Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c29.s2: 2. Pāṇini and his Followers

A History of Sanskrit Literature c29.s2

Language
English

2. Pāṇini and his Followers

c29.s2.1

The *Aṣṭādhyāyī*³ of Pāṇini consists of about 4,000 short Sūtras divided into eight books, treating of technical terms and rules of interpretation (i), nouns in composition and case relations (ii); the adding of suffixes to roots (iii) and to nouns (iv, v), accent and changes of sound in word formation (vi, vii) and the word in the sentence (viii). But this scheme is constantly interrupted, rules being interpolated illogically because it was convenient to do, or because space could thus be saved, for the whole book is dominated by the aim to be as brief as possible. The, to us, illogical order and impracticability of learning Sanskrit by the use of the grammar are explained, if we remember that the book was to be learned by heart by those who were already accustomed to use Sanskrit in conversation, and had not to learn how to speak it, but to know what forms were correct, what vulgar. Of the incoherence, however, part is doubtless due to the fact that Pāṇini was only working up a mass of traditional matter, as may be seen not merely from certain irregularities in case usage,¹ but also from the employment to denote a Vedic use of three terms, *chandasi*, *nigame*, and *mantre*, of which the first prevails with his followers. The main object of the grammar is to deal with the Bhāṣā, the living speech of the day; an amount of Vedic matter is incorporated. This part is of uneven value, suggesting that it was based on a number of special studies, imperfectly co-ordinated; thus minute details from the *Kāṭhaka* or *Maitrāyaṇīya Saṁhitās* are noted; but at other times a vague reference is made to Vedic irregularities, Vedic words are cited without analysis, and causeless variations of form are permitted as Vedic.

c29.s2.2

³ Ed. and trans. O. Böhtlingk, Leipzig, 1887; Śrīśa Chandra Vasu, Allahabad, 1891-8.

c29.s2.3

¹ Cf. Weber, IS. xviii. 508 ff.

c29.s2.4

The principle underlying the grammar is the derivation of nouns from verbs, Pāṇini avoiding dealing with the hard cases by alluding to the Uṇādi list existing in his time. All derivation is done by affixes, and, therefore, when the word agrees with the root form of a verb, or one nominal form is the same as that whence it is derived, it is necessary to assume suffixes which are invisible, e.g. *badara*, fruit of the *badara* tree. Phonetics do not receive investigation save incidentally as changes of words occur in processes of derivation. But in this field Pāṇini, or more correctly his predecessors, achieved very remarkable results, as in the postulate of Guṇa and Vṛddhi changes, of forms with long *r̥* vowel, roots in *ai*, *masj* as the original of *majj*, dive, *s* as the ending of inflexions. The analysis of forms is normally carried out with great acumen; it is very rare to find such a phenomenon as the periphrastic future, e.g. *kartāsmi*, treated as a simple verbal form. In comparison with the work of Greek grammarians Pāṇini is on a totally different plane in this regard. The suggestion that he and his predecessors were creating a language, or that the forms which are not recorded in earlier literature are not to be accepted as prima facie valid, is now definitely disposed of.

c29.s2.5

To secure the brevity aimed at many devices are adopted; the cases are used pregnantly, verbs are omitted, leading rules are understood to govern others which follow; above all algebraic formulae replace real words; the rule that a vowel is changed into the corresponding semi-vowel when a vowel, not itself, follows is denoted by *iko yaṇ aci*; the last Sūtra *a a* denotes that *a* which has been treated in the grammar as an open letter, corresponding to which we have long *ā*, is really a closed letter pronounced like *u* in ‘but’. Older than Pāṇini are probably some technical terms of ungrammatical make-up, such as *parasmaipada*, active, *ātmanepada*, middle, *napuṁsaka*, neuter; others are reduced forms of the original as *it* to denote a letter not pronounced, appended to a word to indicate some feature regarding its treatment, from *iti*, so. The use of such Anubandhas is doubtless before Pāṇini, as the term Uṇādi itself proves.

