Mahabhashya (महाभाष्य, IAST: , mɐɦaːbɦaːʂjɐ, "great commentary"), attributed to Patañjali, is a commentary on selected rules of Sanskrit grammar from Pāṇini's treatise, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, as well as Kātyāyana's Vārttika-sūtra, an elaboration of Pāṇini's grammar. It is dated to the 2nd century BCE vide itsings record of The buddhist Religion by ITSING, the chinese traveller who resided india for 16 years and studied in Nalanda University. reli.
Patañjali is one of the three most famous Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, other two being Pāṇini and Kātyāyana who preceded Patañjali (dated to c. 250 BCE). Kātyāyana's work (nearly 1500 verses on ) is available only through references in Patañjali's work.
It was with Patañjali that the Indian tradition of language scholarship reached its definite form. The system thus established is extremely detailed as to shiksha (phonology, including accent) and vyakarana (grammar and morphology). Syntax is scarcely touched, but nirukta (etymology) is discussed, and these etymologies naturally lead to semantic explanations. People interpret his work to be a defence of Pāṇini, whose Sutras are elaborated meaningfully. Patañjali also examines Kātyāyana rather severely. But the main contributions of Patañjali lies in the treatment of the principles of grammar enunciated by him.
Kātyāyana introduced semantic discourse into grammar, which was further elaborated by Patañjali to such an extent that can be called a mix of grammar as such as well as a philosophy of grammar. Kāśika-vritti by Jayāditya and Vāmana (mentioned by Itsing) included viewpoints of other grammarians also which did not conform to Patañjali's views.
The extant Mahābhāṣya text is available on 1228 of the 3981 sūtras of the Aṣṭādhyāyī. The Mahābhāṣya is divided into eighty five sections called āhnika consisting of subject matter of one day's study each.
Satyapriya Tirtha (c. 1701 – c. 1744), a peetadhipathi of Uttaradi Matha belonging to Dvaita school of Vedanta wrote a commentary on Mahābhāṣya named Mahābhāṣya Vivarana.
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IAST (Devanagari: पाणिनि, paːɳin̪i) was a Sanskrit philologist, grammarian, and revered scholar in ancient India, variously dated between the 6th and 4th century BCE. Since the discovery and publication of his work Aṣṭādhyāyī by European scholars in the nineteenth century, Pāṇini has been considered the "first descriptive linguist", and even labelled as “the father of linguistics”. His approach to grammar was influential on such foundational linguists as Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.
Kātyāyana (कात्यायन) also spelled as Katyayana (est. 6th to 3rd century BCE) was a Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India. According to some legends, he was born in the Katya lineage originating from Vishwamitra, thus called Katyayana. The Kathāsaritsāgara mentions Kātyāyana as another name of Vararuci, a re-incarnation of Lord Shiva's gana or follower Pushpadanta.
The (Devanagari अष्टाध्यायी) is a grammar that describes a form of an early Indo-Aryan language: Sanskrit. Authored by Sanskrit philologist and scholar Pāṇini and dated to around 500 BCE, it describes the language as current in his time, specifically the dialect and register of an élite of model speakers, referred to by Pāṇini himself as śiṣṭa. The work also accounts both for some features specific to the older Vedic form of the language, as well as certain dialectal features current in the author’s time.