have accepted Patañjali's liberal interpretation of *bhakshya* in this *sūtra*, viz. that it stands both for solid (*khara-viśada*) and liquid (*drava*) foods (cf. *Kāśikā*, *Iha bhakshyam-abhyavahāramātram*). Dr. Goldstücker, however, raised his voice of dissent against Patañjali and maintained that 'in Pāṇini's time, which preceded the classical epoch, *bhakshya* must have been used as a convertible term for *bhojya*; while at Kātyāyana's period, this rendering became incorrect, and the *sūtra* needed correction' (*Pāṇini and his Place in Sanskrit Lit.* p. 97). Dr. Goldstücker's statement, however, does not hold good even for the whole of the *Ashṭādhyāyī*, since in Pāṇini's own *sūtra* II.1.35 (*Bhakshyeṇa miśrīkaraṇam*) as read with IV.2.16, (*Saṁskṛitaṁ bhakshāḥ*) *bhakshya* denotes solid food only and not liquids, as is evident from the illustration in the *Bhāshya*, i.e. *guḍena saṁsṛishṭā guḍa-saṁsṛishṭā, guḍa-saṁsṛishṭā dhānā guḍadhānāḥ* (I.387), which is accepted by all subsequent commentators. (Cf. *Kāśikā*, IV.1.16; *Khara-viśadam abhyavahāryaṁ bhaksham ity uchyate*; also II.1.35). Here *bhakshya* cannot be said to be strictly synonymous with *bhojya*, if, as rightly argued, *bhojya* included both liquid and solid diets. The correct view, we submit, is that *bhakshya* has a two-fold sense in the *Ashṭādhyāyī*, a more general sense in *sūtra* VII.3. 69 and a restricted one elsewhere. As for the contention of Dr.