Talk:Pāṇini/Archive 1

(Old) Proposed move from Panini to Panini (grammarian)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

I have requested that this article be moved to "Panini (grammarian)" and that "Panini" be redirected to "Panini (disambiguation)". Please give your opinions. Petecarney 12:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We don't normally redirect pages from "X" to "X (disambiguation)" (see WP:MDP). Thus, the request is effectively to move Panini (disambiguation) to Panini, having moved the current Panini to Panini (grammarian). --Stemonitis 14:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Support Panini to Panini (grammarian) and Panini (disambiguation) to Panini. Too many uses and sandwich might be the primary use. Vegaswikian 04:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Panini to Panini (grammarian) and Panini (disambiguation) to Panini per Vegaswikian. —   AjaxSmack     06:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 07:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If not at Panini, this article should reside at Pāṇini. Panini should still redirect here. The sandwich correctly resides at Panino. dab (𒁳) 08:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

redirected talk page of Ashtadhyayi
redirected that 'orphan' talk page here. If anyone wants to see the old discussions which took place there, please check this internal link. GDibyendu (talk) 07:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Life
There is very little in this article about Pāṇini's life—even granting that not much is known, there is a lot that can be included, see e.g. pages 1983–2007 (and more) here:. It would be great if someone included some of this. Thanks, Shreevatsa (talk) 22:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

yavanānī / yavanānā
The third paragraph under "Date and context" begins

An important hint for the dating of Pāṇini is the occurrence of the word yavanānī (यवनाना)

The devanagari says yavanānā (note last letter). I don't know which is correct, the devanagari or the transliteration. --Wcomm (talk) 08:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Good catch :) I googled a bit and it seems to be yavanānī; I've fixed the Devanagari. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 12:48, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Life Dates
"...was an Ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 4th century BCE)"

"the earliest surviving account of which is the work of Pānini (c. 520 – 460 BC)" Linguistics

Where do the informations come from? What is sure? [Delabararquera, from Germany] --85.181.128.4 (talk) 08:40, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Date Style
The original article used the BC/AD style. Per WP:ERA,editing the date is not necessary. If the style originally was BCE/CE, likewise, the edits would not be necessary. To prevent "edit wars," the original style should always prevail. There are people on both sides of the debate who are offended by the other; therefore, this seems the fairest way to approach this subject. It is also consistent with the guidelines laid out per the WP:ERA. (68.218.182.143 (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2010 (UTC))
 * For all non-Christian articles, the convention is to use BCE/CE, so please don't change it.&mdash; Spaceman  Spiff  23:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
 * you just made that up. We do not distinguish "Christian" from "non-Christian" articles. --dab (𒁳) 11:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * here is the change (February 2009). It just affected the lead, the body still has BC. --dab (𒁳) 11:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

