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SARASVATĪKANTHABHARANA - THE MAGNUM OPUS OF SANSKRIT GRAMMAR
NARAYAN PRASAD
1. Introduction - Importance of Pāṇini
The Astādhyāyī of Pāṇini (5th century B. C.) is the most refined and sophisticated grammar of all the ancient and modern languages of the world. 1-5 Accepting its importance even the Western scholars have called it in express terms ‘one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence', 'a wonderful specimen of human intelligence", a notable manifestation of human intelligence', 'one of the greatest productions of the human mind' and 'an important invention of human intelligence'. 10-11 The algebraic formulation of Pāṇini's rules was not appreciated by the first Western scholars. They regarded the work as abstruse 13, ambiguous and in the highest degree obscure?4 or artificialis; its each aphorism more dark and mystic than the darkest and most mystical of oracles16, pregnant with endless progeny of interpretations and commentaries sometimes as obscure as the original"?; a system with a network of mysticisms, and the order of the Sūtras as illogical and impracticable for any one to learn Sanskrit by its means. But the Western critique was muted and eventually turned into praise when modern schools of linguistics developed sophisticated notation systems of their own.20-28 Today some scholars go upto the extent of saying that 'the Aştādhyāyi is not a Sanskrit grammar, it is a work on general linguistics. "29
Acquaintance with the Paninian analysis of root and suffixes and his recognition of ablaut - though only indirect via Charles Wilkins' (c. 1750-1836) Sanskri Grammar (1808) – inspired Franz Bopp (1791-1867) and others to develop the imposing structure of Indo-European comparative and historical
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