 | Sanskrit grammarians: Encyclopedia - Sanskrit grammarians
Sanskrit grammarians
Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) begins in late Vedic India, and culminates in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini (ca. 5th century BC).
Sanskrit grammarians - Panini's school
Panini's work had a phenomenal success, and later Sanskrit grammarians were essentially reduced to the role of his commentators, and his predecessors are only known from references in the Ashtadhyayi itself. His work is still used, or at least referred to, in the teaching of Sanskrit today.
Panini's grammar consists of several parts, of which the Ashtadhyayi, containing the morphological rules, forms the core:
- Shiva Sutras: phonology (śikṣā)
- Ashtadhyayi: morphology
- Dhatupatha (lists classes verbal roots)
- Ganapatha (lists classes of primitive nominal stems)
- Patanjali a few centuries after Panini commented the Ashtadhyayi in his Mahabhashya.
- Yaska
- Varadaraja, Laghukaumudi,
Sanskrit grammarians - Early Accounts
The earliest historical accounts of Indian grammatical tradition is from Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to India from the 7th century.
- Hsüan Tsang (602-664)
- I Tsing (634-713)
- Fa Tsang (643-712)
The Indica of Abu Raihan al-Biruni (973-1048), dating to ca. 1030 contains detailed descriptions of all branches of Hindu science.
Similar to the Chinese Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhism aroused interest in India among its followers. Taranatha (born 1573) in his treatise of the history of Buddhism in India (completed around 1608) speaks about Panini and provides some information about grammars, but not in the manner of a person familiar with their content.
Sanskrit grammarians - Beginning of Western scholarship
- Jean Francois Pons
- Henry Thomas Colebrooke
- August Wilhelm von Schlegel
- Wilhelm von Humboldt
Sanskrit grammarians - 19th century
- Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar
- Franz Kielhorn
- William Dwight Whitney
- Bruno Liebich
- Otto Boehtlingk
- Georg Bühler
Sanskrit grammarians - Modern period
- Bernhard Geiger
- Leonhard Bloomfield
- Paul Thieme
- Louis Renou
Other related archives1030, 1608, 5th century BC, 7th century, śikṣā, Ashtadhyayi, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Aṣṭādhyāyī, Buddhist, Dhatupatha, Ganapatha, Georg Bühler, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Mahabhashya, Otto Boehtlingk, Patanjali, Paul Thieme, Pāṇini, Sanskrit, Shiva Sutras, Taranatha, Tibetan Buddhism, Vedanga, Vedic India, Wilhelm von Humboldt, William Dwight Whitney, Yaska
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Sanskrit grammarians", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
