 Welcome, I welcome you all to this lecture in the course Introduction to Paninian Grammar. In this lecture, we shall study the linguistic background on which Panini thrived, on which he constructed his own grammar. Let us take some information about Panini himself. In this way, we shall be also studying the basics of the Paninian grammar. What do we mean by Paninian grammar, which is the part of the title of this course. When we talk about Paninian grammar, we obviously talk about the grammar of Sanskrit composed by Panini. This grammar and its study developed into a long surviving tradition. This tradition continues to develop itself, to evolve till today. New texts are getting composed, new thoughts get added, especially in the modern digital age, the advent of the digital technology also provides a very big platform for this particular tradition to take insights from and to develop itself, to evolve itself. So this Paninian grammatical tradition continues till today involving several scholars of high repute. These scholars have contributed in different ways, thereby they have enriched this grammar. All these phenomena, all these scholars, all the texts that are composed by these scholars in this particular tradition, all of them they are referred to by the term Paninian grammar. When we say introduction to Paninian grammar, we are introducing such a distinguished system of thought, which has evolved in the course of time for more than 2500 years at least by a conservative estimate. Now let us look at Panini's background. Let us study in brief the grammatical literature that existed before Panini. If we consider Panini as a threshold, the grammatical literature of Sanskrit can be classified into following heads. The pre-Paninian grammatical literature, the grammatical texts that were composed before Panini, the grammatical thought that existed before Panini, pre-Paninian Sanskrit literature, this serves as a corpus for all those grammars that existed before Panini and also for the Paninian grammar itself. This corpus can be considered as the classical stage of the development of Sanskrit language. Obviously, this has that is as its predecessor, the Vedic language, which existed much before Panini. Panini knows at least 10 grammarians who existed before him and who composed their texts. Panini quotes 10 grammarians in his astadhyay. Let us try to take note of those grammarians. Most of this literature does not survive. We do not have texts composed by most of these grammarians. So we have to rely on the references to them found in the astadhyay composed by Panini. Then we have the post-Paninian grammatical literature, which is a very long tradition and as I said before, this post-Paninian grammatical literature and its tradition survives even till today and we see lots of new trends coming in, new thoughts, new texts getting added to this particular long tradition. This can be also divided into two parts, the post-Paninian grammatical tradition starting from kathiyayana onwards up to the 18th century and then from 18th century onwards, post-Paninian grammatical tradition. Apart from the Paninian grammatical tradition, we also have non-Paninian grammatical literature available to us, which also helps us understand and study Sanskrit as a language through these different grammars. There are at least 11 known schools of non-Paninian grammatical traditions. In this lecture, we shall study the first three bullets presented on this particular slide, namely the pre-Paninian grammatical literature, the pre-Paninian Sanskrit literature or corpus and the linguistic thought that existed and also the grammarians known to Panini. We will do the study of the post-Paninian grammatical literature and the non-Paninian grammatical literature in the next lecture. Let us first try to understand who was Panini. Not much historical information is available about the person Panini, which is not so very surprising about the personalities in the Indian history. There are, however, some stories available in various forms. He is believed to have lived in a place called Shalatura. According to Belvalkar, this is believed to be modern Lahore in the Yosufzai valley in the northwestern frontier province. Panini is believed to have lived in and around an era that can be bracketed by these figures 350 BCE up to 600 BCE going backwards. The modern research has brought the date in advance to 350 BCE. Panini is also referred to as Dakshi Putra, the son of Dakshi in the Vyatarana Mahabhashya composed by the great Patanjali. According to Kathasarit Sagar, Panini studied at the house of the teacher Upadhyaya, Varsha, together with Katyaayana, Vyadi and Indradatta. A story in the Panchatantra records that Panini was killed by a tiger when he composed his last sutra, uh-uh. This brings us to an important question, namely what is a sutra? Paninian grammar is composed of approximately 4000 sutras as we have seen before. What is this sutra? Sutra literally means a thread, a thread in which for example, flowers are woven. The material is woven, just as in the Bhagavad Gita we find a reference, mayi sarvam idam protham sutre manigana iva, similarly a thread in which linguistic usage is woven, thereby explained. So what is a sutra? This is how sutra is defined, swalpaaksharam asandhigdham saravad vishvatomukham asthobham anavadyamcha sutram sutravido viduhu. We shall study this definition later on, but right now in brief, this definition can still be explained. And it is like this, swalpaaksharam, a sutra should have minimum number of letters in it, should not be too lengthy, asandhigdha, it should not have any ambiguity, saravad should be of a sense, vishvatomukham should have universal application, asthobham should be clear and anavadyam without any fault. All these are the qualities of a sutra. Paninian grammar, the core of it, ashtadhyay, is composed of such sutras. Now let us take a look at the pre-Paninian Sanskrit literature. We have Vedic literature to begin with, four Vedas with four parts