Pāṇini

For other uses, see Panini (disambiguation).

Pāṇini
Born	4th century BC Gandhara
Notable work	Aṣṭādhyāyī (lit. "Eight Chapters"), the earliest known treatise on linguistic description that defined Classical Sanskrit
Region	Indian philosophy
Main interests	Sanskrit grammar

A 17th-century birch bark manuscript of Panini's grammar treatise from Kashmir

Pāṇini (IPA: [pɑːɳin̪i]; a patronymic meaning "descendant of Paṇi"; fl. 4th century BC ), or Panini, was a Vyākaraṇin from the early mahajanapada era of ancient India. He was born in Pushkalavati, Gandhara (on the outskirts of modern-day Charsadda, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan).

Pāṇini is known for his Sanskrit grammar, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, syntax and semantics in the grammar known as Aṣṭādhyāyī (meaning "eight chapters"), the foundational text of the grammatical branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of the historical Vedic religion.

The Ashtadhyayi is one of the earliest known grammars of Sanskrit, although Pāṇini refers to previous texts like the Unadisutra, Dhatupatha, and Ganapatha. It is the earliest known work on linguistic description, and together with the work of his immediate predecessors (the Niruktas, Nighantus, and Pratishakyas) stands at the beginning of the history of linguistics itself. His theory of morphological analysis was more advanced than any equivalent Western theory before the mid-20th century, and his analysis of noun compounds still forms the basis of modern linguistic theories of compounding, which have borrowed Sanskrit terms such as bahuvrihi and dvandva.

Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the end of the period of Vedic Sanskrit, introducing the period of Classical Sanskrit.

Date and context

Nothing definite is known about when Pāṇini lived, nor even in which century he lived. It is known that he was from the city of Pushkalavati in Gandhara. Most scholarship suggests a 4th-century BC floruit (corresponding to the Pushkalavati archaeological site), contemporary to the Nanda Empire ruling the Indo-Gangetic Plain, but a 5th or even late 6th century BC date cannot be ruled out with certainty. Pāṇini's grammar defines Classical Sanskrit, so Pāṇini by definition lived at the end of the Vedic period. He notes a few special rules, marked chandasi ("in the hymns") to account for forms in the Vedas that had fallen out of use in the spoken language of his time. These indicate that Vedic Sanskrit was already archaic, but still comprehensible.

An important hint for the dating of Pāṇini is the occurrence of the word yavanānī (in 4.1.49, either "Greek woman", or "Greek alphabet"). Some Greeks, such as the Persian admiral Scylax of Caryanda, were present in Gandhara as citizens of the Persian Empire well before the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 330s BC; the name could also have been transmitted via Old Persian yauna and the administrative languages Elamite or Aramaic, so that the occurrence of yavanānī taken in isolation allows for a terminus post quem as early as 519 BC, i.e. the time of Darius I's Behistun Inscription that included the province of Gandara (Sanskrit Gandhāra).

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 as "script" and "scribe" in his Ashtadhyayi. These must have referred to Aramaic or early Kharosthi. It is believed by some that a work of such complexity would have been difficult to compile without written notes, though others have argued that he might have composed it with the help of a group of students whose memories served him as "notepads" (as is typical in Vedic learning). Writing first reappears in India in the form of the Brahmi script from c. the 3rd century BC in the Ashokan inscriptions.

While Pāṇini's work is purely grammatical and lexicographic, cultural and geographical inferences can be drawn from the vocabulary he uses in examples, and from his references to fellow grammarians, which show he was a northwestern person. New deities referred to in his work include Vasudeva (4.3.98). The concept of dharma is attested in his example sentence (4.4.41) dharmam carati "he observes the law" (cf. Taittiriya Upanishad 1.11).

Later biographical traditions and modern reception

Nothing certain is known about Pāṇini's personal life. According to the Mahābhāṣya of Patanjali, his mother's name was Dākṣī. Patañjali calls Pāṇini Dākṣīputra (meaning son of Dākṣī) at several places in the Mahābhāṣya. According to later traditions, his maternal uncle's name was Vyāḍi. Some scholars suggest that his brother's name was Piṅgala. Not much is known about his father, whose name has been suggested as Paṇi, but most scholars reject this suggestion. Rambhadracharya gives the name of his father as Paṇina, from which the name Pāṇini derives.

Panini is believed to have been born in Gandhara. Based on the Mahābhāṣya, it is believed that Śalātura was the birthplace of Pāṇini. In the Ashtadhyayi also, the place Śalātura is mentioned. According to Xuanzang, a statue of him existed at Śalātura, the place of his birth. Some writers identify Śalātura with the Shalatur village near Taxila in what is now the Punjab province of Pakistan.

