India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s3.20

c9.s3.20

Pāṇini's *śaṅkupatha* refers to even more difficult mountainous ascents which could be negotiated only by scaling the heights with the help of spikes or nails carefully driven into the hill-side. A Jātaka passage also refers to *saṁkupatha* (*vettāchāro saṁkupatha pi chinne*, Jat. III. 541). Pāṇini's *haṁsapatha* corresponds to *sakuṇapatha* of the *Mahāniddesa*. Kālidāsa also refers to *devapatha* (=*surapatha*), *ghanapatha* and *khagapatha* mentioned in the order of their relative heights (*Raghuvamśa*, XIII. 19). *Dēvapatha* originally was a track in the sky, but in the *sūtra* under reference Pāṇini refers to *devapatha* as a technical term denoting the highest passage on the top of the rampart of a city, which derived its name from its height compared to the *devapatha* in the sky. We are indebted to the *Arthaśāstra* for this technical meaning of *devapatha* implied in Pāṇini's *sūtra* (*Arthaśāstra*, II. 3). *UTTARAPATHA*—Pāṇini mentions *Uttarapatha* and the articles procured (*āhṛita*) along that route as *auttarapathika* (*Uttarapathen-āhṛitaṁ cha*, V. 1. 77), the latter also denoted the travellers on it (*Uttarapathena gachchhati*). The *Uttarapatha* may be identified with the ancient highway from east India to Gandhāra and thence towards farther west. The entire Grand Trunk Road within India and as far as the Oxus, was well known to the Greeks as 'Northern Route', a literal rendering of *Uttarapatha*.