Page:Systems-of-Sanskrit-Grammar-SK Belvalkar.pdf/65

 [- § 42 The Chandra School 57 the laity. Following the wake of the times we have, side by side, numerous recasts of the Ashtadhyayi tend- ing towards the same object. The lowest stage is reach- ed when we come to the popular handbooks of the eighteenth century. How far this decline is to be attri- buted to the political aspects of the time is more curious than profitable to inquire. Certain it is that they could not have failed to produce their influence, though it is easy to exaggerate it. Nor, finally, should it be forgotten that broad characterisations of long periods in the history of any country or science have always to be accepted with limitations. The periods often overlap, and in this pre- sent case they are tentative only and may have to be re- vised in the light of later researches. in It is time now that we turned to the non-Pāṇiniya schools of grammar.¹ The Chandra School 42. The Chandra School. The earliest reference to the Chandra school of grammarians occurs in Bhartrihari's Väkyapadiya (see p. 41 above), while one of the latest is perhaps that of Mallinatha, who quotes a rule of his in his commentary on Kalidasa's Meghadīta, stanza 25 (- Tema:). Mallinātha, however, does not appear to 1 The order in which schools are here presented is not strict- ly chronological, the allied schools being taken together. 2 In the passage cited Mallinatha says that while Panini allows only the form f Chandra allows TH also. As a matter of fact Chandra allows only one form (Chandra sutra vi. 1.42); it is Sakatayana and Hemachandra who allow 8 [ Sk. Gr. ] both the forms, which are in- discriminately used in classi- cal Sanskrit. Presumably, therefore, Mallinatha either had access to a work of the Chandra school not known to us, or more probably he meant by Chandra Hema-chandra, unless the whole is a positive mistake. I owe this note to Mr. Krishnaji Govinda Oka, editor of the Kshtratarangint.