6. Sounds of a Colour Flock Together in Pāņini

In the previous article (No.5) we saw Pāņini’s arrangement of the sounds of the language in the 14 Śivasūtra, and also saw some of the 41 or more sub-sets by means of abbreviations termed the Pratyāhāra. To repeat, all the vowels are referred to by the code aC, which indicates the span from the first letter a of Śivasūtra 1 to the end-marker C of Śs 4; all the consonants are covered in the span h^a L, from the initial h^a of Śs 5 to end-marker L of Śs 14.  Everything together, from the initial a of Śs 1 to end-marker L of Śs 14 is aL, the set of all the vowels and consonants.

We noticed that the long vowels ā ī ū ŗ̄ ļ̄ do not occur explicitly in this layout. As anticipated, there is a rule which accounts indirectly for this apparent omission. This is contained in a small 2-sutra jewel in the first pāda, and it also illustrates nicely the use of the code terms (the pratyāhāra) aC and h^a L:

1.1.9          tulyāsyaprayatnam savarņam

prayatnam is ‘effort’; āsya is interpreted as ‘related to the mouth’; tulya is ‘similar, equal’. The first word formation is therefore interpreted as ‘that which has a similar effort of articulation in the mouth’. The second word is savarņam; sa, ‘co-‘, varņam, ‘colour’ (quality of sound), hence savarņam, ‘homogeneous, of same type’. Sounds produced similarly in the oral cavity are termed homogeneous, of the same type.  

This will apply to the short vowels versus their long counterparts: they are essentially the same sound, varņa, which is probably why Pāņ̧ini fails to give the long versions ā ī ū etc. (which would be probably referred to as āT īT ūT etc.) a separate place in the Śs.

But this has to be read with an overall caveat that vowels and consonants do not stand in for one another:

1.1.10      nājjhalau

or na (‘not’) ac halau (nominative case, dual number), signifying ‘not the vowels aC with the consonants h^aL (with liberal application of sandhi rules!). That is, even if a vowel shares the place of articulation with a consonant, they will not be considered homogeneous. No kissing cousins here!

One wonders at the close attention paid by these grammarians of old to the production and quality of sound, and how finely they have analysed the whole field. A parallel is perhaps available in the classical music of India, which after all is based on the divine or spiritual nature of sound, nāda, and the notes, swara. The entire Indian culture seems to be based on an acute sensitivity to the nuances and beauty of sound and rhythm.

Can we say that Pāņini covered all the sounds in human language? I do not think so, although the arrangement of the sounds, especially the common vowels, consonants, half-consonants, spirants and so on is extremely rational and systematic, much more so than in the Phoenician-Aramaic (and Greco-Latin) alphabet. It’s obvious that many sounds common to other languages are not represented … for instance, the ‘rounded’ vowels and diphthongs so dear to the French and English. Here I’m reminded of an experience in our friendly neighborhood camera shop in Bangor, North Wales (no doubt closed by now, but a fount of encouragement and a mine of information in those mid-eighties when we were still comparing the capabilities of different film bodies). We had asked for a ‘hood’ for our camera lens; the saleman was completely flummoxed. It was only when we pointed out the article in his shelves that the light came on…oh, a hyüüyd! Why didn’t you say so! Poor Pāņ̧ini’s short uT had let us down! Another story has to do with our desire to get a vessel for a pressure cooker (our first purchase!)…salesgirl insisted only a Sat would do…it transpired that she had a very open e, more like an æ than an ε! We finally got our set of three pans for the cooker... you could call them paninis!