Having thrown light on the meaning of 1.4.2 in the previous chapters, I will now try to reconstruct how Pāṇini must have designed his system and, more pertinently, how he must have come up with what is arguably one of his most important rules – 1.4.2 vipratiṣedhe paraṁ kāryam. It must be borne in mind that this is a purely speculative endeavour. Nonetheless, since it stands on the foundation of the evidence provided in previous chapters, and since it helps one gain a better understanding of the functioning of the Aṣṭādhyāyī, I think it is worthwhile to engage in such speculation.
Let us use nominal inflection as our example here, and the form devaiḥ (‘God’ masculine, instrumental plural) as our pivot for this discussion. We know that Pāṇini wanted to derive not only devaiḥ, but also other forms such as devāt (ablative singular), deveṣu (locative plural) etc.
Singular
Dual
Plural
Nominative
(Vocative)
devaḥ
(deva)
devau
(devau)
devāḥ
(devāḥ)
Accusative
devam
devau
devān
Instrumental
devena
devābhyām
devaiḥ
Dative
devāya
devābhyām
devebhyaḥ
Ablative
devāt
devābhyām
devebhyaḥ
Genitive
devasya
devayoḥ
devānām
Locative
deve
devayoḥ
deveṣu
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To derive the aforementioned forms, Pāṇini came up with one common base to which he could add different affixes. As traditional grammarians have correctly pointed out, Pāṇini attributed great value to lāghava ‘brevity’, and thus he wanted to create the base in such a way that he would have to make the least number of changes to it. In other words, he wanted to write as few rules as possible. From the paradigm presented above, we can see that the candidates for the position of the common base were dev, deva, deve, devai, devā, devay etc. After taking into account several other inflected forms, Pāṇini concluded that it would be convenient and optimal to choose deva as the base and then to convert it, where required, to deve, devai, devā, devāy etc. using guṇa, vowel sandhi, substitution etc. Thus, he chose deva as the common base for deriving forms like devasya, devāya, devayoḥ, deve etc.
deve
devā deva devay
devai
Secondly, Pāṇini wanted to derive not only devaiḥ but also instrumental plural forms of bases ending in other sounds and / or of other genders, such as mālābhiḥ (‘garland’ feminine, ending in ā, instrumental plural), vāribhiḥ (‘water’ neuter, ending in i, instrumental plural) etc.
kavibhiḥ
mālābhiḥ
marudbhiḥ
vanaiḥ
nadībhiḥ
bhānubhiḥ
vāribhiḥ
devaiḥ
He wanted to come up with one common affix each for every case-number combination (e.g., one affix for nominative plural, one for dative dual etc.). Given his goal of conciseness, he wanted to create these affixes in such a way that he would need to compose as few rules as possible to bring about changes in these affixes. So, when he was trying to decide what the instrumental plural affix should be, he examined all possible instrumental plural forms like kavibhiḥ, mālābhiḥ, marudbhiḥ, nadībhiḥ, bhānubhiḥ, vāribhiḥ, vanaiḥ, devaiḥ etc. He realized he had two options: he could have chosen either bhis or ais as the instrumental plural affix. He noticed that most of these forms end in bhis, and a minority of them end in ais. Because he wanted to compose as few rules as possible, he chose bhis as the instrumental plural affix. Consequently, he had to compose only one rule, namely 7.1.9 ato bhisa ais, to
200deal with the affixation process for instrumental plurals. 7.1.9 teaches the substitution of bhis with ais when bhis is preceded by a nominal base ending in a.
Using the two processes mentioned above, Pāṇini came up with different classes of nominal bases, on the basis of the final sound and grammatical gender of the base, and with declensional affixes, which he has listed in 4.1.2 sv-au-jas-am-auṭ-chaṣ-ṭā-bhyām-bhis-ṅe bhyām-bhyas-ṅasi-bhyām-bhyas-ṅas-os-ām-ṅy-os-sup.
Singular
Dual
Plural
Nominative
sU
au
Jas
Accusative
am
auṬ
Śas
Instrumental
Ṭā
bhyām
bhis
Dative
Ṅe
bhyām
bhyas
Ablative
ṄasI
bhyām
bhyas
Genitive
Ṅas
os
ām
Locative
Ṅi
os
suP
Then, he composed certain rules teaching that the affix should be placed to the right-hand side of the base (cf. 3.1.1 pratyayaḥ, 3.1.2 paraś ca). But simply juxtaposing the affix with the base could not always give the correct form. So, what did Pāṇini do to deal with this problem? Naturally, he wrote rules to prescribe the requisite changes.
Firstly, Pāṇini wrote rules to substitute certain affixes with other equivalent items (see 7.1.9 discussed above). For example, in deva + Ṅe (dative singular), Ṅe had to be replaced with ya (cf. 7.1.13 ṅer yaḥ1). But *devaya is not the correct form. So, thereafter, Pāṇini had to modify the nominal base, i.e., replace a of deva with its dīrgha counterpart ā (cf. 7.3.102 supi ca2) to get the correct form devāya. Pāṇini decided to follow this order for the whole Aṣṭādhyāyī: first, he substituted the affix if required, and second, he modified the base (or both base and affix together, in case of ekādeśa) if required.
