Fluidity of Early Grammatical Categories in Sanskrit

Abstract

Grammatical categories as they appear in Panini's grammar may seem defined in unambiguous ways. However, the boundaries of Panini's categories can be unclear, and especially as we examine the Vedic padapathas and their treatment in the pratiśakhyas, we begin to unearth a long period when many early scholastic traditions were trying out different grammatical formulations and when the understanding of causal factors for euphonic and other transformations was not entirely clear. Different Vedic traditions not only differ from each other, but there is often indecision manifest within a given tradition. The pratiśakhyas openly refer to such ambiguity in the padapathas by using terms like sandeha, samśaya, anyaya, etc. This paper investigates evidence for this early grammatical experimentation.