"Panini's Law"
I have moved this to Behaghel's laws, since that's the article on the topic. I would still like to know when and how the name "Panini's Law" originated. Google books gives me 51 hits (although not all relate to this law), the oldest dating to 1975. --dab (𒁳) 11:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it may be based on something in Panini's treatment of dvandvas, but I couldn't find a reference. --dab (𒁳) 12:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 10:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Pāṇini → Panini (grammarian) — Consensus were reached three years ago to move the page to the latter title but it's reverted to the current title with diacritics. This is an English Wikipedia, not an IAST Wikipedia. That is my opinion so I would like to hear from all of you. Feel free to discuss! Yours faithfully, kotak  kasut. 14:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose the suggested move. The correct move is to Panini, with the disambiguation page moved to Panini (disambiguation). Of the topics there, only the sandwich is immediately confusable with the grammarian, though we might also list the Italian painter in a hatnote. — Gavia immer (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Per nominator. I would oppose the above editor's suggestion as "panini" normally refers to the sandwich. The Celestial City (talk) 18:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Keep as is. We have a policy of using the most common name. The overwhelming majority of reliable sources (English-language sources) use "Pāṇini" (not "Panini (grammarian)") as do, for instance, most of the sources used in the article; the Encyclopædia Britannica article is also titled "Pāṇini". The current name (with diacritics) is the one that would be most familiar to English-language readers of linguistics or Sanskrit. "Panini" is an incorrect romanisation that can be confusing (compare pronunciation: पाणिनि ≈ pɑːɳin̪i v/s पनिनि ≈ pɐn̪in̪i). Besides, "(grammarian)" isn't even perfectly accurate, as Pāṇini's field may be more aptly described as "language analysis", even if a large part is grammar. For what it's worth, the title "Panini (grammarian)" is already a redirect to this article, so there's no good reason to use an incorrect transliteration as the title. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose There are 76,000 Google Books hits and 5.6M general Google hits for Pāṇini in English. I had no way of searching Panini accurately because of the cross over with the sandwich. My personal view is that Pāṇini appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME in English. I would also oppose Gavia immers' suggestion of moving the article to "Panini" because it normally refers to the sandwich.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Shreevatsa, I don't think you're getting what I mean here. I'm talking about the title only. Not the whole page. The title with diacritics (Pāṇini) should be written in the page, but not for the title. Chinese name places in Wikipedia article titles are written without their pinyin marks. Get what I mean? Yours faithfully, kotak  kasut . 01:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - I'm not much of a fan of diacritics in article names, and they certainly shouldn't be used as disambiguation. The sandwich is clearly an equally primary topic so the nominator's proposal makes sense. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 08:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "This is not IAST Wikipedia" isn't a valid rationale. The only valid reason for a move would be actual evidence that the name is spelled more often without diacritics in scholarly literature. Such evidence has not been presented. Check out the main sources used in the aritcle, poll them for spelling, and then make a suggestion based on that. That said, I do not really share Shreevatsa's misgivings. WP:NAME should be dealt with as pragmatically as possible. What counts is actual usage. Panini is typically described as a "grammarian", and his name is often anglicized as "Panini", no objection there. If it turns out that scholarly usage has the anglicized spelling most often, there would be reason for a move. My impression is, however, that scholarly literature mostly uses IAST throughout, and only "dumbed down" popular literature drops the diacritics so as "not to confuse the reader". "IAST or not" is a case-by-case question. Vishnu should certainly reside at the anglicized title, as the name is very commonly so spelled. Otoh, there is no reason to anglicize Bhartṛhari, as the name hardly ever comes up outside of a scholarly context. Anything else may be somewhere in between these extremes, and should be judged on its own merit, not by arguments of the "this isn't IAST-pedia" type. --dab (𒁳) 11:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Boom headshot. Yours faithfully, kotak  kasut . 18:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment I really appreciate the input from all of you. Thanks in advance! Feel free to discuss. Yours faithfully, kotak  kasut . 18:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Aṣṭādhyāyī? No such separate article
Under the section Aṣṭādhyāyī one finds the following hidden comment:

-- This is a SUMMARY. Please don't add new information or details here, but instead at the main article Aṣṭādhyāyī! --

followed by the redirection link:

Unfortunately the main article Aṣṭādhyāyī does not exist; seems it has been merged with the present one - at list it is redirected here back again.

I have hidden the redirection link as well, with my comment in the body of the article, but I have not removed the whole note. Maybe the author thereof could make soem order with it. noychoH (talk) 11:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Generative linguistics
I've done a little cleanup. The try-hard "science" of generative linguistics likes to claim Panini by expanding its definition, but since in world history the influence of generative grammar is limited to only generative grammar so far, and will likely go no further in the end, it still sounds pretentious. Nora lives (talk) 05:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

2004 stamp
Discussion of the stamp does have a place in this article, but it would belong under "reception in modern India", which is so far not really covered. The official stamp image is here, and the place to link to would be India Post: Stamps 2004. But the stamp image itself is copyrighted, and there is no particular "fair use" reason to show it here more than showing any other stamp on the page of the person or item it happens ot be dedicated to. The depiction of Panini is interesting, because he is shown as writing (in Brahmi), which is actually an academic hypothesis (Panini coincided with the introduction of writing), and which would of course place him at the "academic" lifetime estimate of the 4th century, not the "traditional" (pre-writing) date of 6th or 5th. But this can all be discussed without including the image itself. Also, the image isn't notable as such, the Indian Post just asked somebody to draw Panini and put the drawing on a stamp. This happened nine years ago, and the image in this time did not really any kind of independent notability, at this point it's just an old stamp. --dab (𒁳) 07:53, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