c29.s2.6

Pāṇini’s date is unhappily uncertain.¹ He was later than Yāska and Çaunaka, probably he came after not only the Brāhmaṇas but also the older Upaniṣads and was alive during the Sūtra period of Vedic literature, but unhappily these facts give us nothing save a relative chronology. We know he was a native of Çalātura near the modern Atak, where Hiuen Tsang saw a statue to his memory; his mother was Dākṣī, and a legend ascribes his death to a lion. His connexion with the north-west is important, when we find in his work Yavanānī, meaning probably Greek (Ionian) writing. We may, of course, scent an interpolation, and, if so, the word is valueless. If not, it leaves us still in doubt, for the assumption that it is a proof that Pāṇini wrote after the invasion of Alexander the Great, though it has been supported² by the occurrence in the *Gaṇapāṭha* of the names Āmbhi and Bhagala, Omphis and Phẹgelas, is clearly unfounded, seeing that India was in contact with Greece as early as the expedition of Xerxes. On the whole, however, it seems needless to carry back Pāṇini beyond the fourth century; if he flourished *c.* 350, then Kātyāyana, who may be placed *c.* 250–200, might easily have found sufficient divergence of speech to justify his corrections. There are, indeed, proofs that language had changed, as we have seen; but to assign Pāṇini to the sixth or seventh century B. C. on that score appears to lack any plausibility.

c29.s2.7

¹ Keith, HOS. xviii, pp. clxviii f.; *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, pp. 21 ff.; Lüders, SBA. 1919, p. 744; Liebich, *Pāṇini* (1891); Kielhorn, GN. 1885, pp. 185 ff.; Wecker, *Bezz. Beitr.* xxx. 1 ff., 177 ff. A date *c.* 700–600 is claimed by Belvalkar (*Systems of Sanskrit Grammar*, p. 15; cf. Bhandarkar, JBRAS. xvi. 340 f.; Keith, IOC. ii. 242.

c29.s2.8

² Lévi, JA. 1890, i. 234 ff.

c29.s2.9

Kātyāyana probably lived in the third century B. C.,¹ though no strict proof is possible, and this date really depends on the fact that he apparently did not long precede Patañjali; the impression left by Kātyāyana's Vārttikas is certainly that sometimes, not by any means always, he is attacking or correcting Pāṇini on the score of differences in usage which had arisen between the time of the two, while with Patañjali it seems as if he and Kātyāyana were parted by no great interval of time. Kātyāyana was not a captious critic of Pāṇini; he was not the first to call in question his rules; what he did was to examine criticisms, rejecting some, accepting others, and therefore supplementing and limiting Pāṇini's rules. But, while we need not treat him as hostile, he seems not to have been sorry to find Pāṇini in error. Patañjali, whose *Mahābhāṣya* has preserved us Kātyāyana's Vārttikas of some 1,245 Sūtras, takes up Kātyāyana's criticisms, and in many cases defends Pāṇini, but by no means as a matter of course. Moreover, he carries out in great measure his predecessor's work by examining other Sūtras of Pāṇini and correcting or explaining them. It is clear that Patañjali had many criticisms and works before him beside that of Kātyāyana; there are Vārttikas in verse which need not all have been Kātyāyana's, and Kārikās, memorial verses which probably are by various hands, including Patañjali himself; the variety of metres used in these verses is remarkable, including some later quite rare, but complex, metres. Among others Patañjali mentions Vyāḍi, of whose work—the *Saṁgraha*—much has been conjectured but very little is known, Vājapyāyana, Pauṣkarasādi, Goṇikāputra, and Gonardīya, with whom he was formerly erroneously held to be identical.¹

c29.s2.10

¹ Jayaswal's arguments for a period 248–200 (IA. xlvii. 138; xlviii. 12) from Vārttika, ii. 1. 60 are invalid. For his style see V. G. Paranjpe, *Le Vārtika de Kātyāyana* (1922), who claims an earlier date; cf. Smith, EHI. p. 470.

