The Mahābhāṣya and the Kāśikāvṛtti: A Case Study

Summary

A cursory glance at the grammatical literature belonging to the Pāṇinian tradition shows a strong influence of Patañjali on the development of grammatical thought. This influence continues throughout the history of Pāṇinian tradition until the time of Nāgeśa (18^th century) and his followers. However, the Kāśikāvṛtti stands out as a unique grammatical text within the trimuni tradition on account of its non-affiliation to the Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali. Though a casual comparison of both the texts evinces similarities both of text and content, making one feel, at first blush, that the Kāśikāvṛtti has largely drawn upon the Mahābhāṣya and has incorporated the modifications suggested by Patañjali into the text of the Pāṇinisūtra, a careful study reveals that the Kāśikāvṛtti not only differs from the Mahābhāṣya at certain places, but also shows influence of non-Pāṇinian grammatical traditions. Way back in 1886 Kielhorn remarked that the authors of the Kāśikāvṛtti were acquainted with the Cāndra grammar and that they made use of it while writing their commentary. A few other scholars took up the issue further and discovered influence also of other non-Pāṇinian systems such as the Kātantra and the Jainendra on both the text of Sūtrapāṭha adopted by the authors of the Kāśikāvṛtti and their commentary.

With this background in mind, if we study the section dealing with the Pratyāhārasūtras (psū) in the Kāśikāvṛtti, we arrive at similar results.