[Y-Indology] Panini sutras memorized by 3 year-olds.

[Guest guest]

-

<mmdesh

 

| The last time I personally heard a child recite the Ashtadhyayi

| was sometime in the late (or was it early?) sixties in Pune.

 

__

What does she do now? Any idea?

Rajesh Kochhar

[Guest guest]

>Each of the Paadas of the Ashtadhyayi is assigned a mnemonic key

> consisting of the first word of rule 1, 20, 40, 60 etc,

 

I think, you must be having in mind 1, 21, 41, 61 etc.

 

Best regards.

 

Narayan Prasad

 

-

<mmdesh

<INDOLOGY>

Friday, February 07, 2003 3:27 AM

[Y-Indology] Re: Panini sutras memorized by 3 year-olds.

 

 

> A few years ago, one of these Maharashtrian Veda reciters, Shri.

> Madhav Ganesh Joshi, from NIpani, published a book

> "Svarayuktaa Ashtaadhyaayii", 1992 (Sadhakashram, Alandi,

> Pune). I met him in Pune and got a copy of his book from him.

> The book presents an accented text of the Ashtadhyayi based on

> a manuscript, evidently used by the Vaidikas. Interestingly, the

> book has a preface by Professor S.D. Joshi in English, where

> S.D. Joshi analyses the accent markings on this text, and

> concludes: "The conclusion I draw from what I have noted is that

> the manuscript which is obviously meant as a help for pandits

> during recitation does not strictly follow the paninian rules of

> accentuation, both as regards word-or-sentence accent, and as

> regards technical accent. But from what I heard from Mr.

> Nipanikar Shastri I understand that Vaidika Dashagranthi

> pandits like Vedamurti Ghaisas Shastri from Poona have

> assured Mr. Nipanikar Shastri that the accentuation given by the

> manuscript is exactly that which they have learnt for purposes of

> recitation."

>

> Michael Witzel is evidently not aware of the value of recounting

> the exact numerical location of a Panini sutra in the traditional

> recitation. The tradition has devised an elaborate system of

> quickly recovering the exact number of a given rule. Each of the

> Paadas of the Ashtadhyayi is assigned a mnemonic key

> consisting of the first word of rule 1, 20, 40, 60 etc, and the

> number of remaining rules (smaller than 20). For example, the

> key for the 1st Paada of the first Adhyaya is:

>

> v.rddhir-aadyantavad-avyayiibhaava.h-pratyayasyaluk-pa~ncadaz

> a

>

> There are 32 such keys. A reciter who knows the whole text by

> heart starts reciting from a given sutra until he hits one of the

> markers in one of these keys. This happens in the recitation of

> 20 or less rules, and one can immediately figure out the exact

> number of the rule. Knowing the exact number of a given rule is

> important in deciding which rule will override the other rule.

>

> Madhav Deshpande

>

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

>S.D. Joshi analyses the accent markings on this text, ...

>"...the manuscript .... does not strictly follow the paninian rules of

>accentuation, both as regards word-or-sentence accent, and as

>regards technical accent. "

 

Such accented manuscripts seem to be fairly rare. Some 4 or 5 of them are

mentioned in a footnote either by G. Cardona or by H. Scharfe in their

books about Panini/Grammar.

 

I have found one such text in India in the Seventies. It is a Nagari

lithograph of Pan.'s rules dating from c. 1850 (writing from memory).

Someone has subsquently accented it in red Rgveda/Taittiriya style accent

marks. I put the thing aside then, after having checked out the first page

and finding what S.D. Joshi describes: this kind of accentuation does agree

with regular accents. Incidentally, the person who has accented that

lithograph lost interest after some 4-5 folios and has left the rest

unaccented.

 

>Michael Witzel is evidently not aware of the value of recounting

>the exact numerical location of a Panini sutra in the traditional

>recitation. The tradition has devised an elaborate system...

 

Perhaps I should have been more elaborate:

>>(Or Sutra numbers, but that would be non-traditional, as a "human

tapecorder" does not need number <<

 

I think we all are aware of the many clever systems functioning as

(increasingly) higher level indexes (to indexes) or maps (of maps) to

[Vedic] texts, whether they be the simple Jyotisa naksatra or Purana name

mnemonics or the more complex Samaveda systems of Hitavakya and Ccalaksara,

-- upto Chandahsutra Vedanga metrical components (ta, ja, ga, etc.) or up

to whole meters being indicated by binary numbers.

 

Some such systems (such as the SV ones mentioend above) allow to pinpoint

certain portions/items (such as a verse, but also much more). All of this

beginning right with the actual ordering of the core of the Rgveda

according to Rsi/clan, deity and meter, well before Sakalya.

 

For a good paper on these items see: Takao Hayashi. Indo.ni okeru junretsu,

kumiawase, rekkyo. Kagakusi Kenkyu, Journal of History of Science in Japan,

Series II, Vol. 18 (No. 130) Summer 1979, 158-171, esp. pp. 163-7

 

Many or most such systems have also been collected and described in Pt.

Aithal's 500 pp. book:

Aithal, K.P. Veda-Laksana. Vedic Ancillary Literature. A descriptive

bibliography. Stuttgart 1991.

 

What I said/meant was that a reciter, such as my Nepalese friend,

originally did not/does not by necessity *need* these systems to pinpoint a

certain rule.

 

Cheers, MW

 

 

============================================================

Michael Witzel

Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University

2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

 

ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages)

home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm