नीलेश-परिचयः

Source: TW

सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् is a text of Sanskrit grammar written by धारेश्वर भोज in the 11th century AD. This is the only grammar of Sanskrit language that combines all the knowledge from the all important grammatical texts, including those of पाणिनि, कात्यायन, पतञ्जलि, चान्द्र, जैनेन्द्र शाकटायन, कैयट and others.

सूत्रपाठे सर्वम्

सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् contains a total of 6480 सूत्राणि, divided into eight अध्यायाः (each with four पादाः). The book covers not just the sutras of Ashtadhyayi, but also all the enhancements suggested by the वार्त्तिककार (e.g. see 7|4|109), the भाष्यकार (e.g. see 1|2|63) and also by various succeeding grammarians. In addition, it also contains the the entire गणपाठ (e.g. see 1|1|112), उणादिसूत्राणि (e.g. see 2|1|1), फिट्सूत्राणि (e.g. see 8|3|108) and परिभाषासूत्राणि (e.g. see 1|2|85) included inside the main text itself.

दोषमार्जनम्

सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् appears to be heavily influenced by Ashtadhyayi, and Bhoja has rephrased a significant number of sutras from Ashtadhyayi before using them in his book. Some of this restructuring is for avoiding certain ambiguity (see 1|1|106) and some other is for adding enhancements (see 1|1|34). Bhoja has also created new sutras to fill the missing gaps (see 1|1|104) and has omitted a number of sutras from Ashtadhyayi. (E.g. Ashtadhyayi sutra 8|3|13 “आतोऽटि नित्यम्” isn’t included in सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् in any form, as it is not needed). In addition, Bhoja has rearranged all the sutras to set a logical structure (e.g. entire वैदिकव्याकरण is in chapter 8, starting at 8|1|1). In this entire process, he was also able to get rid of the प्रत्याहार “अट्”, thereby merging the two Shiva-sutras (“हयवरट्” and “लण्”) into a single one (“हयवरलण्”).

लेखाः

Very little has been published on सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम्. Here are a few resources for those interested -

• The original edition of the सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् published by University of Madras can be downloaded from here
• An introductory article on सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् is here.
• नारायणदण्डनाथ has written a commentary on first seven chapters of सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम्, six of which have been published and can be downloaded from here. Individual volumes can also be downloaded from here, here, here and here.

We are thankful to Sri Narayan Prasad (hindix@gmail.com) who has kindly provided the unicode text of सरस्वतीकण्ठाभरणम् (corrected and revised), and permitted us to host it on ashtadhyayi.com. He has also authored multiple articles on this topic, all of which can be accessed here.