About PANINI
Born: about 520 BC in Shalatula (near Attock), now Pakistan.Died: about 460 BC in India.
Panini was born in Shalatula, a town near to Attock on the Indus River in present day Pakistan. The dates given for Panini are pure guesses. Experts give dates in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th century BC and there is also no agreement among historians about the extent of the work, which he undertook. What is in little doubt is that, given the period in which he worked, he is one of the most innovative people in the whole development of knowledge. We will say a little more below about how historians have gone about trying to pinpoint the date when Panini lived.
Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian who gave a comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology, and morphology. Sanskrit was the classical literary language of the Indian Hindus and Panini is considered the founder of the language and literature. It is interesting to note that the word "Sanskrit" means "complete" or "perfect" and it was thought of as the divine language, or language of the gods.
Following in the steps of the Brahmi alphabet makers, he became the most renowned of the grammarians. His work on Sanskrit, with its 4,168 rules, is outstanding for its highly systematic methods of analyzing and describing language.
The birth of linguistic science in Western Europe in the 19th century was due largely to the European discovery of Panini's Sanskrit grammar, making linguistics a science. The modern science of linguistics is the basis for producing alphabets for languages yet unwritten today.
Arguably, no grammarian has had as much influence over the grammar of any language as much as Panini has had over Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini was a Vaishnav grammarian from approximately the 5th cent BC. The Ashtadhyayi was his magnum opus. The book completely standardized Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini's grammar became widely accepted and is still the standard (a common way to classify ancient Sanskrit books is to classify them as Pre-Panini or Post-Panini).
However, Panini's stroke of brilliance lies in the fact that the grammar he wrote, in addition to being a descriptive grammar, is also a generative grammar. Panini used metarules, transformations, and recursion in such sophistication that his grammar has the computing power equivalent to a Turing machine. The Backus-Naur Form or BNF grammars used to describe modern programming languages have significant similarities with Panini's grammar rules. In applying his rules to Sanskrit verse he used such texts as the Hindu Shiva Sutras, thereby establishing principles of harmony and linguistic wholeness
[Sanskrit's] potential for scientific use was greatly enhanced as a result of the thorough systemization of its grammar by Panini. ... On the basis of just under 4000 sutras [rules expressed as aphorisms], he built virtually the whole structure of the Sanskrit language, whose general 'shape' hardly changed for the next two thousand years. ... An indirect consequence of Panini's efforts to increase the linguistic facility of Sanskrit soon became apparent in the character of scientific and mathematical literature. This may be brought out by comparing the grammar of Sanskrit with the geometry of Euclid - a particularly apposite comparison since, whereas mathematics grew out of philosophy in ancient Greece, it was ... partly an outcome of linguistic developments in India.
ASHTADYAYI
A treatise called Astadhyayi (or Astaka) is Panini's major work. It consists of eight chapters, each subdivided into quarter chapters. In this work Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. Starting with about 1700 basic elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, consonants he put them into classes. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory. In many ways Panini's constructions are similar to the way that a mathematical function is defined today.
In a treatise called Astadhyayi Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory.
The Ashtadhyayi (Ashtādhyāyī, meaning "eight chapters") is the earliest known grammar of Sanskrit, and one of the first works on descriptive linguistics, generative linguistics, or linguistics altogether. It was composed roughly around 400 BC by the Indian grammarian Panini, and it describes the grammar of Sanskrit completely. Its mathematical structure has been compared to that of the Turing machine.
Panini's work had a phenomenal success, and later Indian grammarians were essentially reduced to the role of his commentators. His work is still used, or at least referred to, in the teaching of Sanskrit today. Today the formal languages of Computers are trying to study Ashtadhyayi from a computational linguistics point of view.
Panini's grammar consists of several parts, of which the Ashtadhyayi contains the morphological rules:
Shiva Sutras (phonology)
Ashtadhyayi (morphology)
Dhatupatha (lexicon of verbal roots)
Ganapatha (lists of classes of words)
The Ashtadhyayi consists of 3,959 sutrani or rules (Aphorisms), distributed among eight chapters, which are each subdivided into four sections or padas.
Being composed with the maximum conceivable brevity, this grammar describes the entire Sanskrit language in all the details of its structure, with a unity which has never been equaled elsewhere. It is at once the shortest and fullest grammar in the world. The grammar of Panini is a 'sabdanusasana,' or 'Treatise on Words', the cardinal principle of which is, that all nouns are derived from verbs, and because of this belief it was natural that the Sanskrit copula should also be categorized as a verb. It is tempting to speculate that maybe it was Panini's inclusion of the copula as a verb that influenced the Greek grammarians to wrongfully classify the 'be' word as a verb, but there is no evidence that the early Greek grammarians ever read the Sanskrit grammar of Panini, although there was communication between the Greek classical world and that of the Indian northwest, and some of the ancient Vedic scholars may well have been known to the Greeks and possibly vice versa.
