Panini

Panini, Sanskrit grammarian, who compiled and analysed the grammatic rules of the Sanskrit language. Regarded as one of the first to provide such detailed and systematic analyses of language, he is generally believed to have lived in the 4th century bc, although some scholars place him as far back as the 7th century bc. His major work was the Asthadhyayi, which studies several thousand grammatical rules, and is written in verse, in the sutra style in which much learning was imparted during this period. He also wrote a complementary work, the Ganapatha.

Little is known of the historical figure, but Panini is mentioned in the annals of the Chinese chronicler Xuanzang (Hsuan-Tsang), who describes how Panini's work was widely studied and how he came across a statue of him at Salatura on his travels in India during the 7th century ad. Panini's work established a strong base of linguistics in India which was to be developed further by grammarians such as Patanjali in the 1st century ad. Panini's works remain, to this day, a cornerstone in the study of Sanskrit.