More than a thousand years after he lived, the Panchatantra mentioned that Pāṇini was killed by a lion.

Pāṇini was depicted on a five rupees Indian postage stamp in 2004.

Aṣṭādhyāyī

The Aṣṭādhyāyī is the central part of Pāṇini's grammar, and by far the most complex. Regarded as extremely compact without sacrificing completeness, it would become the model for later specialist technical texts or sutras. It takes material from lexical lists (Dhatupatha, Ganapatha) as input and describes algorithms to be applied to them for the generation of well-formed words. It is highly systematised and technical. Inherent in its approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root. His rules have a reputation for perfection – that is, they are claimed to describe Sanskrit morphology fully, without any redundancy. A consequence of his grammar's focus on brevity is its highly unintuitive structure, reminiscent of modern notations such as the "Backus–Naur Form". His sophisticated logical rules and technique have been widely influential in ancient and modern linguistics.

The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it surpassed its predecessor on such a monumental scale that all earlier works are now lost except for the extent to which they are mentioned by Panini. The Aṣṭādhyāyī became the foundation of Vyākaraṇa, the Sanskrit grammatical tradition, and the classical works of Sanskrit grammarians which flourished during ca. the 8th and 15th centuries (and a revival in the 17th and 18th) are essentially commentaries on Panini.

In the Aṣṭādhyāyī, language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar marks the entry of the non-sacred into Indian thought, and according to Renou and Filliozat, it then defines the linguistic expression of that thought.

Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. The two fundamental principles on which the metalanguage is based are non-redundancy, or the principle of economy, and the necessity of all the rules in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.

The Aṣṭādhyāyī consists of 3,959 sutras or "rules" distributed among eight chapters, which are each subdivided into four sections or padas (pādāḥ).

From example words in the text, and from a few rules depending on the context of the discourse, additional information as to the geographical, cultural and historical context of Pāṇini can be discerned.

Rules

The first two sutras are as follows:

1.1.1 vṛddhir ādaiC (वृद्धिरादैच् । १।१।१)

1.1.2 adeṄ guṇaḥ (अदेङ्गुणः । १।१।२)

In these sutras, the capital letters are special meta-linguistic symbols; they are called IT (इत्) markers or, in later writers such as Katyayana and Patanjali, anubandhas (see below). The C and Ṅ refer to Shiva Sutras 4 ("ai, au, C") and 3 ("e, o, Ṅ"), respectively, forming what are known as the pratyāhāras "comprehensive designations" aiC, eṄ. They denote the list of phonemes {ai, au} and {e, o} respectively. The त् (T) appearing (in its variant form /d/) in both sutras is also an IT marker: Sutra 1.1.70 defines it as indicating that the preceding phoneme does not represent a list, but a single phoneme, encompassing all supra-segmental features such as accent and nasality. For further example, आत् (āT) and अत् (aT) represent आ {ā} and अ {a} respectively.

When a sutra defines a technical term, the term defined comes at the end, so the first sutra should have properly been ādaiJ vṛddhir instead of vṛddhir ādaiC. However the order is reversed to have a good-luck word at the very beginning of the work; vṛddhir happens to mean 'prosperity' in its non-technical use.

Thus the two sūtras consist of a list of phonemes, followed by a technical term; the final interpretation of the two sūtras above is thus:

1.1.1: {ā, ai, au} are called vṛ́ddhi.

1.1.2: {a, e, o} are called guṇa.

At this point, one can see they are definitions of terminology: guṇa and vṛ́ddhi are the terms for the full and the lengthened Indo-European ablaut grades, respectively.

List of IT markers

its or anubandhas are defined in P. 1.3.2 through P. 1.3.8. These definitions refer only to items taught in the grammar or its ancillary texts such at the dhātupāţha; this fact is made clear in P. 1.3.2 by the word upadeśe, which is then continued in the following six rules by anuvṛtti, Ellipsis. As these anubandhas are metalinguistic markers and not pronounced in the final derived form, pada (word), they are elided by P. 1.3.9 tasya lopaḥ – 'There is elision of that (i.e. any of the preceding items which have been defined as an it).' Accordingly, Pāṇini defines the anubandhas as follows:

1. Nasalized vowels, e.g. bhañjO. Cf. P. 1.3.2.
2. A final consonant (haL). Cf. P. 1.3.3.
   2. (a) except a dental, m and s in verbal or nominal endings. Cf. P. 1.3.4.
3. Initial ñi ṭu ḍu. Cf. P 1.3.5
4. Initial ṣ of a suffix (pratyaya). Cf. P. 1.3.6.
5. Initial palatals and cerebrals of a suffix. Cf. P. 1.3.7
6. Initial l, ś, and k but not in a taddhita 'secondary' suffix. Cf. P. 1.3.8.

