A History of Sanskrit Literature c29.s2.26

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