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simple designation of grammatical words by means of terras^ corresponding to them in sense, which we find in Yaska, to the-algebraic symbols of Panini, implies a great amount of study in> the interval;" Panini himself mentions the names of some-authorities on grammar, such as Sakatayana, Apisali, Sakalya. Of these the first has of late been accessible, but it is thought: to be a later redaction or adaptation.
Panini's grammar " is distinguished above all similar works • of other countries partly by its thoroughly exhaustive investigation of the roots of the language and the formation of words £-partly by its sharp precision of expression which indicates with an enigmatical succinctness whether forms come under the sarne^ or different rules."
His Ashtadhyayi consists of nearly 4000 aphorisms,. divided into eight chapters. "Panini had before him a list of irregularly formed words, which survives, in a somewhat modified form, as the Unadi sufras. There are also two appendixes to which Panini refers : one is the Dhatupatha,. containing some 2000 roots, of which only about 800 have been found in Sanskrit literature, and from which about fifty vedic verbs have been omitted ; the second is the Ganapathar to which certain rules apply."
Bohtlingk places Panini in the 4th century B. C. (i) on the authority of the Rajatarangini which says that the Maha* bhashya was introduced into Kashmir under King Abhimanyu ^ (2) on the posteriority of Amarasimha who is supposed to have flourished about the ist century B. C,; and (3) on the%vidence of the Kathasaritsagara, which makes Panini, a disciple of" Varsha, a contemporary of King Nanda.