The historical facts of his life are unknown, except only what can be inferred from his works, and legends recorded long after. His most notable work, theAṣṭādhyāyī, is conventionally taken to mark the start ofClassical Sanskrit. His work formally codified Classical Sanskrit as a refined and standardized language, making use of a technicalmetalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology, and lexicon, organised according to a series of meta-rules.[note 3]
The name Pāṇini is apatronymic meaning descendant of Paṇina.[17] His full name was Dakṣiputra Pāṇini according to verses 1.75.13 and 3.251.12 ofPatanjali'sMahābhāṣya, with the first part suggesting his mother's name was Dakṣi.[4]
Nothing definite is known about when Pāṇini lived, not even in which century he lived. Pāṇini has been dated between the seventh[18] or sixth[4] and fourth century BCE.[5][6][7][1][19][note 2]
George Cardona (1997) in his authoritative survey and review of Pāṇini-related studies, states that the available evidence strongly supports a dating not before 400 BCE, while earlier dating depends on interpretations and is not probative.[20]
...thanks to the work carried out by Hinüber (1990:34-35) and Falk (1993: 303-304), we now know that Pāṇini lived, in all probability, far closer in time to the period ofAśoka than had hitherto been thought. According to Falk's reasoning, Panini must have lived during the decade following 350 BCE, that is, just before (or contemporaneously with?) the invasion by Alexander of Macedonia.[6]
It is not certain whether Pāṇini used writing for the composition of his work, though it is generally agreed that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such aslipi ("script") andlipikara ("scribe") in section 3.2 of theAṣṭādhyāyī.[21][22] The dating of theintroduction of writing to present day North West Pakistan may therefore give further information on the historical dating of Pāṇini.[note 5]
Pāṇini cites at least ten grammarians and linguists before him: Āpiśali,Kāśyapa, Gārgya, Gālava, Cākravarmaṇa,Bhāradvāja,Śākaṭāyana,Śākalya, Senaka, Sphoṭāyana andYaska.[29] According to Kamal K. Misra, Pāṇini references Yaska'sNirukta,[30] "whose writings date back to the middle of the 4th century B.C".[31]
Cardona offers an earlier date for Pāṇini,[33] by arguing the compound wordyavanānī, discussed in sutra 4.1.49, instead of referring to a writing (lipi) c.q. cuneiform of theAchaemenid Empire, or theGreek ofAlexander the Great, refers toGreek women; and that Indus valley residents possibly hadcontacts with Greek women before Darius's 535 BCE, or Alexander's 326 BCE conquests.[34][note 7] K. B. Pathak (1930) argues that thekumāraśramaṇa, of sutra 2.1.70, derived fromśramaṇa, which refers to female renunciates, c.q. "Buddhist nuns", could also refer toJainAryika, of unknown origin, possibly permitting Pāṇini to be placed before the, 5th century BCE,Gautama Buddha.[33] Others, based on Panini's linguistic style, date his works to the sixth or fifth century BCE, as:
According to Bod, Pāṇini's grammar defines Classical Sanskrit, so Pāṇini is chronologically placed in the later part of theVedic period, corresponding to the seventh to fifth century BCE.[16]
Approximate geographical region of Gandhara centered on thePeshawar Basin, in present-day northwestPakistan
Nothing certain is known about Pāṇini's personal life. In an inscription of Siladitya VII ofValabhi,[who?] he is called Śalāturiya, which means "a man from Salatura".[citation needed] This means Pāṇini lived inSalatura in ancientGandhara (present day north-westPakistan), which likely was nearLahor, a town at the junction of theIndus andKabul rivers.[note 8][38][39] According to the memoirs of the 7th-century Chinese scholarXuanzang, there was a town calledSuoluoduluo on the Indus where Pāṇini was born, and where he composed theQingming-lun (Sanskrit:Vyākaraṇa).[38][40][41]
According toKathāsaritsāgara legends Pāṇini studied under his guru Varsha inPataliputra. Not the brightest of his disciples, on the advice of Varsha's wife, Pāṇini went to theHimalayas to do penance and gain knowledge fromShiva.Sutras were granted by Shiva, who danced and played hisdamaru before Pāṇini and produced the basic sounds of these sutras, Panini accepted them and they are now known as theShiva Sutras. Armed with this new grammar Pāṇini came back from the Himalayas to Pataliputra. But at the same time,Vararuchi, another disciple of Varsha had learned of a grammar fromIndra. Theyengaged in a debate which lasted eight days and on the last day, with Vararuchi emerging dominant, Pāṇini was able to defeat him with the help of Shiva who destroyed Vararuchi's grammar book. Pāṇini then defeated the rest of Varsha's disciples and emerged as the greatest grammarian.[44]
Pāṇini is believed to have spent the major portion of his life in Pataliputra and according to somepandits, he was born and brought up there, the ancestors of Pāṇini having already moved there fromSalatura.[44] Pāṇini, has also been associated with theUniversity of Taxila.[45]
Pāṇini is also mentioned in Indian fables and other ancient texts. ThePanchatantra, for example, mentions that Pāṇini was killed by a lion.[46][47][48][49]
According to some historiansPingala was the brother of Pāṇini.[50]
