Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t2.2

c12.s13.t2.2

The appellation Bhāshā which Pāṇini gives to his language and many of the rules laid down by him are not intelligible except as having reference to a spoken language. Such evidences of Sanskrit being a spoken tongue do not grow less in Kātyāyana or Patañjali, both of whom mention local and other variations and popular corruptions. That Kātyāyana was a southerner, that southerners delighted in using derivative forms (Taddhita) and that in the South, a big lake or saras was referred to as sarasi are statements of Patañjali showing the inclusion of the southern regions in the provenance of Sanskrit speech. The well-known dialogue in Patañjali (under Pāṇini II. 4. 56) between the grammarian and the charioteer, sūta, involving a grammatical subtlety bears out the fact that Sanskrit speech was not confined to either the academic circles or the learned classes of society. The use of Sanskrit in literature was so securely established that even Buddhism and Jainism which began with using the Prākṛits had to line up early with Sanskrit literary tradition.