There are ten scholars mentioned by Panini and we must assume from the context that these ten have all contributed to the study of Sanskrit grammar. This in itself, of course, indicates that Panini was not a solitary genius but, like Newton, had "stood on the shoulders of giants". Now Panini must have lived later than these ten but this is absolutely no help in providing dates since we have absolutely no knowledge of when any of these ten lived.
NATURE OF ASHTADYAYI
Panini's grammar is written in a sutra style. The term sutra means string or thread. It represents a particular type of style in Sanskrit literature.
The definition of sutra is follows:
alpaaksaram asandigdham shaasvad vishvatomukhamaStobham anavadyam ca sUtram sUtravido viduh //
It means that the scholars who know what a sutra is understand sutra to be holy, consisting of a few letters, containing clarity, having the essence, open on all sides, without ambiguity.
Panini's sutras are regarded as the most ideal illustration of the sutra style. However, the sutra style of the composition came into existence even before him. Many had composed their grammars in sutra style.
ECONOMY OF EXPRESSION.
Panini has made use of a number of devices to achieve economy of expression. It is because of these devices that Panini could compose the grammar of the Sanskrit Language, both Vedic and non-Vedic, only in 4000 rules. The technique of anuvrtti and adhikaara, the use of Anubandhas, the use of pratyaahaaras are some of the prominent devices employed by Panini to achieve brevity.
ASHTADYAYI - A DERIVATIONAL GRAMMAR.
Panini's work is devoted to the description of Sanskrit language. At the outset, it must be pointed out that, Panini's avowed goal was to provide an adequate descriptive grammar for Sanskrit and not to make a semantic analysis of the language. As a result, PaaNini focused only on deriving grammatically correct phrases and sentences, and not on the derivational process involving a number of syntactical, morphological and phonological operations. Thus, Panini's grammar is primarily a derivational grammar.
Panini reduced almost all the grammatical notions to the level of morphemes. For instance, from the Paninian point of view, concepts such as person, tense and case are nothing but a set of suffixes expressing these ideas.
PANINIAN APPROACH TO LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY IN ASHTADYAYI.
It is known that Panini's Ashtadhyayi is not philosophical in nature. However, this does not mean that it totally lacks the philosophical import. Panini's Ashtadhyayi is storehouse of linguistics theories. Though PaaNini did not write any theoretical treatise on language, his Ashtadhyayi uses and presupposes linguistic theories. Paninian sutras reveal that a strong and full-fledged system of linguistic concepts underlies them. Therefore, all the linguistic philosophers and grammarians like Patanjali, Katyaayna and Bhartrhari, et al. drew upon Paninian sutras and quoted them as proof for various kinds of linguistics theories and philosophical concepts.
For example, Patanjali, while discussing two-fold nature of the meaning as universal and particular, quotes Panini as authority behind his assumption. According to Patanjali, Panini has accepted views, Universal and particular, as the import of word. Panini's Sutra 'jaatyaakhyaamekasminbahuvacanamanyatarasyaam' is based on the assumption that the primary sense of word is universal. On the other hand, the sutra 'sarUpaaNaamekasheSa ekavibhaktau' is based on the view that the primary sense of it is the particular.
PANINI'S USE OF SEMANTIC ASPECTS.
Panini made use of semantic aspects in his grammar in three main ways. They are:
1. Panini used semantic concepts, i.e. vartamaana (present time), bahutva (plurality) as a starting point in his grammar to derive the corresponding phonological forms by a series of replacement rules.
2. As far as it was possible, he used semantic concepts for grouping words and stems to form class system (for example, varNa 'color words').
3. The shades of meaning were conveyed by the whole derived words (consisting of the root and suffixes or compound).
In addition, Panini utilized semantic markers to distinguish members of groups of semantically related words when this is required for the correct description of the data.
1. Domestic animals (pashu)
2. Tree (vrkSa)
3. Grain (dhaanya)
Thus, it can be said that Panini’s use of semantic aspects of the word was limited to the derivation of correct forms, and therefore can be called as secondary.
“Panini's grammar has been evaluated from various points of view. After all these different evaluations, we know that the grammar merits are asserting ... that, it is one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence.”
