Misra Vidya Niwas. The descriptive technique of Pāṇini. An introduction

De Gruyter, 1966. — 177 p. — (Janua Linguarum. Series Practica 18).The second quarter of this century was marked by a new interest in Pänini. L. Bloomfield for the first time saw in the grammar of Pänini (hereafter referred to as Astädhyäyla a "monumental work of human intelligence".1 He was particularly impressed by "the shorthand notation... which makes our terminology seem halting in comparison".2 During recent years "model of grammatical description" has been a matter of discussion amongst the structural linguists. M. Joos is of the opinion that linguistics can be made an exact science, a kind of mathematics.3 Pänini's A. is being looked upon as the first and the best model of description, which has a mathematical approach to language. Therefrom the idea of this study came into my mind. 0.0.0. The main purpose of this study is: (1) to introduce in brief the Päninian grammatical tradition in India; (2) to describe his technique in modern comprehensible terms, as far as it is possible, to find a correspondence in modern linguistics, and to explain the factors which make it different and which called forth this remark of Bloomfield: "Pänini's treatise is intelligible only with a commentary; even with the many commentaries we possess - and they contain a vast amount of intelligent and even brilliant scholarship - several lifetimes of work will have to be spent upon Pänini before we have a conveniently usable exposition of the language which he recorded for all time"4; (3) to give a clear exposition of the mathematical symbols used by Pänini, charting out their significance and functional load in his own A.; (4) to compare the methods of A. with some prominent methods used in modern linguistics, and assess the possibility of application of some of A.'s methods.