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4. SANSKRIT
his Ashtadhyayi. No one with any clear understanding of the complexity of his system could conceive that he worked without written notes using human notepads. That is exactly what we are asked to do by those who want to date back Panini. (It is proposed that composed it with the help of a group of students whose memories served him as 'notepads'. Writing first reappears in India (since the Indus script) in the form of the Brāhmi script from ca. the 6th century BC, though these early instances of the Brāhmi script are from Tamil Nadu in southern India, quite distant from Gandhara in northwestern India. Since Gandhara was under Persian rule in the 6th century BC, it would also be possible that he used the Aramaic alphabet (from a variant of which the Brāhmi script is likely a descendant). Along with the understanding that the first sanskrit documentation is only from the second century AD we are forced to date panini in the first or second century AD rather than at the time of Buddha nor Alexander. One of the Aryan deity was still Vasudeva as Panini refers and so it was long before the appearance of the name Krishna which appears only after the third century AD. Kushan kings took their Indian name from Vasudeva until third century AD.
Based on the Archeological, linguistics and geographical reasons, the most probable date of Panini is soon after the first century. The Classical Sanskrit starts from there. At any rate we do not have any Sanskrit documents of work of earlier dates in existence.
While Panini's date is unknown, we have other Grammarians whose dates are well established. Katantravyakarana by Sharvavarman (C200 AD), Chandravyakarana by Chandragomin (c 700 AD), Vakyapadiya by Bhartrhari (700 AD), Katantrasutravrtti by Durgasingha (900 AD), Siddhahemachandranushasana by Hemachandra (1050-1100 AD), Mugdhavodhavyakarana by Vopadeva (1200-1250 AD), Jaumaravyakarana by Kramadishvara (1200-1250), Saupadmavyakarana by Padmanabha Datta (1300-1350),
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