Page:Systems-of-Sanskrit-Grammar-SK Belvalkar.pdf/21

Systems of Sanskrit Grammar (-§ 22 Pinini: His Date i3

ing specimen of that type of literary activity which found expression in the aphoristic style.’

11. Pauini’s date ~The question about the age of this greatest of grammarians is by no means yet settled, or even on the way of being settled. The late Dr. Peterson was inclined to identify him with his namesake, Panini the poet, quoted in Vallabhadeva’s Subhashit&vali and cisewhere, and to place him ‘ata date much later than that ordinarily accepted,’ that is, about the beginning of the Christian era.?_ The identification of Panini the gram- marian with Panini the poet was also accepted by Pischel, who however assigned to him the date cir. 500 before Christ. The question ‘how far Panini will ‘eventually have to be brought down from the date now accepted for him, or how far it may be, on the contraty, advisable to push into remoter antiquity the lyrical poetry of Northern. India’ is finally left undetermined by Dr. Peterson?

According to this view it would appear that the two well-known references to the akhySyika called Vasa- vadatta occurring in the Mahabhashya (vol. ii, p. 284) are to be taken as chronologically in touch with the celebrat- ed romance of Subandhu, a writer of the seventh century, This will leave not even a century between Patadijali and Bhartrihari the author of the Vakyapadiya. How in that case we are to account for the vicissitudes in the text of the Mahabhashya as recorded in the latter work‘ and in the Rajatarangini’ one is at a loss to say. Since the recent discovery of Bhisa’s Svapna-Vasavadattam, which probably was based upon an earlier epic or. akhydnaka,

1 That the stitra-form was not new 3 Introduction to the Subbishita- in Piuini’s days is evident vali, p. 58, from the sitra v,1.58:deqr- 4 Towards the end of Kanda fi, am aarigaareretg t 5 Compare 1.176 ; See slso Indian 2 See bis Report on the search of Antiquary, vol. iv. p. 107. Sk. Mos. for 1882-82, pp. 39ff, �