The most important of Pāṇini's works, theAṣṭādhyāyī, is a grammatical treatise on the Sanskrit language. It is descriptive[55] and generative with algebraic-like rules governing every aspect of the language. It is supplemented by three ancillary texts: theakṣarasamāmnāya,dhātupāṭha[A] andgaṇapāṭha.[B][56] Modeled on the dialect and register of elite speakers in his time, the text also accounts for some features of the olderVedic language.[57]
Growing out of a centuries-long effort to preserve the language of the Vedic hymns from "corruption", theAṣtādhyāyī is the high point of a vigorous, sophisticated grammatical tradition devised to arrest language change. TheAṣtādhyāyī's preeminence is underlined by the fact that it eclipsed all similar works that came before: while not the first, it is the oldest such text surviving in its entirety.[58][59][60][61]
TheAṣṭādhyāyī consists of 3,959sūtras[C] in eight chapters, which are each subdivided into four sections orpādas. The text takes material from lexical lists (dhātupāṭha,gaṇapātha) as input and describes the algorithms to be applied to them for the generation of well-formed words. Such is its intricacy that the correct application of its rules and metarules is still being worked out centuries later.[62][63]
TheAṣṭādhyāyī, composed in an era when oral composition and transmission was the norm, is staunchly embedded in that oral tradition. In order to ensure wide dissemination, Pāṇini is said to have preferred brevity over clarity[64]—it can be recited end-to-end in two hours. This has led to the emergence of a great number of commentaries[D] of his work over the centuries, which for the most part adhere to the foundations laid by Pāṇini's work.[65][66]
Indian curriculums in the late classical era had at their core a system of grammatical study and linguistic analysis.[67] The core text for this study was the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, thesine qua non of learning.[68] This grammar of Pāṇini had been the object of intense study for the ten centuries prior to the composition of theBhaṭṭikāvya. It was Bhaṭṭi's purpose to provide a study aid to Pāṇini's text by using the examples already provided in the existing grammatical commentaries in the context of theRāmāyaṇa. The intention of the author was to teach this advanced science through a relatively easy and pleasant medium. In his own words:
This composition is like a lamp to those who perceive the meaning of words and like a hand mirror for a blind man to those without grammar.
This poem, which is to be understood by means of a commentary, is a joy to those sufficiently learned: through my fondness for the scholar I have here slighted the dullard.
Pāṇini's analysis ofnoun compounds still forms the basis of modern linguistic theories of compounding inIndian languages. Pāṇini's comprehensive andscientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start ofClassical Sanskrit.[75] His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia.
Pāṇini's theory ofmorphological analysis was more advanced than any equivalent Western theory before the 20th century.[76] His treatise is generative and descriptive, usesmetalanguage andmeta-rules, and has been compared to theTuring machine wherein the logical structure of any computing device has been reduced to its essentials using an idealizedmathematical model.[77]
Pāṇini's work became known in 19th-century Europe, where it influenced modern linguistics initially throughFranz Bopp. Subsequently, a wider body of work influenced Sanskrit scholars such asFerdinand de Saussure,Leonard Bloomfield, andRoman Jakobson.Frits Staal (1930–2012) discussed the impact of Indian ideas on language in Europe. After outlining the various aspects of the contact, Staal notes that the idea of formal rules in language – proposed byFerdinand de Saussure in 1894 and developed byNoam Chomsky in 1957 – has origins in the European exposure to the formal rules of Pāṇinian grammar.[78] In particular, de Saussure, who lectured on Sanskrit for three decades, may have been influenced by Pāṇini andBhartrihari; his idea of the unity of the signifier-signified in thesign somewhat resembles the notion ofSphoṭa. More importantly, the very idea that formal rules can be applied to areas outside of logic or mathematics may itself have been catalysed by Europe's contact with the work of Sanskrit grammarians.[78]
Pāṇini, and the later Indian linguistBhartrihari, had a significant influence on many of the foundational ideas proposed byFerdinand de Saussure, professor ofSanskrit, who is widely considered the father of modernstructural linguistics and withCharles S. Peirce on the other side, tosemiotics, although the concept Saussure used wassemiology. Saussure himself cited Indiangrammar as an influence on some of his ideas. In hisMémoire sur le système primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européennes (Memoir on the Original System of Vowels in the Indo-European Languages) published in 1879, he mentions Indian grammar as an influence on his idea that "reduplicatedaorists represent imperfects of a verbal class." In hisDe l'emploi du génitif absolu en sanscrit (On the Use of theGenitive Absolute in Sanskrit) published in 1881, he specifically mentions Pāṇini as an influence on the work.[79]
