12. Aids to understanding Panini’s sutras – Vŗtti, vārttika and bhāshya

Given that the sutras of Panini are so terse and expressed in a sort of code language, naturally aids to understanding have always been created, and used almost as an integral part of the treatise. We take a look at some of the most prominent here.

First of all, each sutra is followed by a restatement (a paraphrase, according to Rama Nath Sharma on page 17 of the chapter “Panini and the Paniniyas”, in his Volume I, see Resources page). This paraphrase is termed a  vŗtti, which as we saw in the last post, means the state of reality or what exists. It was a part of the term anuvŗtti, which we understood as carrying over or recurrence (Sharma’s equivalent) of words or contexts from the head sutra in a section of the sutras that deal with a line of thought, almost as if a statement were being broken down into sub-statements. The Vŗtti re-states each sutra, giving the missing links, explicitly stating the understood words to be supplied from other sutras (such as those carried forward by anuvŗtti), and also laying out the case and number of each word. As we saw, Panini uses each case in a specific sense: a saptami, or seventh case, for example, which is the locative in normal language, is used as a condition, an ‘if-then’ clause (in the circumstances that something is so-and-so), the sixth case (possessive) indicates what is being acted upon, e.g. in substitutions. The Vŗtti analyses and expands each of the words in the sutra, thereby telling us what role each plays.

Taking our last example again, we start with

1.1.11 īdūdeddvivacanam pragŗhyam

The two entities are parsed for their case ending and number, thus:

 īdūdeddvivacanam 1/1, pragŗhyam 1/1

which indicates that both are in nominative case (first case) and singular number. Next would follow the anuvŗtti, or carried-over words from previous sutras, except that for this particular sutra, there aren’t any, as it is the head sutra in this domain (the adhikāra-sūtra). For the next sutra, we will see the anuvŗtti in brackets. After this comes the vŗtti or paraphrase, supplying all those little bits and pieces that break up the joined words (sandhi) into the individual parts, explicitly state the relationship between the words, and restate the sutra in plainer terms:

 īt ūt et  ity evam antam dvivacanam śabdarūpam pragŗhya samjñam bhavati

This is the Sanskrit version of the paraphrase we gave in English: a  word form (śabdarūpam) having an ending (antam) in long vowels īt ūt et and having dual number (dvivacanam) is (bhavati) a pragŗhya word. Of course, this sutra does not exactly explain what pragŗhya words do; it merely starts the list of examples of such a species.

The vŗtti is thus itself a concise paraphrase of the sutra, and obviously may need further elaboration with examples. That is provided by another type of instructional aid, called the vāŗttika (again a derivative of the same word: vāŗttā means ‘news’). The vāŗttika in turn is expanded and expounded upon by a bhāşya, or commentary. Sharma says (Vol.I, p.17) that “the relationship between a sūtra and its vŗtti is very similar to that between a vāŗttika and a bhāşya".  We will see examples of the latter two types of commentary in a later post.

Before leaving this discussion, let us see the vŗtti for the next sutra, which requires anuvŗtti as well to supply the words understood from the head sutra:

1.1.12 adaso māt

The words are separated out thus in Sharma's treatment: adasah 6/1, māt 5/1 , which indicates that the first is in sixth  case (possessive, of), singular number, and the second is in fifth case (ablative, from), singular. The next element in the exposition is the anuvŗtti, which supplies the carried-forward complement from the previous sutra to complete the thought:

(īdūdet pragŗhyam #11),

the #11 showing it is from sutra 11 of the same quarter (pāda) and chapter (adhyāya). Finally, the vŗtti, which fleshes out the idea in a fuller sentence:

Adasah sambandhī yo makāras tasmāt para īdūdetah pragŗhya samjña bhavanti

Which means “(long vowels) ī, ū, and e which follow the m of adas ‘that’ are termed pragŗhya”.

The rest of the sutras follow a similar pattern, and we have already seen the word division, the carry-forward of terms (anuvŗtti ) and paraphrase (vŗtti) and our own home-spun explanations in common English in the previous posts. So where do we (or Rama Nath Sharma, or Srisa  Chandra Vasu) get these vŗtti  and vāŗttika for the sutras? The vŗtti are mainly those provided in a work called the Kāśikāvŗtti, attributed to the duo Vāmana-Jayāditya of the city of Kāśi (Banares) in the 7^th century AD. The vāŗttika are in main attributed to the great Kātyāyana of the 3^rd century BC, and Rama Nath Sharma estimates (Sharma, Vol.I, p.6) that some 1250 of them (or around one-third of the sutras of the Ashtādhyāyi) have been quoted by the (even greater) sage and grammarian Patañjali in his Mahābhāshya or Great Commentary (2^nd century BC), the authoritative work on the Ashtādhyāyi and much else besides in philosophy, logic etc. Indeed these three, Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali, are the “three sages” or “muni-trayah” of the linguistic heritage of Sanskrit.  

Sharma categorically states that “Pāņini cannot be understood without the help of the commentaries, most notable among which is the Mahābhāşya” (Sharma, Vol.I, p.xi). The vŗtti  merely exposes the sutra without critical comment; the vārttika  takes up critical analysis where warranted. Sharma feels that the vŗtti should have preceded the vārttika, and quotes Yudhisthira Mimamsaka to the effect that Panini probably provided his own vŗtti in the Ashtadhyayi itself (or, at least, provided explanations similar to a vŗtti), but the only extant full-length vŗtti, the Kāśikā, is of a fairly late date (Sharma, Vol.I, p.17). Looking at the length and depth of the Mahabhashya, it would not be unfair to say that the bare explanations attempted in the vŗtti or even vārttika are like the tip of an iceberg, the major portion of which is buried in the Mahabhashya. It is also interesting to speculate that the Ashtadhyayi probably did not have the status of a ‘received’  scripture, or shruti, since it was frequently criticised and corrected by later scholars, and since it explicitly recognized the changes between Vedic and later forms of the language. 

There is another variant of the Ashtādhyāyi and commentary, the Siddhānta-Kaumudi of Bhattoji Dikshita, whose "eye for meticulous detail and interpretation" makes the work "the standard text for studying Pāņini" according to Sharma (Vol.I, p.26).

Links:

Vasu’s Ashtadhyayi can be downloaded here (comes in 8 files):

https://archive.org/details/ashtadhyayi

There is a series of lectures on the Mahabhashya by Subrahmanya Sastri of the Annamalai University, volumes 1 to 6 of which are available for download:

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya1

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya2

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya3

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya4

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya5

https://archive.org/details/LecturesOnPatanjalisVyakaranaMahabhashya6

The later volumes of Sastri's Lectures (there are 8 more) up to Volume XI have been republished by the Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, 84, Thiru Vi. Ka. Road, Mylapore, Chennai-600004, www.ksrisanskrit.in (Phone +9144 2498 5320), well worth the trouble of getting these rare books. One hopes they will put them out on the web!

archive.org has other interesting works for download, e.g.

https://archive.org/details/Siddhanta_Kaumudi_English_Translation-SC_Vasu

https://archive.org/details/TheAshtadhyayiOfPanini-RamNathSharma