Systems of Sanskrit Grammar
Systems of Sanskrit Grammar § 14 - ] fact that the text of the sutras has not received from the editors all the care that is necessary. All that we mean is that with sufficient pains we can restore from the värtikas and the Mahabhashya the exact words as they were used by Panini himself. Changes have been sug- gested in more than one place by more than one writer, but they were not actually made until after the times of Chandragomin, the Kāśikäkāras, and subsequent writers., Panini has discussed his entire subject in a manner which is very simple in outline, could we but once grasp it, but which has proved very complex in execution. We may conceive of it in some such way as the following. Analysing language-and this is what vyakaraṇa literally means--the first element we reach is a sentence, which again consists of a verb in the various tenses and moods, and a number of substantives in case-relations to each other. [The indeclinables we do not count for the present; they are put in towards the end of 1.4.] Now the forms of verbs that we meet in sentences seem to be made up of an original root-stem and a number of pratya- yas or endings, and it is these endings that give the verbs their several modal and temporal significances. These endings, we further notice, group themselves into two sets, and some roots take invariably only one of them, others both, while a number of others change from one to the other under certain circumstances. At the outset then, and to get rid of extra complexity, we dispose of these so-called Atmane-pada and Parasmai-pada prakriyas (1.3). 20 Turning pari passu to the other element of the sen- tence, having defined a case-relation (i. 4), we notice that there are often in a sentence sustantives without any case termination at all. We explain these as the members of a whole which we technically call a samāsa or a com- pound. The formation and the varieties of these must