Born: about 520 BC in Shalatula (near Attock), now Pakistan.Died: about 460 BC in India.
Panini was born in Shalatula, a town near to Attock on the Indus River in present day Pakistan. The dates given for Panini are pure guesses. Experts give dates in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th century BC and there is also no agreement among historians about the extent of the work, which he undertook. What is in little doubt is that, given the period in which he worked, he is one of the most innovative people in the whole development of knowledge. We will say a little more below about how historians have gone about trying to pinpoint the date when Panini lived.
Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian who gave a comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology, and morphology. Sanskrit was the classical literary language of the Indian Hindus and Panini is considered the founder of the language and literature. It is interesting to note that the word "Sanskrit" means "complete" or "perfect" and it was thought of as the divine language, or language of the gods.
Following in the steps of the Brahmi alphabet makers, he became the most renowned of the grammarians. His work on Sanskrit, with its 4,168 rules, is outstanding for its highly systematic methods of analyzing and describing language.
The birth of linguistic science in Western Europe in the 19th century was due largely to the European discovery of Panini's Sanskrit grammar, making linguistics a science. The modern science of linguistics is the basis for producing alphabets for languages yet unwritten today.
Arguably, no grammarian has had as much influence over the grammar of any language as much as Panini has had over Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini was a Vaishnav grammarian from approximately the 5th cent BC. The Ashtadhyayi was his magnum opus. The book completely standardized Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini's grammar became widely accepted and is still the standard (a common way to classify ancient Sanskrit books is to classify them as Pre-Panini or Post-Panini).
However, Panini's stroke of brilliance lies in the fact that the grammar he wrote, in addition to being a descriptive grammar, is also a generative grammar. Panini used metarules, transformations, and recursion in such sophistication that his grammar has the computing power equivalent to a Turing machine. The Backus-Naur Form or BNF grammars used to describe modern programming languages have significant similarities with Panini's grammar rules. In applying his rules to Sanskrit verse he used such texts as the Hindu Shiva Sutras, thereby establishing principles of harmony and linguistic wholeness
[Sanskrit's] potential for scientific use was greatly enhanced as a result of the thorough systemization of its grammar by Panini. ... On the basis of just under 4000 sutras [rules expressed as aphorisms], he built virtually the whole structure of the Sanskrit language, whose general 'shape' hardly changed for the next two thousand years. ... An indirect consequence of Panini's efforts to increase the linguistic facility of Sanskrit soon became apparent in the character of scientific and mathematical literature. This may be brought out by comparing the grammar of Sanskrit with the geometry of Euclid - a particularly apposite comparison since, whereas mathematics grew out of philosophy in ancient Greece, it was ... partly an outcome of linguistic developments in India.
ASHTADYAYI
A treatise called Astadhyayi (or Astaka) is Panini's major work. It consists of eight chapters, each subdivided into quarter chapters. In this work Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. Starting with about 1700 basic elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, consonants he put them into classes. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory. In many ways Panini's constructions are similar to the way that a mathematical function is defined today.
In a treatise called Astadhyayi Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory.
The Ashtadhyayi (Ashtādhyāyī, meaning "eight chapters") is the earliest known grammar of Sanskrit, and one of the first works on descriptive linguistics, generative linguistics, or linguistics altogether. It was composed roughly around 400 BC by the Indian grammarian Panini, and it describes the grammar of Sanskrit completely. Its mathematical structure has been compared to that of the Turing machine.
Panini's work had a phenomenal success, and later Indian grammarians were essentially reduced to the role of his commentators. His work is still used, or at least referred to, in the teaching of Sanskrit today. Today the formal languages of Computers are trying to study Ashtadhyayi from a computational linguistics point of view.
Panini's grammar consists of several parts, of which the Ashtadhyayi contains the morphological rules:
Shiva Sutras (phonology)
Ashtadhyayi (morphology)
Dhatupatha (lexicon of verbal roots)
Ganapatha (lists of classes of words)
The Ashtadhyayi consists of 3,959 sutrani or rules (Aphorisms), distributed among eight chapters, which are each subdivided into four sections or padas.
Being composed with the maximum conceivable brevity, this grammar describes the entire Sanskrit language in all the details of its structure, with a unity which has never been equaled elsewhere. It is at once the shortest and fullest grammar in the world. The grammar of Panini is a 'sabdanusasana,' or 'Treatise on Words', the cardinal principle of which is, that all nouns are derived from verbs, and because of this belief it was natural that the Sanskrit copula should also be categorized as a verb. It is tempting to speculate that maybe it was Panini's inclusion of the copula as a verb that influenced the Greek grammarians to wrongfully classify the 'be' word as a verb, but there is no evidence that the early Greek grammarians ever read the Sanskrit grammar of Panini, although there was communication between the Greek classical world and that of the Indian northwest, and some of the ancient Vedic scholars may well have been known to the Greeks and possibly vice versa.