Prem Singh, in his foreword to the reprint edition of the German translation of Pāṇini's Grammar in 1998, concluded that the "effect Panini's work had on Indo-European linguistics shows itself in various studies" and that a "number of seminal works come to mind," including Saussure's works and the analysis that "gave rise to thelaryngeal theory," further stating: "This type of structural analysis suggests influence from Panini's analytical teaching."George Cardona, however, warns against overestimating the influence of Pāṇini on modern linguistics: "Although Saussure also refers to predecessors who had taken this Paninian rule into account, it is reasonable to conclude that he had a direct acquaintance with Panini's work. As far as I am able to discern upon rereading Saussure'sMémoire, however, it shows no direct influence of Paninian grammar. Indeed, on occasion, Saussure follows a path that is contrary to Paninian procedure."[79][80]
A PhD student at the Cambridge University, Rishi Rajpopat elaborated in his PhD thesis[81] a deeper understanding of Panini's "language machine" by designing a simple system of resolving rule conflicts.[82][83] His thesis has been critiqued as being built upon flawed premises and understanding of rules by prominent Indian Sanskrit scholars.[84][better source needed]
In designing his grammar, Pāṇini used the method of codifying rules through use of auxiliary markers, in which affixes are designated to marksyntactic categories and the control of grammatical derivations through replacement rules (e.g.: "what to do if a stem is marked as a past tense verb, what to do if a noun is marked as an instrumental object, how to indicate passive versus active, what sound adjustments to make for adjacent phonemes, and so forth").[86] This technique has been compared to the rewrite systems developed in the 1920s-1930s by the logicianEmil Post, which became a standard method in the design ofcomputer programming languages.[87][88] Sanskritists now accept that Pāṇini's linguistic apparatus is well-described as an "applied" Post system. Considerable evidence shows ancient mastery ofcontext-sensitive grammars, and a general ability to solve many complex problems.
Frits Staal has written that "Panini is the IndianEuclid"[89] and that the ancient Indian grammarians, especially Pāṇini, had mastered methods of linguistic theory not rediscovered again until the 1950s and the applications of modern mathematical logic to linguistics byNoam Chomsky.[90] (Chomsky himself has said that the firstgenerative grammar in the modern sense was Panini's grammar).[91]
Two literary works are attributed to Pāṇini, though they are now lost.
TheJāmbavati Vijaya is a lost epic poem cited byRajashekhara in Jalhana'sSukti Muktāvalī. A fragment of this work can be found in Ramayukta's commentary on theNamalinganushasana. The title suggests that the work dealt withKrishna's winning ofJambavati from the underworld as his bride.[92] Rajashekhara is quoted thus in Jalhana'sSukti Muktāvalī:
नमःपाणिनये तस्मै यस्मादाविर भूदिह।
आदौ व्याकरणं काव्यमनुजाम्बवतीजयम्॥
namaḥpāṇinaye tasmai yasmādāvirabhūdiha।
ādau vyākaraṇaṃ kāvyamanujāmbavatījayam॥
Ascribed to Pāṇini, thePātāla Vijaya (Victory in/over the Underworld) is a lost work cited by Namisadhu in his commentary on the Kavyalankara (Poetic Aesthetics) ofRudrata. ThePātāla Vijaya is considered the same work as theJāmbavati Vijaya byMoriz Winternitz.[93]
There are many proto-mathematical concepts found in Pāṇini's works. Pāṇini came up with a plethora of ideas to organize the known grammatical forms of his day in a systematic way.[94][95] Like any mathematician who models a known phenomenon in mathematical language, Pāṇini created ametalanguage which is very close to the modern-day ideas of algebra.[96][97][98]
^According to George Cardona, Sanskrit literary tradition believes that Pāṇini came from Salatura in the northwest part of the Pakistan .[1] This is likely to be ancientGandhara.[2]
Johannes Bronkhorst (2019): "Pāṇini'sAṣṭādhyāyī has been the target of much guesswork as to its date. Only recently have more serious proposals been made. Oskar von Hinüber (1990: 34) arrives, on the basis of a comparison of Pāṇini's text withnumismatic findings, at a date that can hardly be much earlier than 350 BCE; Harry Falk (1993: 304; 1994: 327 n. 45) refines these reflections and moves the date forward to the decennia following 350 BCE. If Hinüber and Falk are right, and there seems no reason to doubt this, we have here for Pāṇini aterminus post quem.[19]
Cardona: "The evidence for dating Panini,Kātyāyana and Patanjali is not absolutely probative and depends on interpretation. However, I think there is one certainty, namely that the evidence available hardly allows one to date Panini later than the early to mid fourth century B. C."[1]
Frits Staal (1996): "the Sanskrit grammar of Panini (6th or 5th century b.c.e.)"[3]
Hartmut Scharfe (1977): "Panini's date can be fixed only approximately; he must be older thanKātyāyana (c. 250 B.C.) who in his comments on Panini's work refers to other earlier scholars dealing with Panini's grammar; his proximity to the Vedic language as found in theUpanishads and Vedic sutras suggests the 5th or maybe 6th c. B.C."[4] Scharfe refers to:Paul Thieme,Panini and the Veda (Allahabad, 1935), p. 75-81,OCLC15644563."[4]
Encyclopedia Britannica: "Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit Aṣṭādhyāyī ("Eight Chapters"), Sanskrit treatise on grammar written in the 6th to 5th century BCE by the Indian grammarian Panini."
