Ashtadhyayi

(“Eight Sections”) Text composed by the
Sanskrit grammarian Panini (ca. 4th c.
B.C.E.); the text’s name stems from the
64
Ashram
Religious leader at an ashram in Puri.
eight sections it contains. Panini wrote
the Ashtadhyayi as a descriptive account
of contemporary Sanskrit, but in later
generations the text was transformed
into the prescriptive norm for the language. Each of the Ashtadhyayi’s eight
sections is composed of a series of brief
aphorisms (sutras), which are usually
only a few words long, and refers to a
specific facet of Sanskrit grammar. Each
sutra in a given section builds upon all
the preceding sutras, and in turn provides the foundation and background
for understanding those coming after it.
This sequential description means that
Panini began with Sanskrit’s most
general linguistic features and moved
from there to more specific ones. This
method allowed Panini to provide a
complete account of the Sanskrit
language as briefly as possible, and the
text’s condensed form facilitated memorization. As with most sutra texts, the
Ashtadhyayi’s terseness of expression
presupposes a commentary, since the
sutras themselves are so short and pithy
that they are simply cryptic to the uninitiated. The Ashtadhyayi’s most famous
commentary is the Mahabhashya,
written by the grammarian Patanjali in
the second century B.C.E.