Talk:Aṣṭādhyāyī

Recent developments

I have no idea how to integrate this content into the article, but it looks highly relevant. Anyone? DS (talk) 18:35, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

It's difficult for me to judge relevance. I've studied Pāṇini a bit, but I wasn't aware that there was a problem with the interpretation of 1.4.2. Similarly, there might be problems with some of the remaining rules that only a niche group knows about.

Otherwise, I see no problems with this newly proposed interpretation, where paraṁ kāryam would refer not to the stronger rule being applicable, as the tradition has it, but to the later part of the word being affected in cases of a rule conflict (vipratiṣedhe). Still, Rajpopat's going argument that para means right-side is a bit of a stretch to me, both semantically and given the fact that the writing systems in India were right-to-left at the time. I have no doubt that Pāṇini had a temporal, not spatial understanding of language.

I'd say that this can be mentioned somewhere in the article as an interesting side fact, as there are quite a few sources, albeit all seemingly reposting from the same source material. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Someone added a note on this to Pāṇini, I tweaked it a bit. But as DS says, not clear to me either yet how best to integrate it to the main article - I've been thinking about it too. I had a cursory glance at the actual 250-page thesis, but will take more work to make sense of a breakthrough achieved after 2500 years.

Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 21:34, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I've added some stuff on this now, feel free to comment or contribute further. However, I do share Kashmiri's scepticism - if not entirely, it was largely an oral tradition, so I cannot see how left-to-right or right-to-left made any sense to them. After all Pāṇini's particular intention was for his work to be transmitted orally, with no writing in question... Dyḗwsuh₃nus (talk) 22:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

OK for me, thanks. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts after you've gone through it.

I've now looked more closely at parts of Rajpopat's thesis and have mixed feelings. On one hand, he's convincing in his critique of the traditional interpretation of para and perhaps right in proposing that it's not the "latter rule" that Pāṇini requires to take precedence but the latter part of the word is to be affected.

On the other hand, I find Rajpopat's para as 'right-side' and kārya as a noun meaning 'operation' quite a bit of a stretch. I already mentioned problems with para. Also kārya used as a noun has a strong transitive connotation; it implies an act of a subject on something, or the effects of that. For an 'operation' as in logics or mathematics, an "intransitive" noun like kriyā would be used. So, I doubt that that kārya would mean anything else here than 'to be applied' (about a rule) or, more passively, 'to be subjected to something' (about a word). Paraṁ kāryam will thus mean, 'the latter (part) is to be acted on.'

I accept that this is a bit of OR on my part; still I hope it helps to evaluate the source. — kashmīrī ^TALK 01:20, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

The section "Modern interpretations"

The section mentions "Fake News" as Prof. John Lowe from Oxford University calls it. - https://www.mail-archive.com/indology@list.indology.info/msg02233.html Sason70 (talk) 10:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. This however is a personal opinion. Anyway, I think we should first wait for Rajpopat's theory to be mentioned in other academic publications, esp. review articles or books. Per WP:NOTNEWS, I don't think we should just blindly copy whatever makes it to the headlines. — kashmīrī ^TALK 13:00, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

As his theory is new, there are no published reviews on this matter. But the link I added previously has a long and detailed discussion from leading scholars on the Aṣṭādhyāyī. All of them reject Rajpopat's ideas. In addition, some Sanskritists uploaded critical conversations to you-tube. At the moment, as you have said, there are only airy remarks for news channels which are not academic. Sason70 (talk) 14:24, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

There are many "new theories" about plenty of things in science published every day. On Wikipedia, we normally wait until a new theory gains some traction in the academic community. We can't really repost every single new theory or explanation that appears in the press. Otherwise, imagine the size that the article Treatment of cancer would have by now: many thousands of lines perhaps.

Same goes for new readings of classical treatises. I think more time and academic acceptance are needed before Rajpopat's proposal can be included in an encyclopaedia. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:32, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, this is the reason why I removed it. Sason70 (talk) 08:10, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Does Pāṇini call his language as being limited to Śiṣṭas?

The article claims that the Sanskrit language on which Pāṇinian grammar is based - is specifically the dialect and register of an élite of model speakers, referred to by Pāṇini himself as śiṣṭa.

The claim appears dubious. Pāṇinian grammar is full of aphoristic sūtras that are extremely brief and afford no discussion of any sort. He doesn't limit the language underlying his grammar to any specific Indo-Aryan community or group. The commentarial tradition holds that the grammar of Pāṇini was abstracted from the speech of the scholarly community i.e. śiṣṭas (as they were taken to be the exemplars) but it doesn't limit the whole language and its native usage to them alone. Srkris (talk) 15:43, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you're saying the same thing? I understand "register" as implying that all classes were speaking it, but the register of the elite served as the model. Isn't that the same as saying that the śiṣṭas was used as exemplars for the grammar? Any suggestions for what rewording would make this clearer? Shreevatsa (talk) 05:33, 28 December 2023 (UTC)