________________ Panini did not compose the Linganusasana usually associated with the Astadhyayi4, Yudhisthira Mimamsaka49 and Vedavati have maintained that the text was propounded by Panini, because the commentators accept this. ... 2.7. The Astadhyayi may be ascribed to the genera of literature described by Panini as prokta. The term signifies a treatise which is based on an earlier work or works and intended to be used as a text-book by the redactor-author to teach his students. In its new form it derives its title after his name, e.g. paniniyam, apisalam, kasakstsnam, which mean 'enounced by Panini, Apisali, Kasakstsni, respectivelys. On the other hand original contribution (upajna)51 of Panini lies in his grammar on tense-system characterized by absence of any definitions of tenses. 2.8. The aim of the Astadhyayi has been just to correctly describe and analyse the words of Sanskrit language, to enable one to recognise the correct words as per the usage of the elite52. To this end more attention seems to have been paid here towards the consideration and arrangement of different components of words, and the grammatical operations leading to the complete derivation of correct word-forms, than a mere derivation of words which may be seen to have been more a concern of the later grammarians53. Panini himself perhaps considered as his real advance over all his predecessors his technic of economising expression, presumably to give his students aid to : memory54. We have reasons to assume that the sutras from the earliest times were accompanied by a traditional explanation to them. Among the various means whereby Panini attempted to secure terseness and brevity of expression, the foremost is the device of the pratyaharas or elliptical statements, and of the anubandhas or significant endings. The first was effected by means of the fourteen Sivasutras, which, according to tradition, were revealed to him by Lord Siva himself by sounding his tabor. As to the second, although the anubandhas used by Panini are peculiar to himself, practice already existed, and Panini only utilised it to its utmost limits. The formation of the Ganas also tended towards the same result. Some of these Ganas are complete and some are aksti-ganas, i.e. they do not exhaustively enumerate all the words of a class but rather give merely a few leading types. In his sutras Panini mentions only the first word of the Gana and adds adi to it. Although these Ganas have since been considerably tempered with since his times and since we cannot be certain whether any one word now found in the Ganapatha existed in Panini's days, still the bulk of our present Ganapatha may safely be considered as coming from the hands of the grammarian himself. The next device to secure brevity was the invention of
