TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

The language of the Yajñagāthās will have to be studied closely as to
establish links with the Epic and with MIA and early Classical Skt.. 357
In order to get a grip on the problem of a general North Indian Koine,
the language of the śiṣtas, a good collection of Pāṇini's bhāṣā material has
to be prepared which will have to be compared with his Vedic rules and
with the language he actually u s e s in his Aṣṭādhyāyī, i.e. both the
grammatical forms employed and the words attested (thus, excluding
his meta language); for example the words used in definitions of
meanings of compounds could be studied. Also, the words he actually
teaches in the text of his grammar (excluding the examples contained in
gaṇas, because of their more or less uncertain extent) will have to be
taken into account. Only then can the connections with texts like the PS,
KS, etc. and the relation of his archaic bhāṣā to the language of the RV
be further elaborated, in succession of the work of P.Thieme's Pāṇini and
the Veda. and, on the other hand, the relation to Middle/Late Vedic 358
and to the (possible) continuant of his bhāṣā in Gandhārī be indicated. 359
357 Cf. for example, Renou, Histoire de la langue Sanskrite, p.38: "spécimens d'une poésie ...
non hiératique,... réellement populaire; (ann.)... sont d'une niveau différent de la prose
[brāhmanique]."; cf. ann. 64.
358 Pāṇini's report of forms with the comparative and superlative suffixes as taught by the
Eastern grammarians, 5.3.94, is interesting. The suffixes -tara/tama in composition with
eka- indeed occur only in Eastern Vedic texts: ŚBK 7x, ŚBM 1-5 only 1x, and 1x in ŚBM 12;
otherwise, -tama is found only in very late Vedic texts: KGS, ĀgGS; -tara- appears in HGS,
AVPar, ṢB, again in late texts. This seems to indicate that Pāṇ. lived at the end of the late
Br. or even during the Sūtra period. This conclusion is also reached by K. Hoffmann, Aufs.
p.541 sqq.: Pān. knew the late Vedic Sūtra texts MŚS, VārŚS (or at least, the lost Br. -if it
existed - of the Maitr. school. The mantra in question is used at the Soma sacrifice; MŚS
has, when compared to MS, taken over many mantras it lacked in its Saṃhitā from other
schools, e.g. the Kaṭhas. Perhaps the mantra belonged to the fragmentary KaṭhB. At this
instance, we can only state that MŚS is quoted by Pānini.) - He knew of Eastern forms (see
above) and of the teaching of the Eastern grammarians (Śākalya!) but he did not
acknowledge the Eastern Veda texts (ŚB, VS, nor even TS-prose, see ann. 98). This seems to
indicate that he lived in a period (cf. ann. 58) when late Br. like ŚB were redacted and some
of the earlier Sūtras (MŚS) were composed, and probably before the Vṛj(j)i had moved
eastwards to Bihar (see ann. 97), i.e. before the time of the Buddha, or at least, that of the
composition of the relevant Pāli Suttas mentioning the Vajji in connection with the
Magadha kings.
359 Similarly, at Pāṇ. 4.1.17, according to the Eastern gramarians, Vṛddhi + accented suffix
-yá, as for example (in Kāśikā) *Gārgyāyaṇī from Gārgī; the Veda has only: Gārgyāyaṇa-
in the Vaṃśa of BAUK 4.6.2, an Eastern text, and Gārgyāyaṇī in Kauṣ Up. 1.1, which is a
Central (Pañcāla) text.
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