Vyākaraṇa

Vyākaraṇa, “the analysis of language”

Kalpa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kalpa. Smṛti has other meanings too: see all meanings of Smṛti.

Vyākaraṇa is the study of grammar. It is one of the six Vedāṅgas, the “limbs of the Veda.” Its purpose is to keep the sound, form and meaning of every word exact, so that a mantra recited today is the same mantra that was recited thousands of years ago.

The Agni Purāṇa counts Vyākaraṇa among the six Vedāṅgas in the aparā vidyā, and teaches that it is one of the vidyās that are all the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu (Hari). It calls on Vyākaraṇa among the fourteen vidyās to protect a king at his abhisheka, and in eleven chapters Skanda, also called Kumārasvāmī, teaches Kātyāyana the essence of grammar, the Kaumāra Vyākaraṇa.

Why grammar is a limb of the Veda

The Vedas were passed on by voice, from teacher to student. A small change in a sound or an accent can change the meaning of a word. Vyākaraṇa guards against this. It shows how each word is built, so a student can tell a correct form from a wrong one and can understand a word never met before.

Tradition describes the Veda as a person (Veda-purusha) and each of the six Vedāṅgas as one of the limbs. Vyākaraṇa is called the mouth, because without it the Veda cannot be spoken correctly.

Pāṇini and the Ashṭādhyāyī

The best-known work of Vyākaraṇa is the Ashṭādhyāyī of the grammarian Pāṇini. The name means “eight chapters.” Each chapter has four parts, and together they hold nearly four thousand short rules called sūtras. In very few words, these rules describe how Sanskrit words and sentences are formed.

The Ashṭādhyāyī begins from fourteen short strings of sounds called the Māheśvara Sūtras. Tradition says Pāṇini heard them in the beat of the ḍamaru (hand drum) of Bhagavān Śiva. They arrange the sounds of Sanskrit so that a whole group of sounds can be named with a single short syllable.

The three munis of grammar

Two later teachers completed the work of Pāṇini. Kātyāyana wrote the Vārttikas, short notes that add to the sūtras and correct them where needed. Patañjali wrote the Mahābhāshya, the “great commentary,” which explains both in the form of questions and answers. Pāṇini, Kātyāyana and Patañjali are together honoured as the trimuni, the three munis of Vyākaraṇa.

In later centuries, teachers arranged the same rules by topic to make them easier to learn. The best known of these works are the Kāśikā and the Siddhānta Kaumudī of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkshita, which is still used by students today.

What Vyākaraṇa teaches

• Sandhi: how sounds change when two words or parts of words meet.
• Dhātu and pratyaya: how a word is built from a root (dhātu) and the endings (pratyaya) added to it.
• Nouns and verbs: the forms a noun takes in its eight cases, and the forms a verb takes for person, number and time.
• Kāraka: the role each word plays in a sentence, such as the doer, the object and the means.
• Samāsa: how two or more words join into one compound word.

Vyākaraṇa in the Agni Purāṇa

Among the aparā vidyā. At Naimisharaṇya the maharshis led by Śaunaka asked Sūta for the essence of all essences. Sūta told what Vyāsa had taught, and Vyāsa what Vasishṭha Maharshi had heard from Agni Deva. Agni, speaking as Vishṇu who is Kālāgni Rudra, taught that two vidyās are to be known, the parā and the aparā, and that both are the forms of Vishṇu. The aparā vidyā is the four Vedas; the six Vedāṅgas, Śikshā, Kalpa, Vyākaraṇa, Nirukta, Jyotisha and Chandas; and Kośa (the lexicon), Mīmāṃsā, Dharma-śāstra, Purāṇa, Nyāya-śāstra, Āyurveda, Saṅgīta-śāstra, Dhanurveda and Artha-śāstra. The parā vidyā is the vidyā that teaches Brahma, the eternal.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 1

Hari is all the vidyās. Closing his teaching on prāyaścitta (expiation), Agni Deva says that Śikshā, Chandas, Vyākaraṇa, Nirukta, Abhidhāna (the lexicon), Kalpa, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā and all the other vidyās are Hari alone, the one Vishṇu, in manifest and unmanifest forms. Śrī Mahāvishṇu alone is of the form of the eighteen vidyās.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 174

A blessing for the king. Pushkara, teaching Paraśurāma the mantras for the abhisheka (consecration bath) of a king, gives the blessing “May these fourteen vidyās protect you”: the four Vedas; the six Vedāṅgas, Śikshā, Vyākaraṇa, Chandas, Nirukta, Jyotisha and Kalpa; and Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Dharmaśāstra and Purāṇa.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 219

The Kaumāra Vyākaraṇa. Skanda said to Kātyāyana: “O Kātyāyana, for the knowledge of children I will tell the form of finished words, the essence of vyākaraṇa.” His teaching runs over eleven chapters, in this order:

Skanda is named Kumārasvāmī in the last three chapters.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 349–359

All forms of Hari. At the end of the Purāṇa, Agni Deva tells Vasishṭha Maharshi that chandas, śikshā, vyākaraṇa, nighaṇṭu, jyotisha, nirukta, dharma-śāstra, mīmāṃsā, nyāya, āyurveda, purāṇa, dhanurveda, gāndharva, artha-śāstra, vedānta and the rest are all forms of Hari. This is the aparā vidyā; the vidyā that teaches the supreme truth of the ātmā is the parā vidyā. Then Sūta, telling the munis led by Śaunaka at Naimiśāraṇya all that the Agni Purāṇa holds, names among its subjects Chandas, Vyākaraṇa, Alaṅkāra (poetics), Nighaṇṭu, Śikshā and Kalpa, and says that the eighteen vidyās are told in it.

Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 383

On this website

This section holds practical guides for readers, starting with how numbers are written and spoken in Sanskrit and in Telugu.

Sources

• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 1, 174, 219, 349–359, 383