"traditional date"
doing a literature search, I fail to find any source that would establish a traditional date for Panini of 520-460 BC. Lots of shoddy websites have it, to be sure (and there is no telling how many got it from Wikipedia), but no WP:RS. I am removing this pending citation. My suspicion is that the 520 BC date arose from speculation that Panini must date to after Darius' invasion. This would qualify not as a "traditional date" at all, but as a misunderstood scholarly estimate of a terminus post quem. If I am missing something, please do cite this "tradition". dab (𒁳) 10:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Article says: "The scholarly mainstream favours 600-500 BCE". Unfortunately these dates are based on the old chronologies for the Buddha which are no longer current. The scholarly consensus has shifted the date of the Buddha by a century to ca. 480-400 BCE. See for instance This means that the dates for Pāṇini have shifted as well, so the Wikipedia article is out of date. Jayarava 07:37, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Gombrich, Richard. 1992. "Dating the Buddha: A Red Herring Revealed." In Die Datierung des Historischen Buddha Volume 2, edited by Heinz Bechert, Vanden-hoeck & Ruprecht, 237-259.
 * 2) Nattier, J and Prebish, C. 1977. "Mahāsāṃghika Origins: The Beginnings of Buddhist Sectarianism." History of Religions, 16, 3 (February, 1977), 237-272.
 * 3) Prebish, Charles. 2008. "Cooking the Buddhist Books: The Implications of the New Dating of the Buddha for the History of Early Indian Buddhism", Journal of Buddhist Ethics, vol.15.

On the dates for Pāṇīni himself we'll need to consult a more recent and reliable source such as Pāṇini: A Survey of Research By George Cardona (1998)Jayarava 08:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahaabaala (talk • contribs)

The article said this because somebody had vandalized it. To be clear, this was not somebody inserting the claim that "The scholarly mainstream favours 600-500 BCE", no, they took it upon themselves to just change the (correct) figure in the original phrasing of "The scholarly mainstream favours a 4th c. BC floruit". I hate it when my contributions are not so much contradicted by other contributions, but contorted to say something they did not. This is vandalism and should just be reverted on sight.

BTW this still doesn't clear up the question of where the exact "520-460 BC" range comes from. An outdated scholarly estimate would not be so precise, perhaps formerly the scholarly mainstream favoured the 5th or even 6th century, but no scholar would have said "lived 520-460 BC". This must be due to tradition, but what tradition? Puranic? Early Modern? Modern? --dab (𒁳) 13:34, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

A paper about Pāṇini and Saussure
There's a new specific paper about Pāṇini and Saussure : it is "Pāṇini et le Mémoire", in Arena Romanistica 12 (2013), pp. 164-193. Here is the link to the relevant issue of the journal http://arenaromanistica.uib.no/?document_id=84 I think this reference could be added safely to actual note 21. Thanks

Perepeppe (talk) 01:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing the new article to our attention. I have added a reference to the article, as you suggested, based on reading just the abstract (which was available in English). If there is any content in the journal article that will help expand or improve wikipedia's coverage of Panini's inflence on Saussure, please feel free to suggest it here, or edit Pāṇini yourself (once you are auto-confirmed). Abecedare (talk) 01:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Apotheosis
I understand the cultural imperative to adorate as superior everything that is Eastern, but in my opinion, claims such as


 * Pāṇini's grammar is the world's first formal system, developed well before the 19th century innovations of Gottlob Frege and the subsequent development of mathematical logic.

or
 * Considerable evidence shows ancient mastery of context-sensitive grammars, and a general ability to solve many complex problems.

or
 * His sophisticated logical rules and technique have been widely influential in ancient and modern linguistics.

or
 * In the Aṣṭādhyāyī, language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. [I'm sorry, I should stop quoting...]

would really use at least one source. Also, even though it is in all likelihood just me who is not wholly satisfied with a source called 'Journal of Indian Philosophy', preferably one from a Western university. (In fact, I don't think I've yet identified a *linguistic* source about him in this article; they have all so far been India-historical or Buddhist (!) ones that are claiming his influence on linguistics. According to our article, the guy who claimed his being the 'Indian Euclid' 'specialized in the study of Vedic ritual and mantras'.) ~

Number of sutras
The following page mentions 3978 sutras.

In total, there are 3,978 sūtras.

www.hindupedia.com/en/Contents_of_Sanskrit_Grammar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.64.163.220 (talk) 14:40, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Use of "northwestern Iron Age India" and "native of the extreme north-west of India"
Its been brought to my attention that some members insist on using the above terms which have no use in history books. The old name (Ghandara) and the current name (Pakistan) are already in use. Where do the above terms ("northwestern Iron Age India" and "native of the extreme north-west of India") fit in? This is beyond trolling. --Xinjao (talk) 20:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

What is the missing letter?
The name of the subject of this article is usually imperfectly rendered in many browsers, either in the technically incorrect orthography Panini, or as Pāṇini.

