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Appendix 5.

Appendices
Appendix 5.
Date of the Prâtisâkhya.

I have tried to settle the date of the Rig-veda-prâ-tisâkhya in the Introduction to my edition and translation of this work (1869). Nothing that has been discovered since has necessitated any change. If we accept the date of about 400 B.C. assigned hypothetically to Pânini we are safe in placing our Prâtisâkhya before Pânini because he quotes it. (Introduction p. 11; History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature p. 140.) Saunaka is the editor rather than the author of our Prâtisâkhya. The authority for his doctrines and the author of the Pada-text is Sâkalya. Yâska the author of the Nirukta who is admitted by all scholars to be anterior to Pânini quotes our Sâkalya as padakâra the maker of the text in which the words (pada) are divided. He is fully acquainted with the work done by the padakâra he declares that the Samhitâ-text is based on the Pada-text and he adds (I. 17) that the Pârshada books of all schools i.e. the Prâtisâkhyas are based on that Pada-text. The Pârshada literature or the Prâtisâkhyas are therefore presupposed by Yâska and though Yâska may have been not much older than or even a contemporary only of the author of the Pârshadas they must both have preceded the work of Pânini. We may therefore assign the period from about 400 to 500 B.C. to the production of the Prâtisâkhyas and other Pârshada works.

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