The
SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
grammatical tradition of
is one of the six
VedangaThe Vedanga are six auxiliary disciplines traditionally associated with the study and understanding of the Vedas.#Shiksha : phonetics, phonology and morphophonology #Kalpa : ritual#Vyakarana : grammar...
disciplines. It has its roots in late Vedic India, and includes the famous work, (c. 4th century BCE).
The impetus for linguistic analysis and grammar in India originates in the need to be able to obtain a strict interpretation of the
Vedic textsThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
.
The work of the very early Indian grammarians has been lost; for example, the work of
Sakatayana' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(roughly 8th c. BCE) is known only from cryptic references by
Yaska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
(ca. 6th–5th c. BCE) and Pāṇini. One of the views of Sakatayana that was to prove controversial in coming centuries was that most nouns can be derived etymologically from verbs.
In his monumental work on
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
,
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
rootThe root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
morphemes.
Yaska also provided the seeds for another debate, whether textual meaning is inherent in the word (Yaska's view) or in the sentence (see Pāṇini, and later grammarians such as
PrabhakaraPrabhākara was an Indian philosopher grammarian in the Mimamsa tradition. His views and his debate with led to the Prābhākara school within Mimamsa.Commentaries on Prabhakara have been written by Shalikanatha in the 8th c....
or Bhartrihari). This debate continued into the 14th and 15th c. CE, and has echoes in the present day in current debates about semantic compositionality.
Pre-an schools
Pāṇini's
Ashtadhyayi, which is said to have eclipsed all other contemporary schools of grammar, mentions the names of nine grammarians. A number of predecessors are referred to by Yāska, who is thought to have flourished a couple of centuries before Panini
(c. 800 BCE).
Many of these individual names actually reflect the opinion of different schools of thought. Some of these pre-Paninian names of individuals / schools are:
- Agrayana
- Aindra
The Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar is one of the eleven schools of Sanskrit grammar mentioned in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi. It is named after Indra in allusion to Lord Indra, the king of Gods in Hindu mythology. Arthur Coke Burnell, a renowned orientologist, in his 1875 book, "On the Aindra school...
- Āpiśali (Pan. 6.1.92)
- Aupamanyava
- Aurnabhava (Nir. 6.13, also
- Cakravarmaṇa (Pan. 6.1.130)
- Gālava (Nir. 4.3
- Gārgya
Gārgya is an Indian patronymic and may refer to:* a king of the Gandharvas* a grammarian predating Pāṇini, see Vyakarana* the author of the Samaveda-Padapatha* a Brahmin gotra...
- Kāśyapa (Pan. 8.4.67)
- Kāṣakṛtsna
- Katthakya
- Kautsa
- krauSTuki (Nir. 8.2)
- Kuṇaravāḍava (Pan. 3.2.14; 7.3.1)
- Śākalya
- Śākaṭāyana
' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(c. 800BCE)
- Senaka (Pan. 5.4.112)
- Shakapuni
- Sphoṭāyana (Pan. 6.1.123)
The works of most these authors are lost but we find reference of their ideas in the commentaries and rebuttals by later authors.
Yāska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
's
NiruktaNirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...
is one of the earlier surviving texts, and he mentions Śākaṭāyana, krauSTuki, gArgya, etc.
In Yāska's time,
nirukta "etymology" was in fact a school which gave information of formation of words. The etymological derivation of words. According to the
nairuktas or "etymologists", all nouns are derived from s verbal root. Yāska defends this view and attributes it to Śākaṭāyana. While others believed that there are some words which are "Rudhi Words". 'Rudhi" means custom. Meaning they are a part of language due to custom, and a correspondence between the word and the thing if it be a noun or correspondence between an act and the word if it be a verbroot. Such word can not be derived from verbal roots.
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, Śākalya is held to be the author of the padapatha of the
RigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
(a word-by-word pronunciation scheme, aiding memory, for ritual texts).
school
extensive analysis of the processes of
phonologyPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
,
morphologyIn linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and
syntaxIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, the
, laid down the basis for centuries of commentaries and expositions by following Sanskrit grammarians.
approach was amazingly formal; his
production ruleProduction rule may refer to:*For production rules used in business rule engines, cognitive modeling and artificial intelligence, see production system*For production rules that expand nodes in formal grammars, see formal grammar-See also:...
s for deriving complex structures and sentences represent modern
finite state machineA finite-state machine or finite-state automaton , or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model used to design computer programs and digital logic circuits. It is conceived as an abstract machine that can be in one of a finite number of states...
s. Indeed many of the developments in
Indian MathematicsIndian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics , important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. The decimal number system in use today was first...