What symbol or letter-diacritic combination, does this ṇ represent? A link to a picture of the letter, or a description of its appearance, would be better than giving the letter itself, for the reasons outlined.

Nuttyskin (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There's no one alphabet for Sanskrit, and any writing system that may have been used in Panini's time is long extinct, so the question is somewhat academic. Peter jackson (talk) 17:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)


 * However, the commonest alphabet nowadys is Devanagari, and you can find pictures there. Peter jackson (talk) 10:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

is an n with an underdot. You must be on a really old operating system (like, Windows 2000?) if it doesn't render for you. You should make a habit of consulting decodeunicode.org in such cases. --dab (𒁳) 11:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * It also fails to render on some Android versions. 118.210.43.177 (talk) 12:26, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

& # 7 7 5 1 ; closed up. Peter jackson (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Thankyou for your comments, they have been very helpful. I was (and am) using a library computer from rm.com, but the running system is actually WindowsXP. Go figure.
 * Nuttyskin (talk) 16:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

semiprotection
I don't have time to babysit this page. Driveby IPs just fiddle with numbers and nobody reverts them, so the vandalised revision is left standing for a full year. Nothing but deterioration or outright vandalism from logged-out users with no manpower to watch the page apparently, this clearly calls for indefinite semiprotection. --dab (𒁳) 08:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems to have taken place, but there's no corresponding padlock icon gracing the top of the page. Could someone fix this please: "places int the"? There's also an extraneous space in the introduction: "disciplines of Vedic religion [Hinduism] ." 216.21.161.163 (talk) 20:19, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Both done. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:41, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Gandhara
I am not sure what these terms are intended to mean. Gandhara denotes primarily a political entity. The geographic designation Sapta Sindhava, or the seven Indus rivers, generally taken to be the five rivers of the Punjab plus the the Saraswati (the modern Ghaggar) and the Indus itself, might be a better term - and has been used for a very long time. Nakashchit (talk) 07:24, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Surely Panini wasn't native of "Pakistan"... LjL (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2016
"Panini's Karaka System for Language Processing" - Sudhir K Mishra - Vidyanidhi Prakashan, New Delhi, 2016. [ISBN : 978-93-85539-19-9]

Sudhirkumarmishra (talk) 09:39, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Sir Joseph (talk) 13:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Pakistan and Panini
Where do you see support in Frits Staal for "Panini lived in a place that is now in modern day Pakistan" or equivalent? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@Willard84: You added Pushkalavati, modern-day Charsadda etc. with this and this edits for example. I would welcome this addition, but you need to provide scholarly WP:RS that explicitly state this, preferably multiple RS to help establish that this is significant scholarly viewpoint. Otherwise this is WP:OR and unacceptable. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:23, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Editing warring over Pakistan
Please do not edit war. Panini lived in ancient times, when neither Pakistan nor India political boundaries existed. Indian subcontinent is the better term, given the uncertainty of Panini's location. We need to stick to what the cited sources are stating, per WP:V and WP:RS. What are your concerns, and why do you keep inserting unsourced changes? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 07:13, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not the person you are addressing but, the place had a name, called Ghandara. Its rather sad that some people done like this and insist on using "North West Indian Subcontinent" --Xinjao (talk) 20:35, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reliable source? Please see WP:RS guidelines, Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 22:16, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The best term is South Asian Subcontinent. The Wikipedia is full of 'ancient Indians' who are claimed to be of some kind of supernatural abilities. If this is true, it might be befitting to divide them appropriately as 'ancient Indians', 'ancient Pakistanis', 'ancient Bangladeshis' &c.

Beyond that there are the eastern people in India, who look quite different from the rest of India. They also should be appropriately acknowledged in the pages. As of now, everything in ancient times is 'Ancient Indians'. What happened to these wonderful guys could be the moot question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.97.8.238 (talk) 22:23, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Suffix
The word "desinence" is defined in the Wictionary as a technical term from linguistics. The word "suffix" is the standard word used in United States of America in teaching school children. The Wikipedia page "Desinence" is in fact a redirect page to the Wikipedia article "Suffix". Suffix is 150 times more common in use than desinence, according to the books.google.com/ngrams word count of words in over 1,000,000 books. The Wikipedia style page instructs editors to avoid technical language in favor of standard English words. So I made this change. Nick Beeson (talk) 19:11, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Dating data
New changes have been made now to change "6th BCE - 5th BCE" to "6th BCE - 4th BCE".


