The Text of Vedic Grammar) Prātiśākhyas ( ाितशा) Are Also Known As the Texts Of

Prātiśākhyas (ाितशा) The Text of Vedic grammar) Prātiśākhyas (ाितशा) are also known as the texts of Vedic grammar. These Prātiśākhyas are of a specific nature, which is concerned mainly with the changes, euphonic and others, during the conversion of Saṁhit ā pāṭha to Padap āṭha. prātiśākhya ), also known as Parsada (pārṣada ). It appears that t he word पाषद (pārṣada ) was used for the Prātiśākhyas as they were the outcome of the discussions of learned scholars in Vedic assemblies; cf परषिद भवं पाषदम् (pariṣadi bhavaṃ pārṣadam ). They were composed centuries ago for Padap āṭha, or word-for-word recitation, and then supply rules for the continuous recitation before the work of Pāṇini , Saṁhit ā pāṭha -When the hymns of the Vedas are pronounced in a running manner as a complete unit are known as Saṁhit ā pāṭha. To preserve the basic nature of the Vedic texts and prevent the insertions in the Samhitas a number of devices related to the correct pronunciation, such as Padap āṭha, malāpāṭha, jatāpāṭha, ghanapāṭha etc. had been developed in the past. Padapāṭha is one of those devices. Padapāṭha - In the Padap āṭha all the changes which occur due to proximity of sounds during the Saṁhit ā pāṭha removed and the syntactic units (padas) are kept in their original form. All the syntactic units (padas) are considered independent units. The Prātiśākhyas are neither concerned with the sense of words, nor with their division into bases and affixes, nor with their etymology. They contain, more or less, Vedic passages arranged from the point of view of Samdhi. In the Rk Prātiśākhya, available to-day, topics of metre, recital, phonetics and the like are introduced, but it appears that originally the Rk Prātiśākhya, just like the Atharva Prātiśākhya, was concerned with euphonic changes, the other subjects being introduced later on. The word ाितशा (prātiśākhya ) shows that there were such treatises for each of the several Sakhas or branches of each Veda many of which later on disappeared as the number of the followers of those branches dwindled. Out of the remaining ones also, many were combined with others of the same Veda. At present, only five or six Prātiśākhyas are available which are the surviving representatives of 33 the ancient ones -the Rk Prātiśākhya by Saunaka, the Taittiriya Prātiśākhya, the Vajasaneyi Prati-Sakhya by Katyayana, the Atharva Prātiśākhya and the Rk Tantra by Sakatayana, which is practically a Prātiśākhya of the Sama Veda. Although the Prātiśākhya works 1 in nature, are preliminary to works on grammar, it appears that the existing Prātiśākhyas, which are the revised and enlarged editions of the old ones, are written after Panini's grammar, each one of the present Prātiśākhya representing, of course, several ancient Prātiśākhyas, which were written before Panini. Uvvata, a learned scholar of the twelfth century has written a brief commentary on the Rk Prātiśākhya and another one on the Vajasaneyi Prātiśākhya. The Taittiriya Prātiśākhya has got two commentaries -one by Somayarya, called Tribhasyaratna and the other called Vaidikabharana written by Gopalayajvan. There is a commentary by Ananta bhatta on the Vajasaneyi Prātiśākhya. These commentaries are called Bhasyas also. The phonetic aspects of Vajasaneyi Prātiśākhya is closest to those found in the classic Sanskrit grammar work of Pāṇini. Shiksha (śikṣā) Shiksha (śikṣā) is a Sanskrit word, which means "instruction, lesson, learning, study of skill".But in the present context it also refers to one of the six Vedangas, or limbs of Vedic studies, on phonetics and phonology in Sanskrit. In fact in the ancient Indian tradition Vedas have been Centre point of the all kind of intellectual activities. As a result of this all the branches of knowledge developed to understand, protect and preserve the Vedas. The emergence of six Vedangas, or six limbs of Vedas are product of the same effort. The Six Vedangas are namely Shiksha, Vyakarana, Nirukta, Kalpa, Chanda and Jyotisha. The subject matter and the field of Shiksha Vedanga is study of sound, focussing on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, accent, quantity, stress, melody and rules of euphonic combination of words during a Vedic recitation. Each ancient Vedic school developed this field of Vedanga . Although the Prātiśākhyas ( ाितशा) are also known as the texts of Vedic grammar and not considered as Vedangas, but they also deal with the Phonetics and Phonological aspect of the Vedic language. There are many books named Shiksha, written by many authors, such as Paniniya Shiksha , Naradiya Shiksha , Apishali Shiksha , shonakiya Shiksha etc. Shiksha is considered the oldest and the first auxiliary discipline to the Vedas, maintained since the Vedic era. It aims at construction of sound and language 2 for synthesis of ideas, in contrast to grammarians who developed rules