Shakalya

Shakalya was an ancient Indian grammarian and scholar of Vedic period who is supposed to have revised the Vedic texts and written their Pada-pāṭha. He is often quoted by Pāṇini and the writers of the Prātiśākhya, treatises on phonetics. His Padapāṭha of the Rig Veda was one of the early attempts in the direction of analysis; he broke down the samhita text of the Rig Veda into words, identifying even the separate elements of compound words.

Shakalya was a disciple of Satyasri and belonged to the school of Paila. He was a contemporary of Yajnavalkya. According to Brahmanda Purana, once during the Ashvamedha Yajna, king Janaka wanted to know who was the greatest brahmana among all those present there. So, he brought a thousand cows, gold, jewels and servants to his court and announced that whoever considered himself the most knowledgeable might come forward and take away all these. A commotion started among the sages who all started debating with each other. Suddenly Yajnavalkya asked his disciples to arrange for taking away all the wealth to his ashrama. Seeing this, the sages challenged him to prove that he is the greatest. Aswala, Uddalaka Aruṇi, Kahola Kaushitaki, Gargi and the others who were present asked him several questions and he answered all of them. Finally, Yajnavalkya told Shakalya that he wanted to give him a chance too. Shakalya asked him several questions related to kama and Yajnavalkya answered all of them. When all his questions ended, Yajnavalkya told Shakalya that now he will ask a question, but there is a condition. If Shakalya cannot answer the question correctly, he will die immediately. Shakalya accepted the challenge. However, when Yajnavalkya asked him a question related to kama, Shakalya did not know the answer and so he died there.