A few examples of elements that contain its are as follows:

• suP   nominal desinence
• Ś-IT
  • Śi   strong case endings
  • Ślu   elision
  • ŚaP   active marker
• P-IT
  • luP   elision
  • āP   ā-stems
    • CāP
    • ṬāP
    • ḌāP
  • LyaP   (7.1.37)
• L-IT
• K-IT
  • Ktvā
  • luK   elision
• saN   Desiderative
• C-IT
• M-IT
• Ṅ-IT
  • Ṅí   Causative
  • Ṅii   ī-stems
    • ṄīP
    • ṄīN
    • Ṅī'Ṣ
  • tiṄ   verbal desinence
  • lUṄ   Aorist
  • lIṄ   Precative
• S-IT
• GHU   class of verbal stems (1.1.20)
• GHI   (1.4.7)

Auxiliary texts

Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi has three associated texts.

• The Shiva Sutras are a brief but highly organised list of phonemes.
• The Dhatupatha is a lexical list of verbal roots sorted by present class.
• The Ganapatha is a lexical list of nominal stems grouped by common properties.

Shiva Sutras

Main article: Shiva Sutras

The Shiva Sutras describe a phonemic notational system in the fourteen initial lines preceding the Ashtadhyayi. The notational system introduces different clusters of phonemes that serve special roles in the morphology of Sanskrit, and are referred to throughout the text. Each cluster, called a pratyāhara ends with a dummy sound called an anubandha (the so-called IT index), which acts as a symbolic referent for the list. Within the main text, these clusters, referred through the anubandhas, are related to various grammatical functions.

Dhatupatha

The Dhatupatha is a lexicon of Sanskrit verbal roots subservient to the Ashtadhyayi. It is organised by the ten present classes of Sanskrit, i.e. the roots are grouped by the form of their stem in the present tense.

The ten present classes of Sanskrit are:

1. bhū-ādayaḥ (root-full grade thematic presents)
2. ad-ādayaḥ (root presents)
3. ju-ho-ti-ādayaḥ (reduplicated presents)
4. div-ādayaḥ (ya thematic presents)
5. su-ādayaḥ (nu presents)
6. tud-ādayaḥ (root-zero grade thematic presents)
7. rudh-ādayaḥ (n-infix presents)
8. tan-ādayaḥ (no presents)
9. krī-ādayaḥ (ni presents)
10. cur-ādayaḥ (aya presents, causatives)

Most of these classes are directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European. The small number of class 8 verbs are a secondary group derived from class 5 roots, and class 10 is a special case, in that any verb can form class 10 presents, then assuming causative meaning. The roots specifically listed as belonging to class 10 are those for which any other form has fallen out of use (causative deponents, so to speak).

Ganapatha

The Ganapatha (gaṇapāṭha) is a list of groups of primitive nominal stems used by the Ashtadhyayi.

Commentary

After Pāṇini, the Mahābhāṣya ("great commentary") of Patañjali on the Ashtadhyayi is one of the three most famous works in Sanskrit grammar. It was with Patañjali that Indian linguistic science reached its definite form. The system thus established is extremely detailed as to shiksha (phonology, including accent) and vyakarana (morphology). Syntax is scarcely touched, but nirukta (etymology) is discussed, and these etymologies naturally lead to semantic explanations. People interpret his work to be a defence of Pāṇini, whose Sūtras are elaborated meaningfully. He also attacks Katyayana rather severely. But the main contributions of Patañjali lies in the treatment of the principles of grammar enunciated by him.

Editions

• Otto Böhtlingk, Panini's Grammatik 1887, reprint 1998 ISBN 3-87548-198-4
• Katre, Sumitra M., Astadhyayi of Panini, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. Reprint Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989. ISBN 0-292-70394-5
• Misra, Vidya Niwas, The Descriptive Technique of Panini, Mouton and Co., 1966.
• The Ashtadhyayi.(of Pāṇini) Translated into English by Srisa Chandra Vasu (1897), from this archive.

Bhaṭṭikāvya

Main article: Bhaṭṭikāvya

The learning of Indian curriculum in late classical times had at its heart a system of grammatical study and linguistic analysis. The core text for this study was the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, the sine qua non of learning. This grammar of Pāṇini had been the object of intense study for the ten centuries prior to the composition of the Bhaṭṭikāvya. It was plainly 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 the gripping and morally improving story of the Rāmāyaṇa. To the dry bones of this grammar Bhaṭṭi has given juicy flesh in his poem. 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.
Bhaṭṭikāvya 22.33–34.

