Reparsing Pāṇini
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.28.2026.01.03Keywords:
Pāṇini, Aṣṭādhyāyī, paribhāṣās, rule ordering, siddha-principle, para-principle, Joshi, RajpopatAbstract
The order in which rules are applied in Pāṇinian derivations was traditionally explained by four main principles: (a) the order of enumeration in the grammar para ‘later’ > p¯urva ‘earlier’, (b) constituent structure: antara˙nga ‘internal’ > bahira˙nga ‘external’, (c) the interaction of operations: nitya ‘persistent’ > anitya ‘non-persistent’, (d) generality: apavāda ‘exception’> utsarga ‘general case’. Modern Panini interpretatation has much reduced the role of (a) and (b). The theory developed by S. D. Joshi and his collaborators relies on generalized versions of (c) and (d), respectively called the siddha-principle and generalized blocking. Rajpopat (2025) proposes a different version of generalized blocking, and replaces (c) by a completely new principle. I argue that (1) Rajpopat’s version of generalized blocking is ill-defined, (2) his new principle yields the wrong results in a large class of cases, (3) his criticism of the Joshi approach is misguided, and (4) a Joshitype approach accounts both for the cases that Rajpopat’s theory gets right and for the cases that it does not get right. I conclude with an argument that the Aṣṭādhyāyī and the Prātiśākhyas follow exactly the same basic approach, and that the vast differences between their analyses are the result of their different scope.
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