, especially the place value notational system may have originated from analysis.
Pāṇini's grammar consists of four parts:
- Śivasūtra: phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
(notations for phonemes specified in 14 lines)
-
{{Hindu scriptures}}
The SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
grammatical tradition of {{IAST|vyākaraṇa}} ({{lang-sa|व्याकरण}}, ʋjɑːkərəɳə) is one of the six VedangaThe Vedanga are six auxiliary disciplines traditionally associated with the study and understanding of the Vedas.#Shiksha : phonetics, phonology and morphophonology #Kalpa : ritual#Vyakarana : grammar...
disciplines. It has its roots in late Vedic India, and includes the famous work, {{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī, of Pāṇini}} (c. 4th century BCE).
The impetus for linguistic analysis and grammar in India originates in the need to be able to obtain a strict interpretation of the Vedic textsThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}}
The work of the very early Indian grammarians has been lost; for example, the work of Sakatayana' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(roughly 8th c. BCE) is known only from cryptic references by Yaska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
(ca. 6th–5th c. BCE) and Pāṇini. One of the views of Sakatayana that was to prove controversial in coming centuries was that most nouns can be derived etymologically from verbs.
In his monumental work on etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
, 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 rootThe root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
morphemes.
Yaska also provided the seeds for another debate, whether textual meaning is inherent in the word (Yaska's view) or in the sentence (see Pāṇini, and later grammarians such as PrabhakaraPrabhākara was an Indian philosopher grammarian in the Mimamsa tradition. His views and his debate with led to the Prābhākara school within Mimamsa.Commentaries on Prabhakara have been written by Shalikanatha in the 8th c....
or Bhartrihari). This debate continued into the 14th and 15th c. CE, and has echoes in the present day in current debates about semantic compositionality.
Pre-{{IAST|Pāṇini}}an schools
Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi, which is said to have eclipsed all other contemporary schools of grammar, mentions the names of nine grammarians. A number of predecessors are referred to by Yāska, who is thought to have flourished a couple of centuries before Panini
(c. 800 BCE).
Many of these individual names actually reflect the opinion of different schools of thought. Some of these pre-Paninian names of individuals / schools are:
- Agrayana
- Aindra
The Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar is one of the eleven schools of Sanskrit grammar mentioned in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi. It is named after Indra in allusion to Lord Indra, the king of Gods in Hindu mythology. Arthur Coke Burnell, a renowned orientologist, in his 1875 book, "On the Aindra school...
- Āpiśali (Pan. 6.1.92)
- Aupamanyava
- Aurnabhava (Nir. 6.13, also
- Cakravarmaṇa (Pan. 6.1.130)
- Gālava (Nir. 4.3
- Gārgya
Gārgya is an Indian patronymic and may refer to:* a king of the Gandharvas* a grammarian predating Pāṇini, see Vyakarana* the author of the Samaveda-Padapatha* a Brahmin gotra...
- Kāśyapa (Pan. 8.4.67)
- Kāṣakṛtsna
- Katthakya
- Kautsa
- krauSTuki (Nir. 8.2)
- Kuṇaravāḍava (Pan. 3.2.14; 7.3.1)
- Śākalya
- Śākaṭāyana
' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(c. 800BCE)
- Senaka (Pan. 5.4.112)
- Shakapuni
- Sphoṭāyana (Pan. 6.1.123)
The works of most these authors are lost but we find reference of their ideas in the commentaries and rebuttals by later authors. Yāska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
's NiruktaNirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...
is one of the earlier surviving texts, and he mentions Śākaṭāyana, krauSTuki, gArgya, etc.
