ASHTADHYAYI - ART AND CULTURE
News: ‘Grammar’s
greatest puzzle’: What was the Sanskrit problem in Panini’s ‘Ashtadhyayi’, now
solved by an Indian student?
What's in the news?
● In
his PhD thesis published on December 15, Cambridge
scholar Dr. Rishi Rajpopat claims to have solved Sanskrit’s biggest puzzle - a
grammar problem found in the ‘Ashtadhyayi’, an ancient text written by the
scholar Panini towards the end of the 4th century BC.
● Experts
are calling the discovery revolutionary, as it may allow Panini’s grammar to be
taught to computers for the first time.
Panini, the ‘father of linguistics’:
● Panini
probably lived in the 4th century BC, the age of the conquests of Alexander and
the founding of the Mauryan Empire, even though he has also been dated to the
6th century BC, the age of The Buddha and Mahavira.
‘Ashtadhyayi’, or ‘Eight Chapters’ - Panini’s great
grammar:
● It
is a linguistics text that set the standard for how Sanskrit was meant to be written and spoken.
● The
Ashtadhyayi laid down more than 4,000
grammatical rules, couched in a sort of shorthand, which employs single
letters or syllables for the names of the cases, moods, persons, tenses, etc.
in which linguistic phenomena are classified.
Significance:
● By
the time it was composed, Sanskrit had virtually reached its classical form and
developed little thereafter, except in its vocabulary.
● Panini’s
grammar, which built on the work of many earlier grammarians, effectively
stabilized the Sanskrit language.
● Panini’s
grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient
civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the
19th century in any part of the world.
● The
earlier works had recognised the root as the basic element of a word, and had
classified some 2,000 monosyllabic roots which, with the addition of prefixes,
suffixes and inflexions, were thought to provide all the words of the language.
Commentaries on Panini:
● Later
Indian grammars such as the Mahabhasya
of Patanjali (2nd century BC) and the Kashika Vritti of Jayaditya and Vamana
(7th century AD).