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Education Literature and Sciences
365
The date of Pāņini is not definite, and he has been placed between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C. It is to be noted that the subject, as treated by Panini, is no longer subservient to the needs of mere Veda-study but has an independent life and destiny of its own, though it does not exclude the Veda from its purview. It is no longer a mere handmaiden of the Vedavidyā. It is a distinct science laying down the laws applicable to the entire Sanskrit language, of which the typical form assumed is what we call classical Sanskrit.
(B) Metrics
There are many scattered references to metre in the Brāhmanas, but it is in the Sūtras (e.g. the Sänkhāyana Srauta Sutra, the Rigveda Prātisakhya and the Nidāna Sūtra that an attempt is made to arrange the archiac metres systematically, The earliest existing work on Metrics is Pingala's Chhandašāstra. He started the practice of measuring a metrical line with the help of the. Trikas or the eight groups of three letters cach. From very old times, the Sanskrit metres in the Vedas were distinguished from each other by the number of letters contained in each line of a stanza. Pingala's date is uncertain but he may be assigned to the first or second century B.C. Pingala himself mentions earlier authorities like Rāta, Māndavya, Kāśyapa and others while defining the classical metres, which shows that the development of the classical metres had begun long before Pingala.
(C) Science of Polity'
It is only after the rise of the well organized states in the age of Mahāvīra that the Science of Polity scems to have originated. Both the Mahābhārata and the Arthašāstra give us information about the early writers of Hindu Polity and the thcories propounded by them. These two works represent independent traditions and sources. Kautilya rcfers to nincteen tcachers who prccede him-Manu, Brihaspati, Parāśara, Ušanas, Bharadväja, Viśālāksha, Piśuna, Kaunapadania, Vätavyādhi, etc. The Mahabharata mentions somc common names besides five others.
Unfortunately, the works of thesc authors have been losi, but their opinions quoted in the Mahabharatc and the Arthe