 * "Panini (sixth or fifth century B.C.E.)", Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations, Charles Higham, Infobase Publishing, p. 258.
 * "work by Panini (sixth century BCE)", Indian Mathematics: Engaging With The World From Ancient To Modern Times, Joseph George Gheverghese, World Scientific, p.98.
 * "''Panini (6th or 5th century b.c.e.)",Ritual and Mantras: Rules Without Meaning, Frits Staal, Motilal Banarsidass publ. p. 39.

Staal says 6th - 5th. 4th century BCE seems less popular and shows a pretty huge gap. See how Adi Shankara is written, there are varying dates about him. Lorstaking (talk) 04:44, 5 April 2018 (UTC)


 * George Cardona is a leading Pāṇini scholar. Michael Witzel also gives a date of c. 350 BCE. Here are some more sources:
 * Indian Linguistic Studies, ed. Madhav Deshpande and Peter Edwin Hook (Motilal Banarsidass, 2002), p.207 and p.215: "ca. 4th cent. B.C.E." and "ca. 350 B.C.E."
 * Indian Philosophy: Logic and philosophy of language, ed. Roy W. Perrett (Routledge, 2001), Introduction, p.xv: "c.350 BCE"
 * The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics, ed. Keith Allan (Oxford University Press, 2013), p.107: "about 400 to 350 BCE"
 * Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (2008), p.258: "5th or 4th century BCE"
 * Avantiputra7 (talk) 11:03, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Putting different estimates of dating with sources is good but you don't have to add unsourced opinions on sections, including WP:ORIGINALSYN like "most scholarship" when source fails to verify it. 4th century BCE is there now in lead, section and infobox. Lorstaking (talk) 04:46, 7 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't follow the argument in the article. Yona (clearly a reference to Ionians, i. e., Greeks; see Wiktionary) and lipi (see Wiktionary) are clearly borrowings from the west, from Old Persian Yauna- "Ionian, Greek" and dipi- "writing, document, inscription" respectively, and can only have been conveyed through the spread of the Achaemenid Empire into South Asia (Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley) by 518 BC or so, providing a definite terminus post quem. These loanwords militate against an earlier sixth- or even seventh-century dating; Pāṇini can't have authored texts using these loanwords that early. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:35, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Lead para
I have removed "Pāṇini's grammar formed the foundation of rigorous intellectual work in India for over two millennia.[10] After the discovery and publication of Pāṇini's work by European scholars in the nineteenth century,[11][12] his influence on aspects of the development of modern linguists is widely recognized in the profession; his grammar was influential on foundational scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.[13]" from the lead para.

I have removed it because opinions in sources from 1855 etc are too dated, and claims alleged to be supported in two cited sources without page numbers are not acceptable. Those sentences read like lead fixing too, with WP:Peacock-y claims that imply rigorous intellectual work existed in India for 2000 years. Such extraordinary claims need high quality peer-reviewed scholarly sources. If we can find such sources, we need to discuss this (e.g. how, what, why, etc) first in the main article and then add a summary sentence in the lead. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

