THREAD
On the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini, who lived, um, at some point. Let’s say 6-5th century BCE. Author of the amazing Aṣṭādhyāyī (Book in Eight Chapters).
On the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini, who lived, um, at some point. Let’s say 6-5th century BCE. Author of the amazing Aṣṭādhyāyī (Book in Eight Chapters).
Pāṇini wrote in the aphorism (sutra) style, delineating the grammar of Sanskrit. This would have been of religious significance, since it is the language of the Veda.
In the second century CE his commentator Patañjali wrote an influential commentary on it, and said “grammar should be studied for the sake of the preservation of the Vedas.” He spent 85 days of teaching commenting on 1701 of Pāṇini’s sutras.
Like Aristotle in his logical works, Pāṇini uses placeholder variables to bring out the structure of sentences; he also identifies six syntactic roles (kārakas) that words can play, agent, patient, instrument, donor, target, and locus.
This grammar was empirically based; as Patañjali said, “if you want pots, go to a potter, but if you want words, don’t go to a grammarian.”
This tradition has been explored as anticipating the modern-day discipline of linguistics, e.g. in Kiparsky, Some Theoretical Problems in Pāṇini’s Grammar and Sharma, The Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini. And this work by Kapoor:
To learn more about ancient Sanskrit grammarians and their philosophical relevance see our episode of the History of Philosophy in India:
historyofphilosophy.net/panini-grammar
historyofphilosophy.net/panini-grammar
