Who inspired Panini? Reconstructing the Hindu and Buddhist counter-claims.

• Author: Deshpande, Madhav M.

The tradition of Paninian Grammar as it has reached us clearly believes that Panini was inspired by Mahesvara/Siva to write his grammar, and that he received at least the first fourteen sutras, which are traditionally called Sivasutrani or Mahesvarasutrani, from Mahesvara/Siva. While for the tradition as it has survived into the present time, this belief is axiomatic, and hardly ever questioned, the history of this belief has not been fully explored in modern scholarship.(1) In this paper, I propose to bring together material that allows us to envisage the vicissitudes of this belief, which are almost entirely unknown to the Paninian tradition itself.

Panini's grammar itself gives us no indication of any particular religious belief attached to this grammar, except that the grammar was situated firmly within the Vedic culture. The grammar as it is incorporated in the Astadhyayi is integrally connected to the lists of sounds as formulated in the so-called Sivasutras. This relationship is so strong that George Cardona (1969: 3), who has "omitted any discussion connected with the question of the authorship of the sivasutras," makes it clear that "the sivasutras and the corpus of rules in which they are used definitely were composed in one school." Going a step beyond Cardona, Kiparsky (1991: 257) asserts: "It is said that god Siva revealed these fourteen classes of sounds to Panini to get him started on the Astadhyayi. We might now want to see a deeper point in this legend. Our conclusions imply that if we did not possess the text of the Astadhyayi, but merely a pretheoretical description of Sanskrit phonology, the main principles of Panini's grammar could be inferred just from the way the phonemes of Sanskrit are organized in the Sivasutras." My purpose here is not to investigate the relative differences between these claims, but simply to stress the close connection between the Sivasutras and the grammar as constituted in the Astadhyayi. Were the Sivasutras entirely a new creation of Panini? While arguing for a distinctive character for the Sivasutras, Kiparsky (1991: 256) concedes: "By this I do not mean that Panini in fact started from scratch in constructing the Sivasutras. On the contrary, it is virtually certain that he was acquainted with one or more phonetically ordered listings of sounds such as those found in the pratisakhyas, and it is even quite possible that there were previous sivasutra-style arrangements that he knew. It is also quite possible that Panini started with one of those earlier arrangements and reordered it." The modern scholarship, for its own reasons, basically sets aside the story of Panini having received either the whole grammar or the Sivasutras from Siva as nothing more than a traditional belief. However, as we shall see, the story has a long and complicated career of its own, and a study of its likely history opens for us previously uncharted regions of religious rivalries in ancient India.

When we look at Katyayana's Varttikas on the Sivasutras, we get no hint that he knew any mythology connecting these sutras with Siva or with any other divinity.(2) In fact, Katyayana questions the order of sounds listed in the Sivasutras, and the necessity of listing some sounds. For example, he questions the necessity of listing the vowel I in the sivasutra r-.l-K, and in his discussion of the sivasutra ha-ya-va-ra-T, he examines the possibility of an alternative formulation: ha-ra-ya-va-T. Similarly, Katyayana questions the necessity of listing the sound h twice, i.e., in the sivasutras ha-ya-va-ra-T and ha-L. If Katyayana had any feeling that the so-called Sivasutras were a revealed list, rather than an authored list, such questioning of the structure of these sutras would not make any sense. The introductory varttikas 15 (vrttisamavayartha upadesah) and 16 (anubandhakaranarthas ca) (Mahabhasya [MB], Kielhorn ed., I: 13) offer practical purposes of listing (upadesa) the sounds such as the arrangement of sounds to facilitate the operation of grammar (vrtti-samavaya) and the formulation of marker sounds (anubandha). For additional arguments, see Shastri (1984: 16ff.).

Patanjali's Mahabhasya seems to stand at a borderline. On the one hand, it goes along with Katyayana's discussion of the practical purposes of the lists contained in the Sivasutras. After a discussion of the purpose of listing the sound l in the sivasutra r-l-K, Patanjali finally comes out against the necessity of listing this sound in this sutra (cf. sa esa sutrabhedena lkaropadesah plutyadyarthah san pratyakhyayate [MB, I: 21]). On the other hand, at the end of the second ahnika of his Mahabhasya, Patanjali suddenly seems to hint at a revelation-like character of these lists. Here we come across an important verse (MB, I: 36):

varnajnanam vagvisayo yatra ca brahma vartate tadartham istabuddhyartham laghvartham copadisyate

