पृष्ठम्:The Sanskrit Language (T.Burrow).djvu/५६

OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF SANSKRIT 49 brevity is achieved by the invention of an algebraical system of notation of a kind not found outside the grammatical schools. The system is so idiosyncratic that it could not possibly have been invented there and then by one man and imposed immed- iately on all his colleagues. It is clearly the growth of many centuries and Panini is to be regarded as the final redactor of a traditional Vydkarana who superseded all others on account of his superior comprehensiveness and accuracy. Many of the pre- decessors of Panini are in fact cited in the text, but the merits of his own work condemned theirs to early oblivion. The brevity which the Sutra style aimed at and achieved was due to the fact that all instruction was still oral and dependent on memory. It implies also from the very beginning the exist- ence of a commentary {vrtti), also oral, in which the examples were contained. When this was first written down is not known, but the earliest existing commentary on Panini, the Kasika , dates from a thousand years after his time (c. a.d. 700). A ganapdtha containing lists of words referred to in the Sutra by citation of the first word in them followed by - ddi , and a dhdtupdtha, containing a list of verbal roots, formed essential parts of his system. The Sutras of Panini were supplemented and to some extent corrected by Katyayana at a date not long after the composi- tion of the A stadhydyi itself. These notes ( Vdrttika -) are of the same brevity as the original work, but were fortunately soon made the subject of an extensive commentary ( Mahabhdsya ) by Patarijali. His date is fortunately known through contemporary references, notably to the Suhga king Pusyamitra and to an invasion of the Bactrian Greeks, which fix him definitely in the second century b.c. Later grammatical works exist in abundance, and many diverse schools arose, but none of them have any independent authority, being completely derivative from Panini. The earliest is the Kdtantra which arose about the Christian era, and whose author Sarvavarman is said by tradition to have been connected with the Satavahana dynasty of the Deccan. The work aimed at introducing the study of correct Sanskrit to a wider public than the educated Brahmins for whom Panini and his immediate successors had written. Of later works mention may be made of the Grammar of Candra (a.d. sixth century) which achieved great popularity among the Buddists, and the