In Yāska's time, nirukta "etymology" was in fact a school which gave information of formation of words. The etymological derivation of words. According to the nairuktas or "etymologists", all nouns are derived from s verbal root. Yāska defends this view and attributes it to Śākaṭāyana. While others believed that there are some words which are "Rudhi Words". 'Rudhi" means custom. Meaning they are a part of language due to custom, and a correspondence between the word and the thing if it be a noun or correspondence between an act and the word if it be a verbroot. Such word can not be derived from verbal roots.
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, Śākalya is held to be the author of the padapatha of the RigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
(a word-by-word pronunciation scheme, aiding memory, for ritual texts).
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} school
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} extensive analysis of the processes of phonologyPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, morphologyIn linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and syntaxIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, the {{IAST|Aṣṭadhyāyī}}, laid down the basis for centuries of commentaries and expositions by following Sanskrit grammarians.
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} approach was amazingly formal; his production ruleProduction rule may refer to:*For production rules used in business rule engines, cognitive modeling and artificial intelligence, see production system*For production rules that expand nodes in formal grammars, see formal grammar-See also:...
s for deriving complex structures and sentences represent modern finite state machineA finite-state machine or finite-state automaton , or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model used to design computer programs and digital logic circuits. It is conceived as an abstract machine that can be in one of a finite number of states...
s. Indeed many of the developments in Indian MathematicsIndian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics , important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. The decimal number system in use today was first...
, especially the place value notational system may have originated from {{IAST|Pāṇinian}} analysis.
Pāṇini's grammar consists of four parts:
- Śivasūtra: phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
(notations for phonemes specified in 14 lines)
-
{{Hindu scriptures}}
The SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
grammatical tradition of {{IAST|vyākaraṇa}} ({{lang-sa|व्याकरण}}, ʋjɑːkərəɳə) is one of the six VedangaThe Vedanga are six auxiliary disciplines traditionally associated with the study and understanding of the Vedas.#Shiksha : phonetics, phonology and morphophonology #Kalpa : ritual#Vyakarana : grammar...
disciplines. It has its roots in late Vedic India, and includes the famous work, {{IAST|Aṣṭādhyāyī, of Pāṇini}} (c. 4th century BCE).
The impetus for linguistic analysis and grammar in India originates in the need to be able to obtain a strict interpretation of the Vedic textsThe Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}}
The work of the very early Indian grammarians has been lost; for example, the work of Sakatayana' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(roughly 8th c. BCE) is known only from cryptic references by Yaska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
(ca. 6th–5th c. BCE) and Pāṇini. One of the views of Sakatayana that was to prove controversial in coming centuries was that most nouns can be derived etymologically from verbs.
In his monumental work on etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
, 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 rootThe root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
morphemes.
Yaska also provided the seeds for another debate, whether textual meaning is inherent in the word (Yaska's view) or in the sentence (see Pāṇini, and later grammarians such as PrabhakaraPrabhākara was an Indian philosopher grammarian in the Mimamsa tradition. His views and his debate with led to the Prābhākara school within Mimamsa.Commentaries on Prabhakara have been written by Shalikanatha in the 8th c....
or Bhartrihari). This debate continued into the 14th and 15th c. CE, and has echoes in the present day in current debates about semantic compositionality.
Pre-{{IAST|Pāṇini}}an schools
Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi, which is said to have eclipsed all other contemporary schools of grammar, mentions the names of nine grammarians. A number of predecessors are referred to by Yāska, who is thought to have flourished a couple of centuries before Panini
(c. 800 BCE).
Many of these individual names actually reflect the opinion of different schools of thought. Some of these pre-Paninian names of individuals / schools are:
- Agrayana
- Aindra
The Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar is one of the eleven schools of Sanskrit grammar mentioned in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi. It is named after Indra in allusion to Lord Indra, the king of Gods in Hindu mythology. Arthur Coke Burnell, a renowned orientologist, in his 1875 book, "On the Aindra school...
- Āpiśali (Pan. 6.1.92)
- Aupamanyava
- Aurnabhava (Nir. 6.13, also
- Cakravarmaṇa (Pan. 6.1.130)
- Gālava (Nir. 4.3
- Gārgya
Gārgya is an Indian patronymic and may refer to:* a king of the Gandharvas* a grammarian predating Pāṇini, see Vyakarana* the author of the Samaveda-Padapatha* a Brahmin gotra...