c29.s2.11

¹ Kielhorn, IA. xv. 81 f.; xvi. 101 f.; GN. 1885, pp. 189 ff., who postulates a considerable period between Kātyāyana and Patañjali; *Kātyāyana and Patañjali* (1876).

c29.s2.12

Our information regarding the personality of Kātyāyana and Patañjali is negligible. Kātyāyana, however, either bore the alternative name of Vararuci or was early confused with a person of that name, and to a Vararuci many works are ascribed, including the first extant Prākrit Grammar, *Prākṛtaprakāça*; book iv of the *Kātantra* and the *Liṅgānuçāsana*²; the *Vārarucasaṁgraha*,³ twenty-five Kārikās on case construction, compounds, verbs, and nominal formation; a lexicon; the Vedic *Puṣpasūtra*; and stanzas of poetry. As Patañjali mentions a *Vāraruca kāvya* we may believe in a poet Vararuci of early date, but we need not identify him with the author of the Kārikās. His identity with the author of the *Prākṛtaprakāça* is most implausible, as the Prākrit of that work is very late in character, and we may assume that the other attributions are of no value. Late tradition makes Vararuci a contemporary of Pāṇini, and also a minister of the Nandas of Pāṭaliputra; Kumāralāta⁴ actually confirms this point, but even if this poet existed, it proves nothing for the grammarian, as Kumāralāta speaks only of a poet. Of more value is Patañjali's proof that Kātyāyana was a southerner.

c29.s2.13

² Liebich, *Einführung in die ind. einheim. Sprachwissenschaft*, i. 11. See Winternitz, GIL. iii. 391.

c29.s2.14

³ Ed. TSS. 33, 1913.

c29.s2.15

⁴ *Sūtrālaṁkāra*, trans. E. Huber, p. 88.

c29.s2.16

Patañjali is regarded as an incorporation of the snake Çeṣa, Viṣṇu's resting-place during his slumber, and he is believed to be the author of the *Yoga Sūtra*, a view implausible on grounds of certain grammatical slips by the latter and slight deviations in philosophic terminology, apart from the fact that the tradition is very late and obviously due to likeness of name.⁵ His date⁶ is still disputed. The evidence for it is that statements in his grammar undoubtedly refer to a sacrifice for Puṣyamitra, whose reign began *c.* 185 or 178 B.C., and to a recent attack on Sāketa and Madhyamikā by a Yavana, who is very plausibly identified with the Greek Menander (*c.* 156–153), dates which give *c.* 150–149 for the composition of the work, on the assumption probable, yet not conclusive, that the references are Patañjali's own. Some slight confirmation may be gained from the fact that Kātyāyana, but not Pāṇini, notes the title *devānām priya*, famed in Açoka's inscriptions, suggesting that he fell after 250 B.C., which would not suit ill with 150 B.C. for Patañjali. If this be rejected, we must content ourselves with noting that Kalhaṇa records a revival of the study of the *Mahābhāṣya* in Kashmir under Abhimanyu, whose date, however, we do not know, and that Bhartṛhari (*c.* 650) proves long study of the text before his time.

c29.s2.17

⁵ Cf. Woods, HOS. xvii, pp. xv ff.; Jacobi, GGA. 1919, pp. 14 ff.; DLZ. 1922, p. 271.

c29.s2.18

⁶ Cf. Smith, EHI. pp. 227-9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 389; Bühler, *Die indischen Inschriften*, p. 72; Keith, IOC. ii. 243 f.

