Date of Indo-Aryan Invasions

Date of Panini

• To build a chronology of the Vedic age, historians first determine the approximate dates of Panini and the adoption of writing for Sanskrit.

• Patanjali, the great commentator on Panini, is securely dated to the middle of the 2nd century B.C.

• Since Patanjali mentions many later grammarians between Katyayana and himself, Katyayana is reasonably placed about two centuries earlier, in the middle of the 4th century B.C.

• Indian tradition also supports this date by describing Katyayana as a minister of a Nanda king.

• Stories of Panini being defeated by Katyayana are treated as symbolic tales representing Katyayana’s severe scholarly criticism rather than literal historical events.

• Evidence suggests Panini lived earlier than Katyayana, since Patanjali refers to Panini as a revered Rishi to whom grammatical rules were “revealed,” while Katyayana is described simply as one who “says.”

• If Panini and Katyayana had been contemporaries, Panini’s grammar would likely not have gained supreme authority after receiving thousands of alleged corrections and criticisms from Katyayana.

• A better explanation is that Panini and Katyayana belonged to different periods, and many criticisms arose because language had changed between their times.

• Some words, meanings, and grammatical forms current in Panini’s age had become obsolete by Katyayana’s time, while new forms unknown to Panini had come into use later.

• Panini’s failure to discuss southern names such as Pandya, Chola, and Kerala suggests that Indo-Aryans in his time had not yet come into close contact with Southern India.

• Certain Karikas and Paribhashas known to Patanjali seem to have been composed after Panini but before Katyayana, supporting chronological separation.

• Katyayana’s own references imply that Panini already belonged to the distant past.

• Therefore, Panini is reasonably placed about 500 B.C., roughly one and a half centuries before Katyayana.

• This date fits Panini’s mention of Yavanani (Greek writing) and female Sramanas, possibly Buddhist nuns.

• Gandhara had been conquered by Darius around 516 B.C. with Greek assistance, making Greek influence known in Panini’s region.

• Since Buddha is placed around 543 B.C., Panini could still have lived after Buddha while not explicitly reflecting Buddhist terminology.

• Panini’s use of Yavanani likely referred to Ionian Greek writing, and need not depend on Alexander’s later invasion.

• The term is more plausibly linked to earlier Persian contact with the Ionian Greeks after the fall of Croesus in 546 B.C. and the Ionian revolt around 500 B.C.

• As Panini was probably a native of Gandhara, where Persian and Greek influences were present, the use of the term Yavanani becomes historically understandable.

Writing in India

• According to Buhler, writing was introduced into India around 800 B.C.

• Palaeographical evidence from the Ashokan inscriptions shows that writing was not a recent invention in the 3rd century B.C., because many letters already had several highly developed and divergent forms, sometimes nine or ten variants.

• Such variation suggests a long earlier period of use and gradual evolution.

• The Brahmi script expanded from about twenty-two borrowed Semitic symbols into a full alphabet of forty-six letters.

• This complete Brahmi alphabet appears to have been systematically developed by learned Brahmins on phonetic principles.

• Buhler argued that this advanced alphabet must have existed by about 500 B.C.

• The same script is believed to be the alphabet recognised in Panini’s Sanskrit grammar.

• Ashoka’s inscriptions addressed people directly, used local dialects, and were placed across wide regions, indicating considerable public literacy in the 3rd century B.C.

• Such widespread literacy in a vast country like India would have required several centuries of earlier development and cannot be explained as a sudden recent change.

• The Kharosthi script arose after Darius’ conquest of the Indus valley in the late 6th century B.C.

• If Brahmi had not already been well developed by that time, Kharosthi would likely have spread widely across India instead of remaining mainly confined to the Persian-controlled north-western province.

• Therefore, these arguments suggest that writing for expressing Sanskrit had been adopted in India by at least the 8th century B.C.