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Panini in his Grammar cites the Mahabharata as an authority for usage; and even the westernest of criticism is disinclined, on the evidence, to put Panini later than 400 B.C. Goldstucker puts him in the seventh century B.C. En passant, we may quote this from the Encyclopaedia Britannica as to Panini's Grammar: "For a comprehensive grasp of linguistic facts, and a penetrating insight into the structure of the vernacular language, this work stands probably unrivalled in the literature of any language."
The compound 'brahmajijnasa' is to be explained as 'the enquiry of Brahman, the genitive case 'of Brahman' being understood to denote the object; in agreement with the special rule as to the meaning of the genitive case, Panini II, 3, 65. Hence the Lord of all is that Brahman which, according to the Sutra, constitutes the object of enquiry.
"Then, in the name of her patron saint," exclaimed the picture dealer, "why don't she get the robe made white again at the expense of a few baiocchi to her washerwoman? No, no, my dear Panini. The picture being now my property, I shall call it 'The Signorina's Vengeance. She has stabbed her lover overnight, and is repenting it betimes the next morning.
Panini, then, cites the Mahabharata; Panini lived certainly before Asoka's time; the greatness of his work argues that he came in a culminating period of scholarship and literary activity, if not of literary creation; the reign of Asoka we may surmise was another such period; and from all this I think we may argue without much fear that the the nucleus and original form of it, was written long before the reign of Asoka.
Even when, as for instance in Sanskrit, we go back to a number of roots, to which Indian grammarians such as Pânini have systematically traced back the entire wealth of their abundant language, we must not suppose that these roots really constituted the original and complete material with which the primitive Aryan tongue began its historical career.
"Your picture, Signore Panini, does you credit," remarked the picture dealer, who had bought it of the young man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for ten times the sum; "but it would be worth a better price if you had given it a more intelligible title.
I leaned a minute against a Corinthian column; I lamented that no pontiff arrived with victims and aruspices, of whom I might inquire, what, in the name of birds and garbage, put me so terribly out of humour! for you must know I was very near being disappointed, and began to think Piranesi and Paolo Panini had been a great deal too colossal in their view of this venerable structure.
The following list of desiderata was found among his papers, after his decease. India. The Ancient Geography of India, &c., from the Puranas. A Botanical Description of Indian Plants, from the Cochas, &c. A Grammar of the Sanscrit Language, from Panini. A Dictionary of the Sanscrit Language, from thirty-two original Vocabularies and Niructi. On the ancient Music of the Indians.
That this is the meaning of maya in anandamaya we know from Panini IV, 3, 144. But according to Pa. V, 4, 21, maya has also the sense of 'abounding in'; as when we say 'the sacrifice is annamaya, i.e. abounds in food. And this may be its sense in 'anandamaya' also! Not so, the Purvapakshin replies.
No Sanskrit scholarship has equalled that of the great grammarian Panini, who lived in the fourth century B.C. And although no end of poetry has succeeded the great Epics, it has shown deterioration. The Puranas, written at a later day, reveal only a reckless zeal to exalt the incarnate deities.
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