[ - 45 Technical Devices used by Panini 23 without being misunderstood. Why Panini should have elected to strain all his nerves to bring about a result which a student of grammar is often likely to regard as the curse of his lot is more than what we can say. His object may have been to give his students aids to memo- ry, or the sutra-style may have arisen, as suggested by Goldstücker, in the scarcity of the material for writing. In any case we have reasons to assume that the sutras from the earliest times were accompanied by a traditional explanation of them. Let us for a moment dwell a little longer on this point and note the various means whereby Panini attemp- ted to secure terseness and brevity of expression. The foremost amongst the devices used was of course that of the pratyähäras or elliptical statements, and of the anu- bandhas or significant endings. The first was effected by means of the fourteen Siva-sutras, which, according to tradition, were revealed to him by God Siva himself by sounding his tabor. As to the second, although the anu- bandhas used by Panini are peculiar to himself, the de- vice does not appear to have been his invention. The practice already existed, and Panini only utilised it to its utmost limits.' The formation of ganas, by which are meant lists of words which undergo similar grammatical changes, also tended towards the same result. Some of these ganas are complete and some akriti-gauas, that is to say, ganas which do not exhaustively enumerate all the words of a grammars. But for the intrin- sie difficulty of the task and for the fact that we have no extant authority earlier than 1 Compare Mabubhusbya on vii, 1. the Mabablishya, which knows the Ashtadhyayf in practically 18 ar the same form in which we have it now, here would be a splendid problem in textual criticisin. og er after- affor farza
