The oldest grammarian of India, whose complete work has come down to us, is Panini, who is also, in many respects, the greatest of all Indian grammarians. His monumental work is entitled Astadhyayi, lit. 'The Eight Chapters'. He has developed a special grammatical language with its own technical terms and indications of each letter, which is termed by a modern scholar as 'metalanguage'. It is to be noted that Panini's Vyakarana, i.e. grammar, does not consist of the Astadhyayi alone. The Vyakarana is called 'pancanga', (lit.) having five limbs, i.e. having, besides Astadhyayi., four supplementary texts, viz. (1) Dhatupatha—a register of verbal roots, (2) Ganapatha—a list of words, belonging to particular groups; the first word of each group having been mentioned in a particular sutra of the Astadhyayi, (3) The Paribhasas—formulations of guiding principles, and (4) Linganusasana—a treatise on the science of gender of Sanskrit words. There are many vulgate editions of the works of Panini. It has been found from experience that the edition prepared by C. Sankararama Sastri and published as No. 2 of the Balamanorama series by Balamanorama Press, Madras, in 1937 (2nd ed.) is by far the best one. It not only presents a very accurate text of the Astadhyayi, the Varttikas, the Ganapatha, and the Dhatupatha, but places all die authentic varttikas and ganas below the relevant sutras. Placing the ganas just below the sutras which refer to them with the words such as adi or prabhrti proves to be very useful to the students. The present edition is a reprint of the Balamanorama edition with an elaborate introduction, by Dr. Ratna Basu, of the University of Calcutta, bringing out the greatness of the tradition of grammatical literature in India in general and of the contribution of Panini to the science of the Sanskrit language, in particular. An index of the sutras has been appended to this edition to facilitate ready referencing.

About the Author