Saturday, 16 January 2016

सत्यमेव जयते -2.

सत्यमेव जयते -2. 
Introduction 
Arthur Anthony Macdonell (A Sanskrit Grammar for students, part- 1)
p. xi,
पाणिनि / pāṇini’s grammar consists of nearly 4,000 rules. Being composed with the utmost imaginable brevity, each सूत्र / sūtra or aphorism usually consists of only two or three words, and the whole work, if printed continuously in medium-sized देवनागरी / devanāgarī type, would not occupy more than about thirty-five pages of the present volume. And yet this grammar describes the entire संस्कृत / saṃskṛta language in all the details of its structure with a completeness which has never been equalled elsewhere. It is at once the shortest and the fullest grammar in the world.
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There are 3 or 4 next paragraphs worth reading, but  this one is presented here, to hint that though the author could see all subtleties, missed to note that पाणिनि / pāṇini did not 'compose' this treatise. He only digitized / wrote down the Veda and every word of this treatise was revealed to Him.
We say Veda is अपौरुषेय /  apauruṣeya, meaning not written by man, but are Cosmic-Knowledge, and is but revealed to a ऋषि /  ṛṣi /.
The basic error on the part of the author here is, he had no idea that there is a grammar of a language used by people of any place at a time or time-period (say 'years'). And the grammar is written later on depending upon the conventions of the people who use the language.
In case of संस्कृत / saṃskṛta language, this is exactly opposite.
The Language is already there eternally and its grammar is already well-defined.
That is why पाणिनि / pāṇini could present these  सूत्र / sūtra or aphorisms which are but वेद-मन्त्र / ऋचा / veda-mantra / ṛcā and are infallible अमोघ / amogha in describing the content.
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