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A History of Sanskrit Literature c29.s1: 1. The Beginnings of Grammatical Study

A History of Sanskrit Literature c29.s1

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English

1. The Beginnings of Grammatical Study

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IN the Brāhmaṇas of the Vedic period we find sufficient proof¹ that, as in Greece, grammatical study in India began with consideration of such points as pronunciation and euphonic combination, and the discrimination of parts of speech which gives us terms such as *vibhakti*, case termination, *vacana*, number, *kurvant*, present tense. Possibly hence it derived its name Vyākaraṇa, though that is often deduced from the later practice of analysis of forms. We find already in Yāska the terms *nāman*, noun, *sarvanāmam*, pronoun, *ākhyāta*, verb, *upasarga*, preposition, *nipāta*, particle.² The next stage is not represented in the Brāhmaṇas, but is fully in being in Yāska’s time; it consists of the analysis of forms, as opposed to the reckless etymologies of the Brāhmaṇas and Plato; we do not know how this came to be arrived at, though it is a plausible conjecture which finds the motive in the fact that in compounds in Sanskrit the first word appears in its stem form without terminations. From this it was fairly easy to distinguish stem and termination in nouns, and then to advance to distinguish in verbs root, terminations and tense and other affixes, and to arrive at the doctrine of the derivation of nouns from nouns by Taddhita suffixes, of nouns from verbs by Kṛt suffixes. A further step was to declare as did Çākaṭāyana that all nouns are derived from verbs, to which Gārgya objected that if this was so, it followed that every thing should have as many names as it had activities, and every name should apply to everything which had the activity it connoted. But the supporters of Çākaṭāyana carried out their principle, and to this period goes back in substance, not in its present form, the *Uṇādisūtra*, containing words which are derived from verbs by unusual affixes, and which in some form Pāṇini evidently knew.

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¹ See Wackernagel, *Altind. Gramm.*, i, pp. lix ff.; Oldenberg, *Vorwissensch. Wissenschaft*, pp. 79 f., 238 ff.

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² See Lakshman Sarup, *The Nighaṇṭu and the Nirukta*, pp. 54 ff. Cf. Prabhat-chandra Chakrabarti, *Linguistic Speculations of the Hindus* (1924–5); S. Varma, JRAS. 1925, pp. 21 ff. (on analysis of meaning).

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This important period of studies was largely concerned with the preservation and interpretation of the Vedic texts; its work is seen in the preparation of the Padapāṭha of the *Ṛgveda* by Çākalya, who is known to Pāṇini, the similar work done on other Vedic texts, the Prātiçākhyas, which in their original form were probably older than Pāṇini, at any rate as far as concerns those on the *Ṛgveda*, *Taittirīya* and *Vājasaneyi Saṁhitās*,¹ and the Çikṣās, which as we have them are probably later than Pāṇini, but doubtless existed in his time, proving the care taken to secure due correctness of pronunciation of the scriptures. But the grammarians were clearly concerned also with the Bhāṣā, the spoken speech of the day, and it was in connexion with it, especially as it grew more distinct from the sacred texts on the one hand and the speeches of the lower classes on the other, that secular grammar grew up. Pāṇini knew and cites by name many predecessors, including Çākaṭāyana, Āpiçāli, and Çaunaka, as well as minor names, and his allusion to easterners and northerners, if it applies to forms of speech used in these parts, is also testimony to the existence of grammarians to note them, unless we are to assume² that he himself of the north lived in the east and noted the differences for himself, which is implausible in the extreme. What is clear from Pāṇini's own work is that he summarizes the efforts of many previous writers, from whom we may be sure he borrowed his form as well as many facts.

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¹ Cf. Liebich, *Einführung in die ind. einheim. Sprachwissenschaft*, ii. 35 ff., with Keith, HOS. xviii, pp. xxxix-xli, clxxi.

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² Franke, GGA. 1891, pp. 957, 975 ff.

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