for language deconstruction and understanding of ideas. The Shiksha Vedangas helped in preserving the Vedas. The Shiksha field of Vedic studies arranged the Sanskrit alphabet in a rational order. Each alphabet mapped to the anatomical nature of human sounds, from the back to the front – throat (at the very back), palate, palatal ridge, teeth and lips. The methodical phonetic procedure developed by Shiksha helped preserve the Vedas without the slightest variants in the most faithful way possible. Shiksha literature also provides the essential qualification for the study of Vyakarana. Merits of a good speaker: िशा literature not only discusses the correct pronunciation and different aspects of language production, but also talks about the merits of a reader or a speaker. िशा says: माधुयमरि: पदछेदतु सुवर:। धय लयसमथ च षडेते पाठका गुणा: ॥ (Pa. Shi. 33) It means, sweetness, clarity of speech, separation of words, correct accent and ability to observe time are six merits of a speaker or a reader. Demerits of a speaker: िशा also discusses the possible demerits of a speaker or of a reader: गीित शीी िशर:कपी तथा िलिखतपाठक:। अनथोऽपकठ षडेते पाठकाऽधमा:॥(Pa. Shi. 32) Those who speak in the singing manner , too quickly, with nodding of head, uses a written text for speech , do not know the meaning of the passage which are being read and have a low voice which is not properly audible. These six are demerits of a speaker or of a reader. There may be some other faults of a speaker which have been also enumerated further:- शंकतं भीतमुघुं अमनुनािसकम्। काकवरं िशरिसगतं तथा थानिववजतम्॥(Pa. Shi. 34) 3 It mean Shyness, fear, extreme loudness, in distinctness, undue nasalization, repressed tone, undue celebralization non observance of place of articulation may be the other demerits of a speaker. Standard length of speech sounds: Authors of िशा literature were so intelligent that without availability and use of modern equipment, they were capable of realizing the distinctive features and measuring the length of speech sounds. They fixed a standard unit of time called माा or Mora. They categorized vowels in three categories on the basis of time taken in their pronunciation. Those categories are व short, दीघ long and लुत over long or Prolated. The time taken in the pronunciation is एकमाा one Mora for व, े माे two Mora for दीघ and िमाा: three Mora for लुत or over long. The time taken in the pronunciation of a ंजन or consonant is अधमाा an half a Mora. They found out some sounds of similar length in the nature those can be seen here in the following Verse- चाषतु वदते माां िमां वेव वायस:। िशखी रौित िमां तु, नकुलवधमाकम्॥ (Pa. Shi. 49) The Blue Jay speaks in one Mora time, the crow speaks in two Mora time, the sound produced by peacock takes three Mora and the time taken by mongoose in the sound production is only half a Mora. I think, for correct pronunciation of the speech sounds of any of the language, all these aspects of speech sounds analyzed by the िशा literature are equally important and useful today as those were in ancient time or thousands of years ago. Yāska Yāska was an early Etymologist probably lived about the 5th century BC. Yāska was Predecessor of Pāṇini . Yāska himself talks about the tradition of Nairuktas. He is traditionally identified as the author of Nirukta , the discipline of "etymology" (explanation of words) within Sanskrit grammatical tradition. In fact Nirikta is commentary on the Nighantu which is a collection of uncommon archaic words. Nighantu also provides a collection of so 4 called synonyms. But the etymological system of Yaska tells us that each and every synonym word denotes a different meaning although there may be some similar features. The Nirukta of Yaske is considered an essential part of the curriculum known as Six Vedangas (six limbs of the Vedas) meant for the studies of the Vedas. Pāṇini cites at least ten grammarians and linguists before him. According to Sumitra Mangesh Katre, the ten Vedic scholar names he quotes are of Apisali, Kashyapa, Gargya, Galava, Cakravarmana, Bharadvaja, Sakatayana, Sakalya, Senaka and Sphotayana. [9] According to Kamal K. Misra, Pāṇini also refers to Yaska, "whose writings date back to the middle of the 4th century B.C. A central premise of Yaska was that man creates more new words to conceptualize and describe action, that is nouns often have verbal roots. However, added Yaska, not all words have verbal roots. He asserted that both the meaning and the etymology of words are always context dependent. According to Yaska every action passes through six modifications of Kriya (action) and Bhava (dynamic being), namely jāyate, asti, vipari ṇamate, vardhate, apak ṣīyate and vina śyati (being born, existing, changing, increasing, decreasing and perishing). He is thought to have succeeded Śākaṭāyana , an old grammarian and expositor of the Vedas, who is mentioned in his text.

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