c29.s2.19

The *Mahābhāṣya*¹ is interesting stylistically as giving us a lively picture of the mode of discussion of the day. A question is posed; an Ācāryadeçīya deals with it, not altogether incompetently but not quite satisfactorily, and an Ācārya solves the issue. The style, therefore, is lively, simple, animated, and as in Açoka's inscriptions—possibly a confirmation of the date proposed—not rarely do we find the question 'Wherefore?', 'How?', or 'What?' put and then answered. Proverbial expressions and references to matters of everyday life are introduced and serve both to enliven the discussions and to give us valuable hints of the conditions of life and thought in the time of Patañjali, who thus is a source of information for religious and social history as well as for literature. A good example of his style is afforded by a famous reference² to the Mauryas: Pāṇini has a rule providing for the addition of the suffix *ka* to a name to denote an image of the person, but adds that it is dropped if the image is used to secure a livelihood (*jīvikārthe*) and is not vendible (*apanya*). Patañjali says: *apanya ity ucyate tatredaṁ na sidhyati Çivaḥ Skando Viçākha iti. kiṁ kāraṇam? Mauryair hiraṇyārthibhir arcāḥ prakalpitāḥ. bhavet tāsu na syāt. yās tv etāḥ saṁprati pūjārthās tāsu bhaviṣyati.* 'The difficulty is raised, with regard to Pāṇini's proviso that images are not to be vendible, that on this doctrine the forms Çiva, Skanda, Viçākha, are incorrect. Why is that? Because the Mauryas, in their greed for money, used as means images of the gods (i.e. they bartered them, so that the forms should be Çivaka, &c.). (Final answer.) Very well, granted that the rule for dropping *ka* does not apply to those images of the Mauryas; still as regards images now used for purposes of worship it does apply.’ It will be seen that the amount which must be understood to make such passages intelligible is rather a strain on the reader,¹ and in point of fact the *Mahābhāṣya* evidently gave serious trouble to later students. Bhartṛhari, who died *c.* 651, wrote a commentary on it which is all but lost, and also the *Vākyapadīya*,² in three books of verse, which mainly deals with questions of the philosophy of speech; a difficult work, it contains much evidence of thorough knowledge of contemporary philosophical disputes. Kaiyaṭa’s³ commentary on the *Mahābhāṣya*, which may belong to the twelfth century but which tradition places earlier, borrows largely from Bhartṛhari, and is itself commented on by the voluminous writer Nāgojī Bhaṭṭa (*c.* 1700). Both show that they often had as much trouble to understand Patañjali as have we.

c29.s2.20

¹ Ed. Kielhorn, BSS. 1906 ff.

c29.s2.21

² Bhandarkar, JBRAS. xvi. 206 ff.

c29.s2.22

¹ Cf. B. Geiger, *Mahābhāṣya zu P. vi. 4. 22 und 132* (SWA. 1908).

c29.s2.23

² Ed. with Puṇyarāja’s comm., BenSS. 1887–1907; Kielhorn, IA. xii. 226 ff.; Pathak, JBRAS. xviii. 341 ff.

c29.s2.24

³ Bühler, *Report*, pp. 71 f.; Peterson, *Report*, i, p. 26.

c29.s2.25

Save for Bhartṛhari, Patañjali closes the line of great grammarians. We do not doubt that he drew on the speech of his day; his preface insists on the absurdity of learning words that are not used, and like Kātyāyana he views Pāṇini in the light of a living language. Thereafter use is made of the three great grammarians, efforts are made to explain them, or to re-expound their systems for purposes of more effective exposition, but nothing is done to restate the facts of language with reference to living speech. For reasons which we cannot certainly explain, the authority of Pāṇini and his immediate followers prevailed; deviations from his rules were even in great poets like Kālidāsa deemed to be errors.