Consider the translation of this verse offered by K. V. Abhyankar and J. M. Shukla (1969: 125-26): "The science of the knowledge of words forms a subject-matter of language in which abides permanently the Eternal Word-Energy. The traditional enumeration of words is made by Mahesvara for understanding the science of words, for distinguishing the correct words from the incorrect ones, as also for brevity." Besides the fact that here we have a listing of sounds, rather than of words, the translators have added "is made by Mahesvara." There is no support for this in the text of the verse, and neither Patanjali, nor even Bhartrhari, makes any reference to Mahesvara as the source of this listing. On p. 47, Abhyankar and Shukla clarify: "Some grammarians believe that the alphabet of the 14 Sutras was given by Panini himself and the statement upadista maya varnah [in the MB on the introductory varttika 15] refers to him. Nagesa ascribes the alphabet to Mahesvara as stated in the opening stanza of the Karika of Nandikesvara." This is an interesting discussion. The phrase upadista maya varnah, right after uccarya hi varnan aha, is not found in the text of the Mahabhasya as given by Kielhorn. Instead, we find a more neutral phrase, upadista ime varnah, which makes no first-person reference to the author of this listing. The phrase upadista maya varnah is a reading or a paraphrase of the original upadista ime varnah found in Bhartrhari's Mahabhasyadipika [MB-D] (Abhyankar and Limaye ed., p. 42). This is also noted by Bronkhorst (1987: 139, n. 6).

While Kielhorn's edition does not mention this as a variant reading, such a reading is not completely out of line with the rest of the Mahabhasya as found in Kielhorn's edition. For example, on the next varttika (16, anubandhakaranarthas ca [MB, I: 13]), Patanjali's text reads: anubandhan asahksyami "I will attach the marker sounds." As represented by Patanjali, it would then seem that the author of the listing and the author who wants to attach the marker sounds is the same author, i.e., Panini. However, Patanjali also seems to raise this listing to the status of holy scripture:

so 'yam aksarasamamnayo vaksamamnayah puspitah phalitas candratarakavat pratimandito veditavyo brah- marasih / sarvavedapunyaphalavaptis casya jnane bha- vati / matapitarau casya svarge loke mahiyete (MB, I: 36)

This then is the listing of sounds, a listing of speech, bearing flowers and fruit, shining like the moon and the stars, should be known as the collection of Brahman. The knowledge of this [listing] leads to the attainment of the merit identical with that of the merit from all the Vedas. And his parents attain greatness in the heavenly world.

Thus, without fully detaching this listing from the authorship of Panini, Patanjali has raised its status to that of a Vedic revelation. I have argued elsewhere (Deshpande 1993:112-13; and Deshpande, forthcoming) that Katyayana and Patanjali consider Panini to be a respected teacher (acarya), but not a seer (rsi). In the grhyasutras and dharmasutras (cf. Apastambiyadharmasutra 1.2.5.4), the term rsi refers to the ancient seers of the Vedic samhitas, who have been awarded a somewhat superhuman semi-divine status, while the term acarya refers to contemporary teachers. Panini's own usage seems to match closely that of the grhyasutras and dharmasutras. While Panini has not been strictly raised to the status of a rsi in the Mahabhasya, Patanjali feels awe toward him as a great teacher (acarya). On P. 1.1.1 (vrddhir adaic), after raising some objections, Katyayana says that the student of this rule will know that the word vrddhi is a designation of ad-aic from the behavior of the acarya (acaryacarat samjnasiddhih, vt. 4), i.e., his explicit wording of the rule. While explaining this statement of Katyayana, Patanjali

pramanabhuta acaryo darbhapavitrapanih sucav avakase pranmukha upavisya mahata yatnena sutrani pranayati sma tatrasakyam varnenapy anarthakena bhavitum kim punar iyata sutrena (MB, I: 39).

The acarya [= Panini], who is authority incarnate, with the sacred darbha grass in his hands, sitting in a pure location facing the east, produced the rules with a great mental effort. In those rules, it is impossible that even a single sound would be meaningless, let alone an entire rule.

Along with this notion of Panini's persona as an acarya and his acara 'behavior' conferring authority, there is some expectation of such a notion of authority being accepted across the board. For example, on P. 3.1.94 (vasarupo 'striyam), Patanjali says that if we accept one statement of an author as authoritative, then his other statements should also be accepted as authoritative (yady asau tatra pramanam ihapi pramanam bhavitum arhati / pramanam asau tatra ceha ca [MB, II: 79]). Patanjali also looks at Panini's wording of his rule as part of his linguistic acara and derives new rules from this behavior through implication (cf. acaryapravrttir jhapayati [MB, I: 15, et passim]) to supplement those rules which are explicitly stated.

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