namely Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad. Then there is epic literature, Ramayana, Mahabharata. Then there are various other kinds of literature related to the Vedas, related to the karma kanda, which is also prevalent. Apart from that, there is classical literature, which is almost lost to us in the course of time. But this is what existed before Panini, out of which the classical literature that is almost lost seems to be the corpus on which the grammar of Panini is composed. In addition, part of the Vedic literature also seems to form the corpus. Some modern researchers have also been able to specify which is this part of the Vedic literature. The Sanskrit language found in the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata continues in the language that is described by Panini in his grammar. However, there are certain differences which are not noted in the grammar of Panini. Generally, Ramayana and Mahabharata, they are considered pre-Paninian and the usages found in these two epics are considered, are described sometimes as Arsha, not conforming to the grammatical rules mentioned in Panini's grammar. In the pre-Paninian grammatical literature, we do find thoughts about language, mainly in the Vedic literature to begin with. There are thoughts about grammar, there are thoughts about grammatical categories, there are lexicon available in the form of nighantus and explanations of words in the nighantus. The semantic explanation which is provided in the celebrated text called nirukta which is also considered to be one of the six limbs of the Veda, Vedanga, the semantic explanation of words collected in nighantus. Let us look at the thoughts about language found in the Vedas in brief. For example, Rigveda 10.125, Vagam bhrini sukta, this sukta praises speech, speech as goddess. This is also interpreted as a pre-mordial speech by some philosophical schools. This is an important reference. We also find the sentence, tam ma deva vedadhu purutra bhuristhatram bhuriyavesayantim. Gods dispersed her at different places, so she became all-pervading. In another reference, Rigveda 10.71, appearance of speech is described. In Rigveda 8.100, we find the statement devim vacham ajanayanta devaha, the Gods created the Goddess' speech. Similarly, apart from such references to speech found in the Veda itself, we also find thoughts about grammar. For example, in Taittiriya Samhita, we find this particular statement, tam indro madhyato avakaroth, part of the story where Indra is being asked by Gods to cut the indivisible speech into parts for better understanding and communication obviously, and Indra accepts this task and cuts the speech from the middle. Cutting the speech from the middle is considered to be the grammatical activity in essence. So, an avyakaratha speech, indivisible speech is explained, is cut, vyakaratha, cut into parts. These parts are further segmented into some more parts. This is how we find the term vyakaranu and its base as far as the Vedic literature is concerned, avyakaratha and vyakaratha. The term vyakaranu is formed from the verbal root kru together with the two preverbs v and a, primarily indicating the activity of segmenting an indivisible speech into parts. We also find that there are references in the Vedic literature about the grammatical categories. For example, in the Gopasabramhanam of the Atharva Veda, we find mentions like dhatu, pratyaya, prathipadika, vibhakti, etc. These technical terms which are used as core terms in describing the grammar of samskrit also by Panini, we find reference to them in the Gopathabramhana. In the Mundakopanishad, we also find mention of shiksha, the phonetics nirukta, the semantic explanation of words found in the nigantus primarily and vyakaranu, all these they are mentioned as a para-vidya, as against the para-vidya, which is the knowledge of the self. An important mention must be made of padapath, which is a very important activity in this direction of segmenting one indivisible speech into its constituents, into the components. Padapath renders the continuous utterance in the form of samhita into its components in terms of words or padha. What padapath does is that it dissolves the sandhi, it dissolves the accent of the sentence and places the padhas into their own form. So each padha is separated from the sentential boundaries and as a result, the sentential effects are also removed. Similarly, the sentential accents are also removed and the padha accents are shown in most of the cases. What this presupposes is quite a lot of grammatical knowledge, without which this activity cannot come into being. So padapath does require quite a lot of grammatical knowledge, padapath also shows the segments within the padhas. For example, the compounds are shown with some mark indicating the components of the compound. Once again, it can be said that padapath displays the existence of quite a lot of grammatical knowledge at its time. Here is an example. This is the example of Rig Veda 111, Agni Meeve Purohitam Yajnasya Devam Ratvijam Hotaram Ratnadhatamam and I have recited it for you without accent marks, just to give you an idea as to what padapath would do. Now on the left hand side, you have the Samhita Patha and on the right hand side, you have the padapath. On the left hand side, the letters which are marked in red color, they are treated separately as far as the padapath is concerned. So if we have Agni Meeve joined together, written together, they will be separated because there are two padas over here. The first one is Agnim, Agnim is written separately followed by a vertical bar indicating the boundary of the padah Agnim, after which comes the word Eeeve, the padah Eeeve and then appears another vertical bar indicating the boundary. So Agnim Eeeve, it is separated as Agnim and Eeeve, Agnim Eeeve is the sentential effect, this effect is removed, the boundaries are removed and padas are separated as Agnim and Eeeve. Similarly, Purohitam which is one word and if you notice that