- Kāśyapa (Pan. 8.4.67)
- Kāṣakṛtsna
- Katthakya
- Kautsa
- krauSTuki (Nir. 8.2)
- Kuṇaravāḍava (Pan. 3.2.14; 7.3.1)
- Śākalya
- Śākaṭāyana
' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India . His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini ' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age...
(c. 800BCE)
- Senaka (Pan. 5.4.112)
- Shakapuni
- Sphoṭāyana (Pan. 6.1.123)
The works of most these authors are lost but we find reference of their ideas in the commentaries and rebuttals by later authors. Yāska' ) was a Sanskrit grammarian who preceded Pāṇini , assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words...
's NiruktaNirukta is one of the six disciplines of Hinduism, treating etymology, particularly of obscure words, especially those occurring in the Vedas. The discipline is traditionally attributed to , an ancient Sanskrit grammarian...
is one of the earlier surviving texts, and he mentions Śākaṭāyana, krauSTuki, gArgya, etc.
In Yāska's time, nirukta "etymology" was in fact a school which gave information of formation of words. The etymological derivation of words. According to the nairuktas or "etymologists", all nouns are derived from s verbal root. Yāska defends this view and attributes it to Śākaṭāyana. While others believed that there are some words which are "Rudhi Words". 'Rudhi" means custom. Meaning they are a part of language due to custom, and a correspondence between the word and the thing if it be a noun or correspondence between an act and the word if it be a verbroot. Such word can not be derived from verbal roots.
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, Śākalya is held to be the author of the padapatha of the RigvedaThe Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
(a word-by-word pronunciation scheme, aiding memory, for ritual texts).
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} school
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} extensive analysis of the processes of phonologyPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, morphologyIn linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and syntaxIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
, the {{IAST|Aṣṭadhyāyī}}, laid down the basis for centuries of commentaries and expositions by following Sanskrit grammarians.
{{IAST|Pāṇini's}} approach was amazingly formal; his production ruleProduction rule may refer to:*For production rules used in business rule engines, cognitive modeling and artificial intelligence, see production system*For production rules that expand nodes in formal grammars, see formal grammar-See also:...
s for deriving complex structures and sentences represent modern finite state machineA finite-state machine or finite-state automaton , or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model used to design computer programs and digital logic circuits. It is conceived as an abstract machine that can be in one of a finite number of states...
s. Indeed many of the developments in Indian MathematicsIndian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics , important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. The decimal number system in use today was first...
, especially the place value notational system may have originated from {{IAST|Pāṇinian}} analysis.
Pāṇini's grammar consists of four parts:
- Śivasūtra: phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
(notations for phonemes specified in 14 lines)
- {{IAST: morphology
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
(construction rules for complexes)
- {{IAST: list of roots (classes of verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
al roots)
- {{IAST: lists classes of primitive nominal stems
Commentators on Pāṇini and some of their views:
- Kātyāyana
Kātyāyana was a Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India.-Works:He is known for two works:...
(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 SaussureFerdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the fathers of 20th-century linguistics...
called arbitrary. Word meanings refer to universals that are inherent in the word itself (close to a nominalist position).
- Patanjali
Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...
(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 YogaYoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
system.
- The Nyaya
' is the name given to one of the six orthodox or astika schools of Hindu philosophy—specifically the school of logic...
school, close to the realistContemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
position (as in PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
). 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)
- The Mimamsa
' , a Sanskrit word meaning "investigation" , is the name of an astika school of Hindu philosophy whose primary enquiry is into the nature of dharma based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas...
school. E.g. sentence meaning relies mostly on the verb (corresponds to the modern notion of linguistic headIn linguistics, the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member, or analogously the stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a component. The other elements modify the head....
). Kumarila Bhatta' was a Hindu philosopher and Mimamsa scholar from Assam. He is famous for many of his seminal theses on Mimamsa, such as Mimamsaslokavarttika. Bhatta was an staunch believer in the supreme validity of Vedic injunction, a great champion of Purva-Mimamsa and a confirmed ritualist...
(7th c.), prabhakaraPrabhākara was an Indian philosopher grammarian in the Mimamsa tradition. His views and his debate with led to the Prābhākara school within Mimamsa.Commentaries on Prabhakara have been written by Shalikanatha in the 8th c....
