Systems of Sanskrit Grammar
[- § 14 Known Facts about Panini's Life from his native place. Cunningham has identified Salatura with the present Lahaur in the Yusufzai valley. In the days of Hiuen Tsang the valley was known as Udyana and Salãtura was a prosperous town. To-day it is an obs- cure deserted village in the North-western Frontier Pro- vince, near Attock. In his Mahabhashya' Patañjali gives another bit of biographical information about Panini whom he calles refrger. Dakshi then was Panini's mother. The Kathasaritsägara (tarañga 4) makes Panini a contem- porary of Katyayana and Vyadi and Indradatta. along with whom he studied at the house of . Not succeeding in his studies Panini practised penance and received from God Siva the fourteen pratyahara sutras. The story about his death from a tiger as recorded in Panchatantra, if based on fact, may or may not refer to our Panini. And this is about all that we know of Panini's personality. 14. Character of Panini's work.-Panini's work consists of nearly four thousand sutras thrown into eight adhyāyas of four pädas each: hence its name Ashtadhyayi. The text of the sütras has come down to us almost intact. A doubt exists as to the genuineness of only five of these sātras, and that is because they are given in the Mahabhäshya as vārtikas to the sutras just preceding them. When we say that the text has been preserved intact, it is not meant that it is exactly as we find it in any of our current. editions. The late Dr. Kielhorn drew attention to the 1 qızîgaer miðð: 1 Kielhorn's ed. vol. i. p. 75. 2 firê te Para for: Tantra ii, atanzu 23. tendency to regard as sutra what is given as värtika, apd vice versa, has created some confusion in the exact enmera- tion of the sutras. The whole matter needs to be critically studied. Compare Goldsticker page 29 (Reprint, p. 21), note 28. 3 Namely, two between iv. 3.131 and 132 and v. 1.36, vi. 1.62, and vi. 1.100,-the last three being given in the Mahabhi- shya as värtikus to the sutras 4 Indian Antiquary, volume xvi, immediately preceding. The page 179.