^"The elegance and comprehensiveness of [the Aṣṭādhyāyī's] architecture have yet to be surpassed [...], and its ingenious methods of stratifying outuse and mention, language andmetalanguage, and theorem andmetatheorem predate key discoveries in western philosophy by millennia."[11]
^The earliest time or historical period during which an event may have happened
^Pāṇini's use of the termlipi has been a source of scholarly disagreements. Harry Falk in his 1993 overview states that ancient Indians neither knew nor used writing scripts, and Pāṇini's mention is likely a reference to Semitic and Greek scripts.[23] In his 1995 review, Salomon questions Falk's arguments and writes it is "speculative at best and hardly constitutes firm grounds for a late date forKharoṣṭhī. The stronger argument for this position is that we have no specimen of the script before the time of Aśoka, nor any direct evidence of intermediate stages in its development; but of course this does not mean that such earlier forms did not exist, only that, if they did exist, they have not survived, presumably because they were not employed for monumental purposes before Aśoka".[24] According to Hartmut Scharfe, theLipi of Pāṇini may have been borrowed from theOld PersianDipi, in turn derived from theSumerianDup. Scharfe adds that the best evidence, at the time of his review, is that no script was used in India, aside from the Northwest Indian subcontinent, before around 300 BCE because Indian tradition "at every occasion stresses the orality of the cultural and literary heritage."[25]Kenneth Norman states that writing scripts in ancient India evolved over long periods of time like other cultures, that it is unlikely that ancient Indians developed a single complete writing system at one and the same time in theMauryan era. It is even less likely, states Norman, that a writing script was invented during Ashoka's rule, starting from nothing, for the specific purpose of writing his inscriptions and then it was understood all over South Asia where theAśoka pillars are found.[26]Jack Goody states that ancient India likely had a "very old culture of writing" along with its oral tradition of composing and transmitting knowledge, because the corpus of Vedic literature is too vast, consistent and complex to have been entirely created, memorized, accurately preserved and spread without a written system.[27] Falk disagrees with Goody, and suggests that it is a Western presumption and inability to imagine that remarkably early scientific achievements such as Pāṇini's grammar (5th to 4th century BCE), and the creation, preservation and wide distribution of the large corpus of the Brahmanic Vedic literature and theBuddhist canonical literature were possible without any writing scripts. Johannes Bronkhorst disagrees with Falk, and states, "Falk goes too far. It is fair to expect that we believe that Vedic memorisation — though without parallel in any other human society — has been able to preserve very long texts for many centuries without losing a syllable. (...) However, the oral composition of a work as complex as Pāṇini's grammar is not only without parallel in other human cultures, it is without parallel in India itself. (...) It just will not do to state that our difficulty in conceiving any such thing is our problem".[28]
^In 1862Max Müller argued thatyavana may have meant "Greek"[note 6] during Pāṇinis time, but may also refer to Semitic or dark-skinned Indian people.[35][36]
^Falk, Harry (1993).Schrift im alten Indien: ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen [Writing in ancient India: a research report with notes] (in German). Gunter Narr Verlag. pp. 109–167.ISBN9783823342717.
^Cardona 1997. The verse readssiṃho vyākaraṇasya kartur aharat prāṇān priyān pāṇineḥ "a lion took the dear life of Panini, author of the grammatical treatise". (Panchatantra II.28)
^Huet, Gérard; Kulkarni, Amba; Scharf, Peter M. (2009).Sanskrit Computational Linguistics: First and Second International Symposia Rocquencourt, France, October 29-31, 2007 Providence, RI, USA, May 15-17, 2008 Revised Selected and Invited Papers. Lecture notes in computer science Lecture notes in artificial intelligence (En ligne). International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium, International Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg Springer e-books.ISBN978-3-642-00155-0.
^Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvain (2000).The Sanskrit language: an overview: history and structure, linguistic and philosophical representations, uses and users. Varanasi: Indica Books.ISBN978-81-86569-17-7.
^Staal, Frits (1986).The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science. Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie voor Wetenschappen, North Holland Publishing Company.
