A Tentative History of the Sanskrit Grammatical Traditions in Nepal through the Manuscript Collections (original) (raw)
Related papers
Language vs. grammatical tradition in Ancient India: How real was Pāṇinian Sanskrit?
Folia Linguistica Historica, 2013
There are certain discrepancies between the forms and constructions prescribed by Pāṇinian grammarians and the forms and constructions that are actually attested in the Vedic corpus (a part of which is traditionally believed to underlie Pāṇinian grammar). Concentrating on one particular aspect of the Old Indian verbal system, viz. the morphology and syntax of present formations with the suffix-ya-, I will provide a few examples of such discrepancy. I will argue that the most plausible explanation of this mismatch can be found in the peculiar sociolinguistic situation in Ancient India: a number of linguistic phenomena described by grammarians did not appear in Vedic texts but existed within the semi-colloquial scholarly discourse of the learned community of Sanskrit scholars (comparable to Latin scholarly discourse in Medieval Europe). Some of these phenomena may result from the influence of Middle Indic dialects spoken by Ancient Indian scholars, thus representing syntactic and morphological calques from their native dialects onto the Sanskrit grammatical system.
Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and His Sanskrit Grammar. The Missed Chance
Guruparamparā. Studies on Buddhism, India, Tibet and More in Honour of Professor Marek Mejor. Edited by Katarzyna Marciniak, Stanisław Jan Kania, Małgorzata Wielińska-Soltwedel, Agata Bareja-Starzyńska, 2022
Heinrich Roth is the author of the first known European Sanskrit grammar. Although his work is unique in its perfection and the author’s palpable admiration for and dependence on the indigenous Indian tradition (especially on the Sārasvata system), it has not yet been published and consequently has had little impact on the history of Indology. This paper attempts to highlight the great loss that Sanskrit studies have suffered as a result of this omission. It does so by analysing the first chapter of Roth’s treatise on the basis of the edition and translation currently being prepared by Johannes Schneider (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities). After detailed analysis, which includes the explanation of the technical vocabulary, and after dealing with the general features of Roth’s grammar and his supposed and actual errors or inconsistencies, the way Roth presents his material is compared with the description in other early European grammars: four Latin (Hanxleden, Pons, Paulinus’ Siddharubam and Vyàcarana) and four English (Colebrooke, Carey, Wilkins, Forster). The paper concludes with the slightly speculative question of what would have happened if Roth’s grammar had been published during his lifetime and had received the interest and recognition it deserved.
Linguistics in Premodern India
Published in "Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics". Ed. Mark Aronoff, New York, Oxford University Press, 2018
Indian linguistic thought begins around the 8 th-6 th centuries BC with the composition of Padapāṭhas (word-for-word recitation of Vedic texts where phonological rules are not applied). It took various forms over these twenty-six centuries and involved different languages (Ancient, Middle and Modern Indo-Aryan as well as Dravidian languages). The greater part of documented thought is related to Sanskrit (Ancient Indo-Aryan). Very early, the oral transmission of sacred texts-the Vedas, composed in Vedic Sanskrit-made it necessary to develop techniques based on a subtle analysis of language. The Vedas also-but presumably later-gave birth to bodies of knowledge dealing with language, which are traditionally called Vedāṅgas: phonetics (śikṣā), metrics (chandas), grammar (vyākaraṇa) and semantic explanation (nirvacana, nirukta). Later on, Vedic exegesis (mīmāṃsā), new dialectics (navya-nyāya), lexicography (nighaṇṭu and later, kośa) as well as poetics (alaṃkāra) also contributed to linguistic thought. Though languages other than Sanskrit were described in premodern India, the grammatical description of Sanskrit-given in Sanskrit-dominated and influenced them more or less strongly. Sanskrit grammar (vyākaraṇa) has a long history marked by several major steps (Padapāṭha versions of Vedic texts, Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali, Bhartṛhari's works, Siddhāntakaumudī of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, Nāgeśa's works) and the main topics it addresses (minimal meaning-bearer units, classes of words, relation between word and meaning/referent, the primary meaning/referent of nouns) are still central issues for contemporary Linguistics.
