Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t2.1

c12.s13.t2.1

Though the nascent faiths of the Buddha and Mahāvīra had attempted to by-pass the Sanskrit language and contact the masses through the vernacular tongues, Sanskrit did not lose the position as a spoken language or the medium in which subjects of theoretical and practical value were cultivated by the Brahmanas in the several centres of learning. Among such centres Taxila in the north-west and the Mauryan capital Pāṭaliputra itself in the east were the most renowned. The Bṛhatkathā and the Buddhistic tradition make Pāṇini, connected with Śālātura in the north-west, a friend of a Magadhan Nanda, and bring Cāṇakya of the Taxila college to Pāṭaliputra in quest of a scholarly disputation ; and Brahmanical tradition recorded by Rājaśekhara speaks of a court of learning at Pāṭaliputra where Upavarsha and Varsha, Pāṇini and Piṅgala, Vyāḍi, Vararuchi and Patañjali attained fame by passing their tests in Śāstras.