Modern linguistics

Pāṇini's work became known in 19th-century Europe, where it influenced modern linguistics initially through Franz Bopp, who mainly looked at Pāṇini. Subsequently, a wider body of work influenced Sanskrit scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Leonard Bloomfield, and Roman 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 by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1894 and developed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 – has origins in the European exposure to the formal rules of Pāṇinian grammar. In particular, de Saussure, who lectured on Sanskrit for three decades, may have been influenced by Pāṇini and Bhartrihari; his idea of the unity of signifier-signified in the sign somewhat resembles the notion of Sphoṭa. 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.

De Saussure

Pāṇini, and the later Indian linguist Bhartrihari, had a significant influence on many of the foundational ideas proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure, professor of Sanskrit, who is widely considered the father of modern structural linguistics. Saussure himself cited Indian grammar as an influence on some of his ideas. In his Mémoire 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 "reduplicated aorists represent imperfects of a verbal class." In his De l'emploi du génitif absolu en sanscrit (On the Use of the Genitive Absolute in Sanskrit) published in 1881, he specifically mentions Pāṇini as an influence on the work.

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 the laryngeal 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's Mémoire, however, it shows no direct influence of Paninian grammar. Indeed, on occasion, Saussure follows a path that is contrary to Paninian procedure."

Leonard Bloomfield

The founding father of American structuralism, Leonard Bloomfield, wrote a 1927 paper titled "On some rules of Pāṇini".

Comparison with modern formal systems

Pāṇini's grammar is the world's first formal system, developed well before the 19th century innovations of Gottlob Frege and the subsequent development of mathematical logic. In designing his grammar, Pāṇini used the method of "auxiliary symbols", in which new affixes are designated to mark syntactic categories and the control of grammatical derivations. This technique, rediscovered by the logician Emil Post, became a standard method in the design of computer programming languages. Sanskritists now accept that Pāṇini's linguistic apparatus is well-described as an "applied" Post system. Considerable evidence shows ancient mastery of context-sensitive grammars, and a general ability to solve many complex problems. Frits Staal has written that "Panini is the Indian Euclid."

Other works

Two literary works are attributed to Pāṇini, though they are now lost.

• Jāmbavati Vijaya is a lost work cited by one Rajashekhar in Jahlana's Sukti Muktāvalī. A fragment is to be found in Ramayukta's commentary on Namalinganushasana. From the title it may be inferred that the work dealt with Krishna's winning of Jambavati in the underworld as his bride. Rajashekhara in Jahlana's Sukti Muktāvalī:

नमः पाणिनये तस्मै यस्मादाविर भूदिह।

आदौ व्याकरणं काव्यमनु जाम्बवतीजयम्॥

namaḥ pāṇinaye tasmai yasmādāvirabhūdiha।

ādau vyākaraṇaṃ kāvyamanu jāmbavatījayam॥

• Ascribed to Pāṇini, Pātāla Vijaya is a lost work cited by Namisadhu in his commentary on Kavyalankara of Rudrata.

In popular culture

India released a stamp in honour of Panini in 2004. There is also a Panini temple (Panini Smarak Mandir) in Kashi, built on soil brought from Panini's birthplace in Pakistan.

See also

• Sanskrit grammarians
• Bhaṭṭikāvya
• Pingala
• seṭ and aniṭ roots
• List of Indian mathematicians

References

Bibliography

• Pāṇini. Ashtādhyāyī. Book 4. Translated by Chandra Vasu. Benares, 1896. (Sanskrit)(English)
• Pāṇini. Ashtādhyāyī. Book 6–8. Translated by Chandra Vasu. Benares, 1897. (Sanskrit)(English)
• . 2000.
• T. R. N. Rao. Pāṇini-backus form of languages. 1998.
• Tiwary, Kapil Muni 1968 Pāṇini's description of nominal compounds, University of Pennsylvania doctoral dissertation, unpublished.
• Ingerman suggests that the then-called Backus Normal Form be renamed to the Pāṇini-Backus Form, to give due credit to Pāṇini as the earliest independent inventor.

External links

• PaSSim – Paninian Sanskrit Simulator simulates the Pāṇinian Process of word formation
• The system of Panini
• Ganakastadhyayi, a software on Sanskrit grammar, based on Pāṇini's Sutras
• Forizs, L. Panini, Nagarjuna and Whitehead – The Relevance of Whitehead for Contemporary Buddhist Philosophy
• The Astadhyayi of Panini, with the Mahabhashya and Kashika commentaries, along with the Nyasa and Padamanjara commentaries on the Kashika. (PDF) Sanskrit.