________________
ON PĀŅINI 1. 3. 41
BY
M. A. MEHENDALE Pāṇini 1. 3. 41 reads veh pădaviharane, i. e., the root kram with the prefix vi takes Ātmanepada terminations if the meaning pädaviharana is to be conveyed.
What does pādaviharana here mean? Patañjali does not comment on this sūtra. The authors of the Kāśikā take the expression to mean 'taking a step, placing a foot-step" (pādarikșepe ), and give examples like susthu vikramate, sādhu vikramate (he) steps well'. They also observe that this placing of steps is to be understood with reference to the special gait of horses etc. (aśrādinām gativiseşo vikramaņam ucyate ) and, by implication, not with reference to the gait of human beings or the deities. It is, therefore, not surprising that we find the use of vi-kram in the Ātmanepada with reference to the horses in the siśupālavadha 5.9 ( paryantavartmasu vicakramire mahāsvāh sailasya) and that Bhattoji Dikşita in his Siddhāntakaumudi adds the word vāji to the Kāśikā.example cited above ( sadhu vikramate vāji ). Apparently, nobody has thought of any other animal except horse', although the autbors of the Kāśikā have said aśvādi.
Since the authors of the Kāśikā understand pādaviharana to mean pādaviksepa, they raise the question : where is the necessity of the present sūtra if the root kram, according to the Dhātupātha ( 1.502 ), has no other meaning but padavik sepa? Their reply is that the sūtra is necessary because roots have many meanings. The force of their argument seems to be that if the root kram has various meanings, the sūtra restricts its use in the Ātmanepada only when the root with the prefix vi conveys the meaning placing of a step '; otherwise, as in vikrämati sandhih 'the joint gets loosened, it is used in the Parasmaipada.
The meaning assigned to pādaviharana in the Kasikā, however, does not agree with the attested usage. Viharati is well attested in the Vedic literature in the sense disjoin, separate”, e.g., tau (i.e. grahau) punar viharataḥ“ (the two priests, viz. the Adhvaryu and the Neştr ) separate again those two (cups, viz. the one filled with soma, and the other filled with surā)” (Sat. Br. 5.1.2.
1 Also S. M. Katre: Dictionary of Panini 2.364, 'placing of footsteps'. 2 Panini himself has used the word viharana in this sense in asyaviharana 'opening
of the mouth, separating the jaws' in his sitra: ano do 'nāsyaviharane 1.3.20. 29 (Annals BORII
Madhu Vidya/394
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