The
Sanskrit grammatical tradition of
(
Devanagari ) is one of the six
Vedanga disciplines. It has its roots in late
Vedic India, and includes the famous work, (ca.
4th century BCE).
The impetus for linguistic analysis and grammar in India originates in the need to be able to obtain a strict interpretation for the
Vedic texts.
The work of the very early Indian grammarians has been lost; for example, the work of
Sakatayana (roughly 8th c. BCE) is known only from cryptic references by
Yaska (ca. 6th-5th c. BCE) and
Panini. One of the views of Sakatayana that was to prove controversial in coming centuries was that most nouns are etymologically derivable from verbs.
In his monumental work on
etymology,
Nirukta, Yaska supported this claim based on the large number of nouns that were derived from verbs through a derivation process that became known as
krit-pratyaya;
this relates to the nature of the
root morphemes.
Yaska also provided the seeds for another debate, whether textual meaning inheres in the word (Yaska's view) or in the sentence (see Panini, and later grammarians such as
Prabhakara or
Bhartrihari). This debate continued into the 14th and 15th c. CE, and has echos in the present day in current debates about semantic
compositionality.
Pre-an schools
Panini's
Ashtadhyayi, which is said to have eclipsed all other contemporary schools of grammar, mentions the names of eleven schools of Sanskrit grammar that preceded it.
The scholars representative of these schools are:
- Sphoṭāyana (Pan. 6.1.123)
- Kuṇaravāḍava (Pan. 3.2.14; 7.3.1)
There is no surviving evidence of any of these schools that predates Panini except for
Yāska's
Nirukta. Yāska was a grammarian in the tradition of Śākaṭāyana who predated Panini by about a century.
In Yāska's time,
nirukta "etymology" was in fact a school in opposition to
vyakarana "grammar"
According to the
nairuktas or "etymologists", all nouns are derived from s verbal root. Yāska defends this view and attributes it to Śākaṭāyana.
Yāska also reports the view of Gārgya, who opposed Śākaṭāyana who held that certain nominal stems were 'atomic' and not to be derived from verbal roots
Of the remaining schools, we know only what Yaska, Panini and later authors attribute to them, their original works being lost. Śākalya is held to be the author of the
padapatha of the
Rigveda (a word-by-word analysis of the
mantra text).
school
extensive analysis of the processes of
phonology,
morphology and
syntax, the
, laid down the basis for centuries of commentaries and expositions by following Sanskrit grammarians.
approach was amazingly formal; his
production rules for deriving complex structures and sentences represent modern
finite state machines. Indeed many of the developments in
Indian Mathematics, especially the
place value notational system may have originated from analysis.
Panini's grammar consists of four parts:
- : list of roots (classes of verbal roots)
- : lists classes of primitive nominal stems
Commentators on Panini and some of their views:
- Kātyāyana (linguist and mathematician, 3rd c. BCE): that the word-meaning relation is siddha, i.e. given and non-decomposable, an idea that the Sanskriticist Ferdinand de Saussure called arbitrary. Word meanings refer to universals that are inherent in the word itself (close to a nominalist position).
- Patanjali (linguist and yoga sutras, 2nd c. BCE) - author of Mahabhashya. The notion of shabdapramânah - that the evidentiary value of words is inherent in them, and not derived externally. Not to be confused with the founder of the Yoga system.
- The Nyaya school, close to the realist position (as in Plato). Considers the word-meaning relation as created through human convention. Sentence meaning is principally determined by the main noun. uddyotkara, Vachaspati (sound-universals or phonemes)
- Bhartṛhari (c. 6th c. CE) that meaning is determined by larger contextual units than the word alone (holism).
- Bhaṭṭi (c. 7th c. CE) exemplified Pāṇini's rules in his courtly epic the Bhaṭṭikāvya.
Medieval Accounts
The earliest external historical accounts of Indian grammatical tradition is from Chinese
Buddhist pilgrims to India from the 7th century
.
The
Indica of
Al-Biruni (973-1048), dating to ca. 1030 contains detailed descriptions of all branches of Hindu science.
Mughal period
Early Modern (
Mughal period, 17th century) Indian linguists who revived Panini's school include
Bhattoji Dikshita and
Varadaraja.
Similar to the Chinese Buddhists,
Tibetan Buddhism aroused interest in India among its followers.
Taranatha (born 1573) in his treatise of the history of Buddhism in India (completed around 1608) speaks about Panini and provides some information about grammars, but not in the manner of a person familiar with their content.
Gaudiya Vaishnava Sanskrit grammar is outlined by
Jiva Goswami in his
.
Modern Sanskrit grammarians
Beginning of Western scholarship
19th century
20th century to present
