On the Aindra School of Sanskrit Grammarians, Their Place in the Sanskrit and Subordinate Literatures

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 edition. Excerpt: ... III. It is now necessary to consider if it be possible to trace in any way the innovations Panini made in the treatment of Sanskrit Grammar; it appears to me that this can be done successfully to a very considerable extent, though a difference of opinion must always exist as to a few details. There can be no question that Panini's Grammar made an epoch in Indian literature; his name occurs everywhere, his treatise soon superseded all others, and has exercised the ingenuity of a countless number of followers. Certainly, for near two thousand years, Panini's word has been law in India on all questions of grammar. It is evident that for it to have gained such a position of authority in so conservative a country as India, it must have been vastly superior in the eyes of the Brahmans to all the numerous treatises which must have been in existence before Panini's time: the Tibetan writers" (whatever may have been their authority for saying so) cannot be far wrong in making out that Panini's work was the first complete and systematic treatise on Grammar. It is also tolerably plain that the circumstances under which this book was composed differed greatly from the older stage of Indian history; without some contact with foreign peoples and bitter disputes among religious sects at home, such highly developed enquiry into language as Panini's treatise displays, is contrary to all experience. Until Greeks began to teach their language to the Romans, grammar made but little progress2), and the origin of Arabic and Hebrew Grammar is due to the contact of the Semitic races of Arabia with Persians, Syrians and other foreigners. The latest and most probable conclusions as to the date of Panini point to such a period in Indian events, when Buddhism had...