Przegląd Orientalistyczny, 2019
The study of language and grammar is one of the most fundamental parts of an education, and India has a long and sophisticated tradition of language and grammar teaching (vyākaraṇa) that is as old as the Indian scripts and writing themselves. Starting around the fourth century BCE with the grammatical treatises by Pāṇini and his commentators, the Indian grammarian tradition developed through several distinct schools of grammar and language study. A historical study of these traditions done on the basis of a normal literary history focused on the places and dates of textual composition yields a chronological overview, where certain major traditions are seen as remaining popular over time through a steady production of new texts, whereas other minor systems become replaced by the development of new schools. In contrast, a microhistorical study that assesses the popularity of the different traditions of grammar by examining their concrete textual representations in a particular manuscript collection reveals a local historical record of the popularity of each system within a specific educational community. The present essay provides a microhistorical study of the Digambara manuscript collection Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār from Āmer and Jaipur in Rajasthan dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It contributes to the educational history of India by revealing an unexpected continued popularity of the late medieval Sārasvata grammar tradition in the Jaipur area long after this minor grammatical system otherwise has been thought to have gone out of vogue.
2013
There are certain discrepancies between the forms and constructions prescribed by Pāṇinian grammarians and the forms and constructions that are actually attested in the Vedic corpus (a part of which is traditionally believed to underlie Pāṇinian grammar). Concentrating on one particular aspect of the Old Indian verbal system, viz. the morphology and syntax of present formations with the suffix ‑ya-, I will provide a few examples of such discrepancy. I will argue that the most plausible explanation of this mismatch can be found in the peculiar sociolinguistic situation in Ancient India: a number of linguistic phenomena described by grammarians did not appear in Vedic texts but existed within the semi-colloquial scholarly discourse of the learned community of Sanskrit scholars (comparable to Latin scholarly discourse in Medieval Europe). Some of these phenomena may result from the influence of Middle Indic dialects spoken by Ancient Indian scholars, thus representing syntactic and morphological calques from their native dialects onto the Sanskrit grammatical system.
Sabine Ziegler: Klassisches Sanskrit (Kurzgrammatiken indogermanischer Sprachen und Sprachstufen 1)
Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 2017
This is the first volume in the series of Indo-European short grammars announced by the Publishing house Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, "Kurzgrammatiken indogermanischer Sprachen und Sprachstufen", or KiSS for short. This collection of grammars aims to provide basic information about the grammatical system and textual documentation of Indo-European languages in condensed form, that can be used for advanced study of the corresponding languages and for beginners alike. This new series will thus compete with another collection of Indo-European short grammars of similar format (though more diachronically oriented), Brill Introductions to Indo-European Languages, started in 2014 with the concise Avestan grammar by Michiel de Vaan and Javier Martínez (a review will appear in one of the coming issues of this journal). As the author Sabine Ziegler, Professor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, explains in preface (p. 1), this grammar is based on her long-term experience of teaching Sanskrit to the students of Indo-European and Indology. The book consists of thirteen chapters. Chapter 1, "Einleitung" (pp. 3-8), opens with a very short, two-page, overview of the differences between Classical and Vedic Sanskrit. It is followed by a survey of Old Indian literature, from the earliest Vedic texts, R̥ gveda, onwards up to Classical Sanskrit literature, poetry (Mahākāvya) and narrative literature (collections of tales). Chapter 2, "Phonemsystem und Schrift" (pp. 9-23), presents the Sanskrit phonological system and writing system, Devanāgarī. The next short Chapter 3, "Betonung und Silbenstruktur" (pp. 24-25), explains the rules of accentuation of Classical Sanskrit forms, which are basically identical with those known from Latin (accent on the penultimate syllable unless this is short; in this latter case, the accent is on the antepenultimate). I am not sure this marginal issue (of little value for Sanskrit grammar proper, let alone Indo-European linguistics in general) deserves a separate, even short, chapter; moreover, the notation of the type bhárati, bharánti, illustrating this rule, appears quite confusing, being at odds with Vedic accentuation. A compromise notation might use underlining without accent marks (bharati, bharanti).