History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.276

v2.c24.s1.276

That these rules are very ancient follows from Pāṇini's sūtra (VIII. 2. 83) 'when the salutation of a person who is not a śūdra is returned by the person saluted, the final vowel in the name (that occurs at the end of the sentence of pratyabhivāda) becomes '*pluta*.' The Mahābhāṣya comments on this and two vārtikas thereon say that this rule does not apply when it is a woman to whom the salutation is returned and it applies optionally when the person whose salutation is returned is a kṣatriya or vaiśya. All these rules are exemplified in the foot-note below.⁸²¹ Āp. Dh. S. agrees with this rule of the ancient grammarians. The verse of Manu (II. 125) also really means the same thing; but there the word '*akāra*' is only illustrative⁸²² and stands for all vowels. The ancient commentator Medhātithi interprets Manu so as to agree with Pāṇini and says 'in the realm of the use of words and their senses Pāṇini has higher authority than Manu, that the pratyabhivāda words containing the benediction about long life are not stereotyped, that when a kṣatriya returns the salutation of a kṣatriya or a vaiśya of a vaisya, the same rules hold good'. As a person of a higher varṇa was not to do abhivādana to one of lower varṇa (vide note 819 above) there would be no occasion for pratyabhivāda from the side of the latter. The verse of Manu is interpreted by Haradatta and a few others in a different manner. According to them the last vowel in the name of the person whose salutation is to be returned is pluta and then 'a' is added to it, and that if the vocative ends in e or o, it becomes āya or āva (with 'a' added).⁸²³ This view is opposed to Pāṇini, the Mahābhāṣya, the Kāśikā, Āpastamba and several writers of digests. Aparārka and the Sm. C. condemn the interpretation put upon Manu's verse by commentators like Haradatta.⁸²⁴