A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s1.36

c19.s1.36

In grammar, Sarvavarman, a reputed contemporary of Gunādhya in the Sātavāhana court, wrote the *Kātantra sūtras*, a simplified system of grammar, for the benefit of his patron and thus began the *Kātantra* school which flourished subsequently more in Bengal than anywhere else. Another system that arose in the South was that of Sākatāyana, of the reign of the Rāshtrakūta Amogavarsha I (A.D. 817-77); he wrote the *Sabdānuśāsana* in four chapters as also a commentary on it called *Amoghavritti* after his patron, besides the ancillary treatises needed to complete his new system. The earliest South Indian writer on the system of Pānini was Haradatta (ninth century) whose commentary *Padamañjarī* on the *Kāśikā* of Vāmana and Jayāditya is a work of outstanding merit and authority. In the thirteenth century a certain Krishnalilāśuka wrote a commentary called *Purushakāra* on the *Daiva* of Deva, a terse metrical treatise in 200 verses on roots of similar form. The commentary described itself as a *vārttika* and deservedly enjoys a high place among grammatical works. The *Mādhavīyadhātuvritti* of Mādhava, the great commentator on the Vedas, is a commentary on the *Dhātupātha* (list of roots) of Pānini which, by the way, suggests the derivation of quite a large number of words whose origin is not given in any other work. The *Siddhānta Kaumudī* of Bhaṭṭoji Dikshita, a younger contemporary of Appaya Dikshita, is today the most popular manual of Sanskrit grammar.