The development of Sanskrit grammar on pre-pāṇinian stage
Dr. Arindam Mondal
Sanskrit Language has a greater stock of words than any other language ever known to the philological world. It proves the intellectual capacity of the Indo-Aryans in early days. Sanskrit language is grave and serious. There are two types of Languages – Vedic and Classical Sanskrit Language. As per Veda, such process is an ancient root that it is quite different from the Classical Sanskrit Language. Ācārya Pāṇini wrote the grammar of both the Veda and Classical Sanskrit language. The grammar of Sanskrit language has grown spontaneously with the utterance of meaningful sentences. The sentence is a collection of words in proper order to express proper sense. Sanskrit grammar has got the unique position of a chequered history of evolution through a considerable number of schools, Pre-Pāṇinian, Pāṇinian and post-Pāṇinian, each having a vast literature comprising sūtra text, commentaries, appendix and the like. The theory of grammar relating to the history of Sanskrit grammar focuses on Panini as point of reference to determine the division of historical ages. The first of the three ages is the Pre-Pāṇinian age. It is not sure when the grammar practice during Pre-Pāṇinian age started or who started it, but it can generally be said that practice of Sanskrit grammar began after some period of the discovery and introduction of Sanskrit language. Now I am discussing about the development of Sanskrit Grammar on Pre-Pāṇinian stage.