A History of Sanskrit Literature c7.s1.7

c7.s1.7

The influence of the grammarians, whose results were summed up in Pāṇini’s *Aṣṭādhyāyī*, probably in the fourth century B.C., is seen in the rigid scheme of euphonic combination of the words within the sentence or line of verse. This is clearly artificial, converting a natural speech tendency into something impossibly rigid, and, as applied to the text of the *Ṛgveda*, often ruining the metrical effect. Similar rigidity is seen in the process which substitutes in many cases *y* and *v* for the *iy* and *uv* of the earlier speech. Dialectic influence may be traced in the recognition of *l* in many words in lieu of *r*, and a certain distinction between the dialect which underlies the *Ṛgveda* and that of Pāṇini is revealed by the absolute ignoring by the latter of the substitution of *ḷ* and *ḷh* for *ḍ* and *ḍh*.¹ Otherwise the chief mark of progress is the growth of the tendency to cerebralization, possibly under Dravidian influence.