Chapter 24.2 - Sanskrit Grammar: Katyayana, Patanjali, and Bhartrihari

[Full title: Vyakarana-Shastra (grammar) (2): Katyayana, Patanjali, and Bhartrihari]

Many grammarians followed Panini during the next two centuries, but their works are no longer extant; we know of them because their names and quotations from their works 3 arendfounds in

Patanjali's Mahabhasya. Some of those names are: Katyayana, Bharadvaja, Sunaga, Vyaghrabhuti and Vaiyaghrapadya . All these grammarians wrote varttikas (aphorisms) on Panini's work. Among them, Katyayana wrote varttikas on 1,245 of Panini's sutras and these were incorporated and commented upon by Patanjali in his Mahabhasya. Patanjali is believed to be an incarnation of the Serpent Sesa, who is Visnu's resting couch . He may be said to belong to the second century B.C., a contention that is supported by the fact that he refers in his Mahabhasya¹³ to the Mauryas, to Pusyamitra of the Sunga dynasty, 14 and to a Greek invader, identified as Menander. 15 In addition to his comments upon Katyayana's varttikas, Patanjali deals with some of the sutras in Panini's work not taken up by Katyayana, explaining and justifying them and occasionally rejecting them. Patanjali's Mahabhasya is one of the most important treatises on Sanskrit grammar. It influenced later grammatical works to a very great extent. It is written in a pleasant and lively conversational style, while the proverbial expressions which occur in it and its references to matters of everyday life serve both to enliven the discussion and to provide valuable hints regarding the conditions of life and thought in Patanjali's time. According to a tradition recorded by Bhartrhari 16 and by Kalhana (twelfth century),17 the study of the Mahabhasya at one time fell upon bad days; it was, however, later revived by scholars such as Candracarya (fifth century A.D.). There are numerous vrttis (commentaries) on this work, and a good number of them are still in manuscript. One commentary is Pradipa, written by the pre-thirteenth century Kashmirian scholar, Kaiyata; the seventeenth century critic Nagesa wrote a commentary on Pradipa which he called Uddyota. Bhartrhari's commentary was called the Mahabhasya-dipika; Helaraja, however, referred to it as Tripadi, 18 suggesting that it covered only the first three padas CC-0. 1 of the firsthadhyayaio It's only available manuscript, now in

Berlin, is in a fragmentary form; it goes up to the fifty-third sutra of the first pada of the first adhyaya. The three great grammarians we have so far referred to, Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali, are called collectively the munitraya (the three sages). After them came Bhartrhari. Although his date is very uncertain, he is usually placed somewhere between the sixth and seventh centuries A.D.. According to the Chinese traveller, I-tsing, he died about A.D. 615. Some scholars, however, place him in the fifth century between A.D. 450 and 500,19 while others place him in the third century, or even earlier.20 Bhartrhari is the author of two works, the Mahabhasyadipika, already mentioned, and the Vakyapadiya, a grammaticophilosophical work in three kandas (sections) called the Brahmakanda (dealing with Supreme Logos), the vakyakanda (dealing with sentences), and the pada-kanda (dealing with words), the last being styled the prakirna-kanda (miscellaneous section). Since it consists of these three books, the Vakyapadiya also carries the alternative name of Trikandi (the three-sectioned book). Altogether it has 1,966 Karikas (comment in metrical form). Of these, 1,323 are found in the prakirna-kanda divided into fourteen samuddesas (chapters). A commentary on the first kanda was written by Bhartrhari himself, while commentaries were written on the second and the third kanda by Punyaraja and Helaraja. An unidentified later commentator, probably of the North, condensed and simplifed Bhartrhari's own commentary, while Vrsabhadeva, probably hailing from the South, wrote Paddhati in which Bhartrhari's commentary was explained at length.