(7th c. CE).
- Bhartṛhari (c. 6th c. CE) that meaning is determined by larger contextual units than the word alone (holism).
- Kāśikāvṛttī
The ' is a commentary on Pāṇini, attributed to Jayaditya and Vamana, composed in ca. the 7th century....
(7th century)
- Bhaṭṭi (c. 7th c. CE) exemplified Pāṇini's rules in his courtly epic the Bhaṭṭikāvya.
- The Buddhist school, including Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna was an important Buddhist teacher and philosopher. Along with his disciple Āryadeva, he is credited with founding the Mādhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism...
(logic/philosophy, c. 150 CE) DignagaDignāga was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian logic.He was born into a Brahmin family in Simhavakta near Kanchi Kanchipuram), and very little is known of his early years, except that he took as his spiritual preceptor Nagadatta of the Vatsiputriya school, before being...
(semantics and logic, c. 5th c. CE), DharmakirtiDharmakīrti , was an Indian scholar and one of the Buddhist founders of Indian philosophical logic. He was one of the primary theorists of Buddhist atomism, according to which the only items considered to exist are momentary states of consciousness.-History:Born around the turn of the 7th century,...
.
Medieval Accounts
The earliest external historical accounts of Indian grammatical tradition is from Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India from the 7th century.
- Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
(602–664)
- I Ching
Yijing was a Tang Dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk, originally named Zhang Wenming . The written records of his travels contributed to the world knowledge of the ancient kingdom of Srivijaya, as well as providing information about the other kingdoms lying on the route between China and the Nālandā...
(634–713)
- Fazang
Fazang was the third of the five patriarchs of the Huayan school. He is said to have authored over a hundred volumes of essays and commentaries. He is famed for his empirical demonstrations in the court of Empress Wu Zetian. His essays "On a Golden Lion" and "On a Mote of Dust" are among the most...
(643–712)
The Indica of Al-BiruniAbū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-BīrūnīArabic spelling. . The intermediate form Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī is often used in academic literature...
(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 Pāṇini's school include Bhattoji Dikshita and VaradarajaVaradarāja was a 17th century Sanskrit grammarian. He compiled an abridgement of the work of his master, the Siddhānta Kaumudī of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, in three versions, referred to as madhya "middle", laghu "short" and sāra "substance, quintessence" versions of the Siddhāntakaumudī, the latter...
.
Similar to the Chinese Buddhists, Tibetan BuddhismTibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
aroused interest in India among its followers. TaranathaTāranātha was a Lama of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is widely considered its most remarkable scholar and exponent....
(born 1573) in his treatise of the history of Buddhism in India (completed around 1608) speaks about Pāṇini 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 GoswamiJiva Goswami is one of the most prolific and important philosopher and saint from the Gaudiya Vaishnava school of Vedanta tradition, producing a great number of philosophical works on the theology and practice of Bhakti yoga, Vaishnava Vedanta and associated disciplines...
in his {{IASTHari-namamrta-vyakarana - fundamental Gaudia Vaishnava grammar by Jiva Goswami. of Jiva is a unique Sanskrit grammar in which all the technical terms in the sutras are names of Krishna or his associates...
.
Beginning of Western scholarship
- Jean François Pons
Jean François Pons was a French Jesuit who pioneered the study of Sanskrit in the West.He published a survey of Sanskrit literature in 1743, where he described the language as "admirable for its harmony, copiousness, and energy", reporting on the parsimonity of the native grammatical tradition,...
- Henry Thomas Colebrooke
Henry Thomas Colebrooke was an English orientalist.-Biography:Henry Thomas Colebrooke, third son of Sir George Colebrooke, 2nd Baronet, was born in London. He was educated at home; and when only fifteen he had made considerable attainments in classics and mathematics...
- August Wilhelm von Schlegel
August Wilhelm Schlegel was a German poet, translator, critic, and a foremost leader of German Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare made the English dramatist's works into German classics.-Life and work:Schlegel was born at Hanover, where his father, Johann Adolf Schlegel, was a Lutheran...
- Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...
- Dimitrios Galanos
Dimitrios Galanos was the earliest recorded Greek Indologist. His translations of Sanskrit texts into Greek made knowledge of the philosophical and religious ideas of India available to many Europeans....
