2022, Vol. 8, Issue 3, Part C

author(s)
Sulagna Lenka

abstract
Panini was the greatest grammarian and erudite author of Aṣtādhyāyi which is an innovative system and monumental work of about 4000 aphorisms. He has achieved universal recognition for producing the grammatical structure which provides a complete & concise analysis of the science of Sanskrit language. Being the inventive & creative grammarian Panini has analyzed a comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology and morphology. The different dates regarding birth for Panini are given in the 4th, 5th, 6th Century B.C Historically it is considered that he flourished during the period of fourth Century B.C and was born in shalatura is presently in Lahore, Pakisthan. The salient points of the topic is described herein in the form of abstract. A treatise called Aṣtādhyāyi consists of eight chapters (Adhyāyas) each chapter being again subdivided into quarter chapters (Four pādas). Aṣtādhyāyi basically highlights the difference between the language of Vedic texts, Vedic usage and the language used for communicating in day to day life regional variants. A basic set of rules are made on about 1700 basic elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, consonants etc. The Aṣtādhyāyi consists of following four components.a) Aṣtādhyāyi: A system of about 4000 grammatical rules.b) Sivasῡtras: The inventory of Phonological segments, partitioned markers (Anubandhas) to allow abbreviations for classes of segments to be formed by the pratyāhār.c) Dhātupātha (List of verbal roots): A list of about 2000 verbal roots with sub-classification and diacritic markers encoding their morphological and syntactic properties.d) Ganapātha (Various sets of nouns): An inventory of classes of lexical items of various rules. e) Lingānuśāsanam (System for deciding the gender): later grammarians considered the Panini, katyāyana and Patañjali as the thoritative Trimuni (Three Sages). Kāśika provides the most authentic commentary explicit rule-by-rule paraphrase of the Aṣtādhyāyi with appropriate examples. Bhattoji Dikṣit recognized the rules of Aṣtādhyāyi according to topic and rearranged as Siddhāntakoumudi for clear understanding of Panini’s whole system.