The name Panini is a
patronymic meaning descendant of Paṇina. His full name was Dakṣiputra Panini according to verses 1.75.13 and 3.251.12 of
Patanjali's
Mahabhashya Mahābhāṣya, with the first part suggesting his mother's name was Dakṣi.
Dating Nothing definite is known about when Panini lived, not even in which century he lived. Panini has been dated between the seventh or sixth and fourth century BCE. George Cardona (1997) in his authoritative survey and review of Panini-related studies, states that the available evidence strongly supports a dating not before 400 BCE, while earlier dating depends on interpretations and is not probative. Based on
numismatic findings,
von Hinüber (1989) and
Falk (1993) place Panini in the mid-4th century BCE. Panini's
rupya (A 5.2.119, A 5.2.120, A. 5.4.43, A 4.3.153,) mentions a specific gold coin, the
niṣka, in several sutras, which originated in India in the 4th-century BCE. According to Houben, "the date of " for Panini is thus based on concrete evidence which till now has not been refuted." According to Bronkhorst (2016), there is no reason to doubt the validity of Von Hinüber's and Falk's argument, setting the
terminus post quem for the date of Panini at 350 BCE or the decades thereafter. According to Bronkhorst, It is not certain whether Panini used writing for the composition of his work, though it is generally agreed that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as
lipi ("script") and
lipikara ("scribe") in section 3.2 of the
Ashtadhyayi. The dating of the
introduction of writing to present day North West Pakistan may therefore give further information on the historical dating of Panini. Panini cites at least ten grammarians and linguists before him: Āpiśali,
Kāśyapa, Gārgya, Gālava, Cākravarmaṇa,
Bhāradvāja,
Śākaṭāyana,
Śākalya, Senaka, Sphoṭāyana and
Yaska. According to Kamal K. Misra, Panini references Yaska's
Nirukta, "whose writings date back to the middle of the 4th century B.C". The Sanskrit epic
Brihatkatha and the Buddhist scripture
Mañjuśrī-mūla-kalpa both mention Panini to have been a contemporary with the king
Dhana Nanda (reigned 329-321 BCE), the last monarch of the
Nanda Empire before
Chandragupta Maurya came to power. Cardona offers an earlier date for Panini, by arguing the compound word
Yona|, discussed in sutra 4.1.49, instead of referring to a writing (
lipi) c.q. cuneiform of the
Achaemenid Empire, or the
Greek of
Alexander the Great, refers to
Greek women; and that Indus valley residents possibly had
contacts with Greek women before Darius's 535 BCE, or Alexander's 326 BCE conquests. K. B. Pathak (1930) argues that the
kumāraśramaṇa, of sutra 2.1.70, derived from
śramaṇa, which refers to female renunciates, c.q. "
Buddhist nuns", could also refer to
Jain Aryika, of unknown origin, possibly permitting Panini to be placed before the, 5th century BCE,
Gautama Buddha. Others, based on Panini's linguistic style, date his works to the sixth or fifth century BCE, as: • According to Bod, Panini's grammar defines Classical Sanskrit, so Panini is chronologically placed in the later part of the
Vedic period, corresponding to the seventh to fifth century BCE. • According to
A. B. Keith, the Sanskrit text that most matches the language described by Panini is the
Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (). • According to Scharfe, "his proximity to the Vedic language as found in the
Upanishads and Vedic sūtras suggests the 5th or maybe 6th c. B.C."
Location Nothing certain is known about Panini's personal life. In an inscription of Siladitya VII of
Valabhi, he is called Śalāturiya, which means "a man from Salatura". This means Panini lived in
Salatura in ancient
Gandhara (present day north-west
Pakistan), which likely was near
Lahor, a town at the junction of the
Indus and
Kabul rivers. According to the memoirs of the 7th-century Chinese scholar
Xuanzang, there was a town called
Suoluoduluo on the Indus where Panini was born, and where he composed the
Qingming-lun (Sanskrit:
Vyākaraṇa). According to Hartmut Scharfe, Panini lived in
Gandāra, while a
satrapy of the
Achaemenid Empire, post the, c. 535 BCE,
Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley, but before the, 327 BCE,
conquest of Alexander the Great. He must, therefore, have been technically a Persian subject but his work shows no awareness of the
Persian language. According to
Patrick Olivelle, Panini's text and references to him elsewhere suggest that "he was clearly a northerner, probably from the northwestern region".
Legends and later reception According to
Kathāsaritsāgara legends Panini studied under his guru Varsha in
Pataliputra (modern
Patna). Not the brightest of his disciples, on the advice of Varsha's wife, Panini went to the
Himalayas to do penance and gain knowledge from
Shiva.
Sutras were granted by Shiva, who danced and played his
damaru before Panini and produced the basic sounds of these sutras, Panini accepted them and they are now known as the
Shiva Sutras. Armed with this new grammar Panini came back from the Himalayas to Pataliputra. But at the same time,
Vararuchi, another disciple of Varsha had learned of a grammar from
Indra. They
engaged in a debate which lasted eight days and on the last day, with Vararuchi emerging dominant, Panini was able to defeat him with the help of Shiva who destroyed Vararuchi's grammar book. Panini then defeated the rest of Varsha's disciples and emerged as the greatest grammarian. Panini is believed to have spent the major portion of his life in Pataliputra and according to some
pandits, he was born and brought up there, the ancestors of Panini having already moved there from
Salatura. Panini is also mentioned in Indian fables and other ancient texts. The
Panchatantra, for example, mentions that Panini was killed by a lion. According to some historians
Pingala was the brother of Panini.'''' Panini was depicted on a five-rupee
Indian postage stamp in August 2004. ==
Ashtadhyayi ==