19th century
- Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar
Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar was an Indian scholar, orientalist, and social reformer.-Early life:Bhandarkar was born in Malvan in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. After his early schooling in Ratnagiri, he studied at Elphinstone College in Bombay...
- Franz Kielhorn
- William Dwight Whitney
William Dwight Whitney was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer who edited The Century Dictionary.-Life:William Dwight Whitney was born in Northampton, Massachusetts on February 9, 1827. His father was Josiah Dwight Whitney of the New England Dwight family...
- Bruno Liebich
- Otto Boehtlingk
- Georg Bühler
Professor Johann Georg Bühler was a scholar of ancient Indian languages and law.Bühler was born to Rev. Johann G...
- Franz Bopp
Franz Bopp was a German linguist known for extensive comparative work on Indo-European languages.-Biography:...
- Jacob Wackernagel
Jacob Wackernagel was an Indo-Europeanist and scholar of Sanskrit. He was born in Basel, son of the philologist Wilhelm Wackernagel.He studied classical and Germanic philology and history in...
, Altindische GrammatikThe Altindische Grammatik is the monumental Sanskrit grammar by Jacob Wackernagel , after his death continued by Albert Debrunner, published in Göttingen between 1896 and 1957. The work presents a full discussion of Sanskrit phonology and nominal morphology, but a treatment of the verb is lacking...
20th century to present
- Leonard Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics...
- Paul Thieme
Paul Thieme was a scholar of Vedic Sanskrit. He received his doctorate in Indology in 1928 in Göttingen, and habilitated there in 1932. From 1932 to 1935 he taught German and French at the University of Allahabad...
- Karl Hoffmann
- Louis Renou
Louis Renou was the pre-eminent French Indologist of the twentieth centuryAfter passing the agregation examination in 1920, Louis Renou taught for a year at the lycee in Rouen. He then took a sabbatical, read the works of Sanskrit scholars and attended the classes of Meillet. Henceforth he opted...
- Bimal Krishna Matilal
Bimal Krishna Matilal was an Indian philosopher whose influential writings present the Indian philosophical tradition as being concerned with the same issues as have been the theme in Western philosophy...
- Johannes Bronkhorst
- George Cardona
George Cardona is an American linguist and Indologist. He is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.His areas of interest include Indo-European studies and Indian grammatical theory, in particular the Nyaya and Mimamsa schools...
- Paul Kiparsky
René Paul Viktor Kiparsky is a professor of linguistics at Stanford University. He is the son of the Russian-born linguist and Slavicist Valentin Kiparsky....
- Frits Staal
Johan Frederik Staal is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and South & Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley....
- Michael Witzel
- Kshetresa Chandra Chattopadhyaya
Kshetresa Chandra Chattopadhyaya was a distinguished scholar of Sanskrit from India. A scholar of Sanskrit, Veda, grammar, Pali, Prakrit and philology, he was born on October 27, 1896 in village Nimta of North 24 Parganas in what was then Bengal. He came from an illustrious family of Kulina...
- Vagish Shastri
Vagish Shastri is an international Sanskrit grammarian, eminent linguist, Tantric and yogi. He was born in the city of Khurai, in Madhya Pradesh in 1934. His primary education was in Khurai, followed by his education in Vrindavan and Benaras...
See also
- Aindra school of grammar
The Aindra school of Sanskrit grammar is one of the eleven schools of Sanskrit grammar mentioned in Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi. It is named after Indra in allusion to Lord Indra, the king of Gods in Hindu mythology. Arthur Coke Burnell, a renowned orientologist, in his 1875 book, "On the Aindra school...
- Hari-namamrta-vyakarana
Hari-namamrta-vyakarana - fundamental Gaudia Vaishnava grammar by Jiva Goswami. of Jiva is a unique Sanskrit grammar in which all the technical terms in the sutras are names of Krishna or his associates...
- Sanskrit in the West
The study of Sanskrit in the Western world began in the 17th century. Some of Bhartṛhari's poems were translated into Portuguese in 1651. In 1779 a legal code known as was translated by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed from a Persian translation, and published as A Code of Gentoo Laws...
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