[Y-Indology] Use of sandhi in Panini's sutras

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INDOLOGY, "Harry Spier" <harryspier@H...> wrote:

 

> This of course brings up the question why didn't Panini just

> eliminate sandhi from his metalanguage to avoid these

> problematic interpretations since he was comfortable making

> other changes to sanskrit such as use of "iti", use of case

> endings etc?

 

Given that Ashtadhyayi was transmitted orally (at least in the

beginning), we need to figure out what was considered

pronounceable. That probably played the most important part

in these kinds of things. [Note that the change of final c/j/z

is due to (regularization of) historical reasons. But

voicing and assimilation spread even more in Prakrits that

expecting people to avoid them may have been impossible.]

 

> Another ambiguity I've always wondered about is in the

> zivasUtras where you have "aN" and also "yaN". Does this

> double use of the marker "N" have some "subtle" use?

 

I am not sure. But I have a different question: What other letter

could be used here and what problems, if any, would each of those

pose?

 

Nath Rao