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Weber contends that neither of the works relied upon as tiistory by Bohtlingk are trustworthy in reference to a period fifteen centuries earlier and the dates they assign generally rest •upon a confusion of Northern and Southern Buddhistic eras. He places Panini later than the invasion of Alexander, inasmuch as Panini mentions i yavanani] implying necessarily an •acquaintance with the Greek alphabet.
Goldstucker carries him back to the anti-Buddhistic times, .about the seventh century B.'C. For,
(i) Panini states that the names of old Kalpa works are formed with the affix in. The Manava Kalpa Sutras are from his point of view old Kalpa works. (ii) The Vajasaneyi Pratisakh^a is posterior to Panini, because (a) in Panini there is organism and life ; in the pratisakhya there is mechanism and death ; (3) in many rules Katyayana becomes unintelligible unless they be judged in their intimate connection with Panini's grammar.
>(iii) Yaska preceded Panini, because Panini teaches the formation of Yaska and heads a gana with it ; he employs * upasarga' without defining it, while Yaska enters fully into the notion expressed by it. (iv) The word Atharvanika can only mean the office of the Atharvan priest at the sacrifice. Though the word Angiras is used, the compound Atharvangiras is never met with. On the whole there is no valid ground for Panini's knowledge of the Atharvan.
JBhandarkar adds the accompanying reasons :—
(i) While in the Sutras of Panini there are a great many names of places in the Punjab and Afganistan,%vidence of the Kathasaritsagara, which makes Panini, a disciple of" Varsha, a contemporary of King Nanda.