c29.s2.26

One commentary of Pāṇini deserves praise for its extent of information, its comparative clearness, and its evidence of changes in Pāṇini’s text, the *Kāçikā Vṛtti*⁴ of Jayāditya and Vāmana, which was written before I-tsing visited India, when he found it regularly used by Chinese in order to study Sanskrit grammar, and when he records its school use by boys for five years after attaining fifteen years of age. Books i–v seem to have been Jayāditya’s; presumably Vāmana finished it by reason of his death. A comment on it was written *c.* 700 by the Buddhist Jinendrabuddhi, and the *Nyāsa* referred to by Māgha¹ appears to be this book. Another Buddhist, Çaraṇadeva, wrote in 1172 under the supervision of Sarvarakṣita a *Durghaṭavṛtti*,² dealing with the difficult passages of Pāṇini’s text. Among his many citations are three verses of the *Jāmbavatīvijaya* of a Pāṇini, whose identity with the grammarian we may safely dismiss as unproved. But Pāṇini could not teach Sanskrit, for which end his grammar was not written. For such purpose re-writing and re-arrangement were essential, giving us (*c.* 1400) Rāmacandra’s *Prakriyā-kaumudī*,³ based on which is Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s well-known and not unsatisfactory *Siddhāntakaumudī*,⁴ on which he wrote a comment, the *Prauḍhamanoramā*. From it come two school grammars of Varadarāja, *Madhyasiddhāntakaumudī* and *Laghu-kaumudī*.⁵

c29.s2.27

⁴ Ed. Benares, 1898; B. Liebich, *Zwei Kapitel der Kāçikā* (1892); on Pāṇini’s text, Kielhorn, IA. xvi. 178 ff.

c29.s2.28

¹ ii. 112. Ed. by Srish Chandra Chakravarti (Rājshahi, 1914 ff.), see i. 47, 48 on the authorship of the *Kāçikā*. On it is based Puruṣottamadeva’s *Bhāṣāvṛtti* (*c.* 1150); ed. 1918.

c29.s2.29

² Ed. TSS. 6, 1909.

c29.s2.30

³ S. C. Vidyabhusana, JPASB. 1908, pp. 593 ff.

c29.s2.31

⁴ Ed. Bombay, 1882. Date seventeenth century.

c29.s2.32

⁵ Ed. and trans. J. R. Ballantyne, Benares, 1867.

c29.s2.33

As we have seen, Pāṇini presupposes an *Uṇādisūtra*⁶; our extant text contains late words like *dīnāra* or *mihira* and omits some, e. g. *pāntha* mentioned by Patañjali; Çākaṭāyana or Vararuci is given as author. The *Dhātupāṭha* goes back in substance to Pāṇini; it gives the roots according to classes, with indicatory letters containing information regarding their formation; on it are based the *Dhātupradīpa* of Maitreyarakṣita, the *Daiva* of Deva, and the *Puruṣakāra*, a joke on the name, by Kṛṣṇalīlāçuka,⁷ who is later than Hemacandra, and the *Mādhavīya Dhātuvṛtti*⁸ ascribed to Sāyaṇa’s brother Mādhava in the fourteenth century. The *Gaṇapāṭha* has been interpolated, and Vardhamāna’s *Gaṇaratnamahodadhi*⁹ (1140) is not based on it but on some other grammar. Rules on accent, Vedic and classical, are dealt with in the *Phiṭsūtra*¹⁰ of Çāntanava, who is later than Patañjali. The rules of interpretation which govern the construction of the grammar must have been early formulated, if not explicitly laid down by Pāṇini himself; of several collections, that commented on by Nāgojī Bhaṭṭa in his *Paribhāṣenduçekhara*¹ is best known.

c29.s2.34

⁶ Ed. Böhtlingk, St. Petersburg, 1844; Ujjvaladatta’s comm., ed. London, 1859.

c29.s2.35

⁷ Ed. TSS. 1, 1905.

c29.s2.36

⁸ Ed. *Pandit*, iv–viii, xvii–xix.

c29.s2.37

⁹ Ed. J. Eggeling, London, 1879.

c29.s2.38

¹⁰ Ed. F. Kielhorn, AKM. iv. 2, 1866.

c29.s2.39

¹ Ed. and trans. Kielhorn, BSS. 1868; ed. ĀnSS. 72.

Linked texts (15)