there is this dot on top of this letter The which is generally recognized as an Anuswara. Now this when written in the padapath, this will be written considering this padah as an independent unit with the boundary marked by the vertical bar after it. Remember this The is followed by Meeve also written like consonant Meeve in the written form in the padapath. We also notice that the two components of this compounded word namely Puroh and Hitham are also separated by this particular symbol also known as Avagraha in the tradition. Similarly, Devam Ratvijam, once again this sentential effect is removed and we have Devam and Ratvijam separated. Similarly Ratnadhatamam, this is also segmented and the constituents or the components are shown with an Avagraha. This is what the padapath does to the Samhita available of the Veda. As you can see, this is not possible without the grammatical knowledge. Similarly, if the knowledge of accent is appended, we see that the accent marks that are shown over here differ in the padapath. This is also done with the knowledge of grammar. Therefore, padapath, once again we can say that padapath does require, does assume quite a lot of grammatical knowledge and so Paninian grammar, pre Paninian grammar has padapath as a predecessor. There is a discussion in the Paninian grammatical tradition about this fact, whether the padapath preceded Panini or whether Panini precedes the padapath. It is generally accepted that it is the padapath which precedes the Paninian grammar. This therefore forms the background of Paninian grammar. For the partha, thus can be considered as the first commentary on the Veda. Another important text called nirukta is supposed to have existed before Panini, whose date can be roughly stated as roughly 700 to 500 BCE. As we said, this is a commentary on the Nihandu, which provides an explanation of the meanings of words. It is a semantic explanation. There are certain principles which are laid down for such an explanation and it is also stated that this explanation complements the vyakaranah or the grammatical activity. Nirukta says that the dham vidyasthanam vyakaranah karchnyam, the nirukta explanation complements the grammatical activity. Nirukta therefore can be also said to form the background of Paninian grammar. Now let us also look at the ten grammarians mentioned by Panini in his ashtadhyayi. They survived, they existed before Panini, however their texts have not survived. This is a very sad state of affairs. One of the grammarians mentioned by Panini is shakallya and here are the three instances where Panini mentions shakallya 1116 sambuddhau shakallya'sya itau anarshe 8319 lopas shakallya'sya and 8451 saravatra shakallya'sya. Shakallya is traditionally credited to be the author of the padapatha of the Rig Veda shakallya. Then we have shakata yana mentioned by Panini in these places 34111 langaha shakata yana syaiva 8318 vyor laghukprayatna taraha shakata yana syaiva and 8453 prabhratishu shakata yana syaiva. Nothing more is known about shakata yana except a few references also found in the text of nirukta where some derogatory remark is also passed against shakata yana and it is believed that shakata yana insists on deriving each and every noun from a verbal root sarvam nama dhatu jamaha shakatasya ca tokam. Then we also have reference to senaka 54112 gireshcha senakasya also to apishali in the sutra 6198 va supi apishali he sphotayana 61123 avang sphotayanasya. This word sphotayana is explained to be derived from the word sphota. Some scholars argue therefore that the sphota theory which was developed by Bharatrihari was probably existent at the time of this scholar. We can safely say that sphota yana is the name of a grammarian who has observed this particular phenomenon which is also observed by Panini in 61123 avang sphotayanasya. Chakravarmana is noted in the sutra 61126 e chakravarmanasya galava whose name is mentioned in the following sutras 6360 eko rasvo angyo galavasyya 7174 triti yadishu bhashitapumskam umvath galavasyya 7399 ad gargya galava yoho and 8466 nodattasvarito dayam agargya kashyapa galava naam also gargya mentioned in 7399 ad gargya galava yoho 8320 oto gargyasyya and 8466 nodattasvarito dayam agargya kashyapa galava naam. Bharadwaja is mentioned in 7263 ruto Bharadwajasyya and kashyapa mentioned in 8466 nodattasvarito dayam agargya kashyapa galava naam. In this way we note the names of ten grammarians appearing in the text of ashtadhyayi in which certain linguistic phenomena are explained by these different grammarians in a particular manner. We also note that the later paninian grammatical tradition interprets the mention of these grammarians as an option. The later paninian grammatical tradition says that the fact that panini mentions the names of these grammarians indicates that he reserves his own independent opinion which does not match with that of these grammarians which results in the optional description. According to panini one particular description is what is found in the linguistic usage and according to these grammarians certain other kind of description finds its match in the actual usage thereby there is variance in the usage which is noted down by the grammarians panini and other grammarians. To summarize we can say that panini inherited a long tradition of grammatical activity this was his background. This grammatical activity existed right from the Vedic period in which speech as a pre-modial dt was discussed was mentioned also was mentioned the grammatical activity and the principles of linguistic analysis that were laid down in some form before him. He thus inherited the grammatical activity as well as grammars of Sanskrit that preceded him and he mentions the ten grammarians. Panini is believed to have refined those grammars and those principles. We also observed that the grammarians who followed him followed suit when they refined his own grammar. Now in the next lecture we shall study the post paninian grammatical literature. Thank you for your patience.