There are ten scholars mentioned by Panini and we must assume from the context that these ten have all contributed to the study of Sanskrit grammar. This in itself, of course, indicates that Panini was not a solitary genius but, like Newton, had "stood on the shoulders of giants". Now Panini must have lived later than these ten but this is absolutely no help in providing dates since we have absolutely no knowledge of when any of these ten lived.
NATURE OF ASHTADYAYI
Panini's grammar is written in a sutra style. The term sutra means string or thread. It represents a particular type of style in Sanskrit literature.
The definition of sutra is follows:
alpaaksaram asandigdham shaasvad vishvatomukhamaStobham anavadyam ca sUtram sUtravido viduh //
It means that the scholars who know what a sutra is understand sutra to be holy, consisting of a few letters, containing clarity, having the essence, open on all sides, without ambiguity.
Panini's sutras are regarded as the most ideal illustration of the sutra style. However, the sutra style of the composition came into existence even before him. Many had composed their grammars in sutra style.
ECONOMY OF EXPRESSION.
Panini has made use of a number of devices to achieve economy of expression. It is because of these devices that Panini could compose the grammar of the Sanskrit Language, both Vedic and non-Vedic, only in 4000 rules. The technique of anuvrtti and adhikaara, the use of Anubandhas, the use of pratyaahaaras are some of the prominent devices employed by Panini to achieve brevity.
ASHTADYAYI - A DERIVATIONAL GRAMMAR.
Panini's work is devoted to the description of Sanskrit language. At the outset, it must be pointed out that, Panini's avowed goal was to provide an adequate descriptive grammar for Sanskrit and not to make a semantic analysis of the language. As a result, PaaNini focused only on deriving grammatically correct phrases and sentences, and not on the derivational process involving a number of syntactical, morphological and phonological operations. Thus, Panini's grammar is primarily a derivational grammar.
Panini reduced almost all the grammatical notions to the level of morphemes. For instance, from the Paninian point of view, concepts such as person, tense and case are nothing but a set of suffixes expressing these ideas.
PANINIAN APPROACH TO LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY IN ASHTADYAYI.
It is known that Panini's Ashtadhyayi is not philosophical in nature. However, this does not mean that it totally lacks the philosophical import. Panini's Ashtadhyayi is storehouse of linguistics theories. Though PaaNini did not write any theoretical treatise on language, his Ashtadhyayi uses and presupposes linguistic theories. Paninian sutras reveal that a strong and full-fledged system of linguistic concepts underlies them. Therefore, all the linguistic philosophers and grammarians like Patanjali, Katyaayna and Bhartrhari, et al. drew upon Paninian sutras and quoted them as proof for various kinds of linguistics theories and philosophical concepts.
For example, Patanjali, while discussing two-fold nature of the meaning as universal and particular, quotes Panini as authority behind his assumption. According to Patanjali, Panini has accepted views, Universal and particular, as the import of word. Panini's Sutra 'jaatyaakhyaamekasminbahuvacanamanyatarasyaam' is based on the assumption that the primary sense of word is universal. On the other hand, the sutra 'sarUpaaNaamekasheSa ekavibhaktau' is based on the view that the primary sense of it is the particular.
PANINI'S USE OF SEMANTIC ASPECTS.
Panini made use of semantic aspects in his grammar in three main ways. They are:
1. Panini used semantic concepts, i.e. vartamaana (present time), bahutva (plurality) as a starting point in his grammar to derive the corresponding phonological forms by a series of replacement rules.
2. As far as it was possible, he used semantic concepts for grouping words and stems to form class system (for example, varNa 'color words').
3. The shades of meaning were conveyed by the whole derived words (consisting of the root and suffixes or compound).
In addition, Panini utilized semantic markers to distinguish members of groups of semantically related words when this is required for the correct description of the data.
1. Domestic animals (pashu)
2. Tree (vrkSa)
3. Grain (dhaanya)
Thus, it can be said that Panini’s use of semantic aspects of the word was limited to the derivation of correct forms, and therefore can be called as secondary.
“Panini's grammar has been evaluated from various points of view. After all these different evaluations, we know that the grammar merits are asserting ... that, it is one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence.”
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