Sometimes, only affix substitution was required, and base modification was not required. For example, consider deva + Ṅas (genitive singular). Here, Pāṇini simply had to replace Ṅas
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with sya (cf. 7.1.12 ṭāṅasiṅasām inātsyāḥ3) to get the correct form devasya. On the other hand, in some other cases, only base modification was required, and affix substitution was not required. For example, consider deva + bhyām (instrumental-dative-ablative dual). Here, Pāṇini simply had to replace a of deva with its long counterpart (cf. 7.3.102 supi ca4) to get the correct form devābhyām. Similarly, consider deva + bhyas (dative-ablative plural). Here, Pāṇini simply had to replace a of deva with e (cf. 7.3.103 bahuvacane jhaly et5) to get the correct form devebhyaḥ. But regardless of the situation, Pāṇini always followed the same order: first, he substituted the affix if required, and then he modified the base (or both base and affix together, in case of ekādeśa) if required.
Now, consider deva + bhis (instrumental plural). Here too, first Pāṇini substituted the affix bhis with ais (cf. 7.1.9 ato bhisa ais), and then, in deva + ais, modified both base and affix by performing an ekādeśa operation i.e., by replacing a + ai with ai (cf. 6.1.88 vr̥ddhir eci6). This led to the correct form devaiḥ. However, he realized that students using his grammar may encounter a hurdle when deriving the form devaiḥ. He noticed that at the step deva + bhis, 7.1.9 ato bhisa ais is not the only rule applicable: 7.3.102 supi ca and 7.3.103 bahuvacane jhaly et, which he had composed to derive the forms devābhyām and devebhyaḥ
respectively, are also applicable.
deva + bhis
7.3.102 7.3.103 7.1.9
When multiple rules became simultaneously applicable, he decided to call the competition between the rule(s) applicable to the LHS operand and the rule(s) applicable to the RHS operand, vipratiṣedha ‘mutual opposition’. As we have seen above, Pāṇini’s goal was to replace the affix first, where required, and only then to modify the base (or modify both base and affix together, in case of ekādeśa) where required. So, despite the applicability of the
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LHS rules 7.3.102 and 7.3.103 at this step, Pāṇini wanted the RHS rule 7.1.9, and not any of these two LHS rules, to apply at this step. Thus, he stated 1.4.2 vipratiṣedhe paraṁ kāryam “in the event of vipratiṣedha ‘mutual opposition’ (i.e., DOI), the para kārya ‘RHS operation’ takes place”. Upon applying 7.1.9, we get deva + ais, and rules like 7.3.102 supi ca and 7.3.103 bahuvacane jhaly et are no longer applicable. Here, the rule 6.1.88 vr̥ddhir eci applies, giving the correct form, devaiḥ.
One pertinent question that merits our attention here is: while making changes, why does Pāṇini start from the right-hand side (i.e., the affix) and then move leftwards (i.e., towards the interface between the affix and the base)? Notice that, in the forms devaiḥ, devasya, devānām, deveṣu etc., dev, which we can call the ‘LHS part’, is common to all the forms. So, the LHS part does not need to undergo any modification whatsoever. But one may ask, why not first make changes in the middle i.e., at the interface between base and affix and then move rightwards to make changes in the affix? This would be counterproductive, because the changes at the base-affix interface depend on the phonological composition of the affix. For these reasons, when making modifications, it is optimal for Pāṇini to start from the right end and move leftwards.
Pāṇini used this SSRI resolution mechanism not only for nominal inflection, but for other kinds of derivations too – such as verbal inflection, primary and secondary derivatives, compounds etc. While in the examples of DOI discussed above, the two rules are applicable to two different items i.e., one to the base and the other to the affix, Pāṇini built his system in such a way that he could extend the application of 1.4.2 to those cases of DOI wherein both rules are applicable to two different parts of the same item.
Where required, he also composed other rules to deal with DOI. For example, he composed rules 1.4.13 yasmāt pratyayavidhis tadādi pratyaye’ṅgam and 6.4.1 aṅgasya to correctly derive forms like edhante, dadhati etc. I have discussed this in detail in sections 4.1 and 4.2, chapter 4. He also composed rules like 6.4.22 asiddhavad atrābhāt and 8.2.1 pūrvatrāsiddham to counter the impact of 1.4.2 on DOI. I have discussed this in detail in chapter 5. Lastly, note that Pāṇini did not compose any rules to deal with SOI. He expected us to choose the more specific rule, as I have shown in detail in examples 1 and 2 of section 2.8, chapter 2.
Now that we have discussed how Pāṇini must have come up with 1.4.2, let us examine how the tradition interpreted 1.4.2.
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