Written by London Swaminathan
Post No.7684
Date uploaded in London – 12 March 2020
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AGRAWALA, BURNELL, COLBROOK, GOLDSTUCKER MACDONNELL, WEBER QUOTES ON PANINI
Panini lived 2700 years ago in North West India. Great Sanskrit scholars of India and abroad place him before the Buddha. His grammar is closer to Vedic Sanskrit than the classical Sanskrit. More over Patanjali’s huge Mahabhashya must have been written at least 500 years after Panini. When we look at other ‘sutra’ literature, we see a big gap between the original and the commentary.
“The Sanskrit grammarians were the first to analyse word forms, to recognise the difference between the root and the suffix, to determine the functions of suffixes and on the whole to elaborate a grammatical system to accurate and complete as to be unparalleled in any other country”-Macdonell, India’s Past, p 136
“The celebrated grammar of Panini is the oldest surviving representative of this elaborate grammatical analysis of forms and linguistic investigation.
Panini is the architect of the magnificent edifice known as the Ashtadhyayi, which justly commands the wonder and admiration of the world”—V S Agrawala
Weber regards Panini’s grammar as
“Superior to all similar works of other countries, by the thoroughness with which it investigates the roots the language and the formation of its words”–
History of Indian Literature, p.216
According to Goldstucker
“Panini’s work is indeed a kind of natural history of the Sanskrit language. His grammar is the centre of a vast and important branch of ancient literature. No work has struck deeper roots than his in the soil of the scientific development of India”.
The characteristic feature of Panini’s system is that it derives words from verbal roots. He has given us a comprehensive list of suffixes and roots.
As Colebrook has put it,
“the Ashtadhyayi certainly bears internal evidence of its having accomplished by a single effort.”
According to Burnell,
“Paninis grammar, in all probability, been little tampered with; we have better warrant for its integrity than in the case of any other work”.
On the Aindra School of Sanskrit grammarians
Bhagavan Panini!
Patanjali, the author of Mahabhashya, has applied his master mind to reveal the depth and range of Panini’s scholarship. Like Katyayana, Patanjali applies the term Bhagawan exclusively to Panini in recognition of his supreme position in the field of study he had made his own.
Greatest of the modern Tamil poets Subrahmanya Bharati praised him as the scholar who has produced ‘an incredible work’..
Dr S Radhakrishnan, philosopher and President of India writes,
“Two works on dramaturgy , one by Silali and the other by Krsasva , are referred to by Panini. They show that the dramatic art in India existed long before its rise in Greece.We have lost those works”.
Of Panini’s Sanskrit grammar, which could be printed in about 35 pages of quarto size, the late professor A Macdonnell of Oxford said,
And yet this grammar describes the entire Sanskrit language in all the details of its structure with a completeness which has been never equalled elsewhere. It is at once the shortest and fullest grammar in the world.”
Kalhana in Rajatarangini
Being to the last degree one, who has achieved his tasks and helped to augment virtue, what is the difference between His Majesty J ayapida and Panini who has fully dealt with the Krthya suffixexs and made rules for Guna and Vrddhi.
During the time of the expounding of Mahabhasya through cleverly camaflouged verses , here is one attack on him which thr scholars circulated as follows,
He who has allwed himself to be eclipsed by the brahmins and who prescribes rules for the stability of society what is the difference between His Majesty Jayapida and Panini who has dealt with the prepositions Vi and P ra and laid down rules for the terminations of the past tense.
— Rajatarangini 4-635 to 637
The comment by R S Pandit on these three verses is
Each of the epithets has a three fold mwaning. One as applied to the grammarian and of the other two , one is in praise of Jayapida and the other in condemnation of him. The reference is to the illustrious grammarian Panini whose memory is kept ever green in India ,
Yena vyakaranam protam tasmai paninaye namah –
To Panini by whom was formulated grammar – a salutation.
tags – Panini, quotes, McDonnell, Burnell,
–SUBHAM–
