Panini and the Paninians of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries – PP 16-17

Proposal Abstract

This project focuses on Paninian Sanskrit grammar and its history in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It aims, on the one hand, to deepen our knowledge of this period known as “pre-modern”, a period especially fertile in the history of Sanskrit culture, but up to now neglected in favour of older times. It aims, on the other hand and at the same time, at making accessible the knowledge of this period on which the Paninian grammatical tradition lives today.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the approximately 4.000 aphorisms of the A??adhyayi (All of the eight chapters), which make up the work of Pa?ini (4th century before our era) are presented by several of the exegetes of this grammar in a new arrangement which emphasizes the notion of derivation (prakriya). This grammar, indeed, explains the formation of words, step by step, through their constitutive elements identified beforehand. The notion of derivation eminently characterises the complex system which this grammar represents.

This project concerns two major works of the exegetes of this period: the Prakriya-sarvasva (The encyclopaedia of derivation) of Naraya?a Bha??a and the Siddhanta-kaumudi (The elucidation of doctrine) of Bha??oji Dik?ita. These two works are the object of two further original tasks: to undertake for the first time, an analysis, a critical edition and a translation of the Prakriya-sarvasva, and to explicit in the most comprehensive and detailed way — in the form of a dictionary of examples — the functioning of the Paninian system (and its field of application) such as the Siddhantakaumudi has analysed it. It is this analysis that the rare traditional Indian scholars (pandits) refer to today, when one tries to explain and use this grammar which defines what is called “classical” Sanskrit.