India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c9.s5.3

c9.s5.3

*Parimāṇa* has a two-fold sense in the *Ashṭādhyāyī*. In its technical (*rūḍha*) sense it excludes *saṁkhyā* or number as in *sūtra* V. 1. 19 where both words are used together; and in a more general sense it includes even *saṁkhyā*, as in *sūtras* III. 3. 20 and IV. 3. 156 (where the *Kāśikā* specially notes the comprehensive meaning of *parimāṇa*). *Parimāṇa* thus denoted weights and measures from which the numerals as also measures of time were excluded, as stated by Patañjali on the authority of an old *vārttika* (*jñāpakaṁ tu kāla-parimāṇānāṁ parimāṇāgrahaṇasya*, III. 321; VII. 3. 15). The lineal measures whenever they are mentioned are strictly distinguished as *pramāṇa*.