dubious claims of panini being achaemenid subject
i think this is a very dubious political claim and should not be in the intro and should atleast give more background evidence into the subject for instance if panini mentions anything about achaemenid empire or persian presence in his texts. i think this claim is dubious and should be backed with more evidence based on panini works, there are also various dates for panini and some dates which maybe before the persians occupied north western region of pakistan, his birth place is also nothing but estimation so such political generalizations shouldn't be included in the intro of this article, i have moved this matter below along with the links which in my opinion is more than enough, regards. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 14:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Just look at the sources. पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 14:53, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
 * hi, please add relevant information, dont revert my edits, only one scholar, Scharfe makes an argument and has also admitted that there has been no evidence in paninian texts that it makes references to achaemenid empire or persians M. M. Ninan also argues that Panini might have lived well in the seventh century BC, which is your own source with the text claiming for his persian nationality, the dates are also conjectural at best, he could have lived very well before achaemenids or persians, i have moved sources below, regards. 175.137.72.188 (talk) 16:15, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Ninan
This edit, edit-summary supported by source, remove self-published ninan source, re-inserted infpo sourced by M.M. Ninan, The Development of Hinduism, while simultaneously removing the same source together with a piece of info which was also sourced by two other sources. Come on... try better. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!  19:00, 23 February 2019 (UTC) Ah, you did. Nevertheless, the info on the Achaemenid Empire was also sourced by two other sources. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk!  19:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * So you restored the "info on the Achaemenid"? I have reverted your edit because none of the sources supported "Achaemenid "which the text mentioned two times. Along with that, to represent it as an undisputed fact is further misrepresentation of the source. D4iNa4 (talk) 19:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Also read the argument above by . There was no need to start a new section. D4iNa4 (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Should the 'symbols' be capitalised?
The section Pāṇini now appears mangled, and IMHO is extremely hard to understand. However, I looked at some historical versions, and found that until November last year it made some sense - although it also then was hard to understand (and I do not claim to have understood it all). It seemed to explain that the beginning of Pāṇini's text set up a number of rules, where technical meanings were assigned to ordinary words such as 'prosperity' and 'quality', to denote some groups of sounds (or letters) or sound combinations (either always, or only in certain specified grammatical contexts). In representing these groups, combinations of letters were used, of which some should be pronounced and others only serving as abstract symbols or ITs.

Here, you replaced upper case by lower case letters in the first part of the explanation of the rules, but did not change the text referring to these capitals. Half a year later, you added a to that part, with the motivation there are no capital letters. Well, due to Kautilya3's edit, at that time you were right, provided one didn't look at the next subsection, Pāṇini.

You also marked this section as unsourced. I agree, and really would like to see either some reference showing that the explanations (including the use of Latin upper case letters for Pāṇini's 'symbols') here are in accordance with some Occidental commentaries on Pāṇini: or, alternatively, an alternative explanation (of course also sourced). However, I'm afraid that your 'half' change, where you transliterate these 'symbols' as if they were ordinary letters in the 'words' in Pāṇini's text, but leave the explanation that the capitals are IT symbols, is confusing. With your permission, I'd like to revert it to the older more consistent explanations;. I think that this also should fix your problem. Both: I also would like to downgrade the section Pāṇini to a subsection of the rules section, since I think that is more logical, and also since the lack of sources also concerns this section. JoergenB (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)


 * OK, neither of you protested, so I made those changes. As an effect, tentatively, I also removed the template "transl" (twice), and changed back the Sanskrit t in IT to the dental one (त्). (It was changed to the retroflex ṭ (ट्) here; I do not know whether this was correct or not.) JoergenB (talk) 16:49, 21 August 2019 (UTC)


 * I found out that you made the original contributions about the rules and IT's, back in 2005 (to the article Ashtadhyayi, which you later merged with Pāṇini). Do you incidently remember or may reconstruct your sources? I also wonder if you could check briefly whether the present transcription of the first two sutras is correct, or your original is better. (You had some capital T's involved, which you referred to in your explanations. The explanations remain, but the transcriptions, incidently seemingly following the wikisource version of the text, use 'd' for your 'T-'. Your original contribution.) JoergenB (talk) 17:47, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Ayy Panini
Ayy, Panini, don't you be a meanie Thought you wanted me to go up Why you tryna keep me teeny? I It's a dreamy, wished it on a genie I got fans finally, ain't you wanting them to see me? II thought you want this for my life, for my life Said you wanted to see me thrive, you liedJust say to me what you want from me Just say to me what you want from me

Ayy, Panini, don't you be a meanie Thought you wanted me to go up Why you tryna keep me teeny now? Now they need me, number one on streaming Oh yeah, you used to love me So what happened, what's the meaning? II thought you want this for my life, for my life Said you wanted to see me thrive, you lied

Now when it's all done, I get the upper hand I need a big Benz, not another fan But I still want you as a fan I'ma need to sit down, don't mean to make demands But I need you to...Say to me what you want from me Just say to me what you want from me


 * Although I generally rebuke Wikipedians who treat wiki Talk pages as their own personal fiefdom, I'm favourably disposed towards keeping this kind of dross well out of it.


 * Nuttyskin (talk) 04:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

namaḥ pāṇinaye, etc.
We could do with an English translation of this passage, as this is English Wikipedia; and more than a few of us (confiteor) admit to being hard of Sanskrit.

Nuttyskin (talk) 05:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)