Panini, the greatest grammarian of the world, belonged to the period between 5th and 4th century B.C. He is indeed the first grammarian to go deeper into the conventional speech units known as words and recognize the basic elements of meaning which combine into different meaningful units. Thus his Vyakarna Astadhyayi contains not only an analysis of speech units into their ultimate constituents but also lays down rules of their combinations leading to a variety of linguistic expressions. The most noteworthy aspect of the entire mechanism in the Paninian workshop is economy. Economy reigns supreme in his grammar. The foremost achievement of the Gandhar grammarian Panini thus consists of a finite set of rules for explaining an infinite number of speech units. Linguists all over the world are impressed by this method of language description successfully implemented by Panini. Due to his workmanship of a very high rank his work emerges as a perfect model of sutra mode of composition. In this way, apart from being a valuable historical document Panini's grammar has provided a model of language description which treats both matter and mind together.
About the Author:
Saroja V. Bhate (b. 1942) is a Sanskrit scholar with Ph.D. from University of Poona. She has written many books on linguistic studies including The Role of Particle Ca in the Interpretation of the Astadhyayi. At present she is the Head of the Department of Sanskrit and Prakrit Languages, University of Poona, Pune.
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