Shiva Sutras

The Śiva·sūtras, technically akṣara·samāmnāya, variously called ', ''pratyāhāra·sūtrāṇi'', ''varṇa·samāmnāya'', etc., refer to a set of fourteen aphorisms devised as an arrangement of the sounds of Sanskrit for the purposes of grammatical exposition as carried out by the grammarian Pāṇini in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.Böhtlingk, p. 1.Vasu, pp. 1-2.

Pāṇini himself uses the term ''akṣara·samāmnāya'' whereas the colloquial term "Shiva sutra" is a later development, as per claims by Nandikeśvara in his Kāśikā, that the god Śiva sounded his drum fourteen times to reveal these sounds to Pāṇini. They were either composed by Pāṇini to accompany his ' or predate him.

Text and notation

# a i u Ṇ
# ṛ ḷ K
# e o Ṅ
# ai au C
# ha ya va ra Ṭ
# la Ṇ
# ña ma ṅa ṇa na M
# jha bha Ñ
# gha ḍha dha Ṣ
# ja ba ga ḍa da Ś
# kha pha cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta V
# ka pa Y
# śa ṣa sa R
# ha L

Each verse consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes (i.e. open syllables consisting either of initial vowels or consonants followed by the ''basic'' vowel "a") followed by a single 'dummy letter', or ''anubandha'', conventionally rendered in upper case and named '' by Pāṇini.

Scheme

This allows Pāṇini to refer to groups of phonemes with ', which consist of a phoneme-letter and an ''anubandha'' (and often the vowel ''a'' to aid pronunciation) and signify all of the intervening phonemes. ''Pratyāhāras'' are thus single syllables, but they can be declined (see Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77 below). Hence the ''pratyāhāra'' ''aL'' refers to all phonemes (because it consists of the first phoneme of the first verse (''a'') and the last ''anubandha'' of the last verse (''L'')); ''aC'' refers to vowels (i.e., all of the phonemes before the ''anubandha'' ''C'': i.e. ''a i u ṛ ḷ e o ai au''); ''haL'' to consonants, and so on.

Issues

Note that some ''pratyāhāras'' are ambiguous. The ''anubandha'' ''Ṇ'' occurs twice in the list, which means that you can assign two different meanings to ''pratyāhāra'' ''aṆ'' (including or excluding ''ṛ'', etc.); in fact, both of these meanings are used in the ''Aṣṭādhyāyī''. On the other hand, the ''pratyāhāra'' ''haL'' is always used in the meaning "all consonants"—Pāṇini never uses ''pratyāhāras'' to refer to sets consisting of a single phoneme.

Combinations

From these 14 verses, a total of 280 ''pratyāhāras'' can be formed: 14*3 + 13*2 + 12*2 + 11*2 + 10*4 + 9*1 + 8*5 + 7*2 + 6*3 * 5*5 + 4*8 + 3*2 + 2*3 +1*1, minus 14 (as Pāṇini does not use single element ''pratyāhāras'') minus 11 (as there are 11 duplicate sets due to ''h'' appearing twice); the second multiplier in each term represents the number of phonemes in each. But Pāṇini uses only 41 (with a 42nd introduced by later grammarians, ''raṆ''=''r l'') ''pratyāhāras'' in the ''Aṣṭādhyāyī''.

Arrangement

The Akṣarasamāmnāya puts phonemes with a similar manner of articulation together (so sibilants in 13 ''śa ṣa sa R,'' nasals in 7 ''ñ m ṅ ṇ n M''). Economy is a major principle of their organization, and it is debated whether Pāṇini deliberately encoded phonological patterns in them (as they were treated in traditional phonetic texts called Prātiśakyas) or simply grouped together phonemes which he needed to refer to in the ''Aṣṭādhyāyī'' and which only ''secondarily'' reflect phonological patterns. Pāṇini does not use the Akṣarasamāmnāya to refer to homorganic stops, but rather the ''anubandha'' ''U'': to refer to the palatals ''c ch j jh'' he uses ''cU''.

Example

As an example, consider ''Aṣṭādhyāyī'' 6.1.77: ':

* ''iK'' means ''i u ṛ ḷ'',
* ''iKaḥ'' is ''iK'' in the genitive case, so it means ' in place of ''i u ṛ ḷ'';
* ''yaṆ'' means the semivowels ''y v r l'' and is in the nominative, so ''iKaḥ yaṆ'' means: ''y v r l'' replace ''i u ṛ ḷ''.
* ''aC'' means all vowels, as noted above
* ''aCi'' is in the locative case, so it means ''before any vowel''.

Hence this rule replaces a vowel with its corresponding semivowel when followed by any vowel, and that is why ' together with ' makes '. To apply this rule correctly we must be aware of some of the other rules of the grammar, such as:
*1.1.49 ' which says that the genitive case in a sutra signifies "in the place of"
*1.1.50 ' which says that in a substitution, the element in the substitute series that most closely resembles the letter to be substituted should be used (e.g. ''y'' for ''i'', ''r'' for ''ṛ'' etc.)
*1.1.71 ' which says that a sequence with an element at the beginning (e.g. ''i'') and an ''IT'' letter (e.g. ''K'') at the end stands for the intervening letters (i.e. ''i u ṛ ḷ'', because the Akṣarasamāmnāya sutras read ').

Also, rules can be debarred by other rules:

* 6.1.101 ' teaches that vowels (from the ''aK pratyāhāra'') of the same quality come together to make a long vowel, so for instance ' and ' make ', not '. This ' rule takes precedence over the general ' rule mentioned above, because this rule is more specific.

Pratyāhāras

Despite the possible combinations seen above, here are the 41 pratyāhāras in actual use by Pāṇini:Cardona, §129.

# ''aL'' ⇒ all sounds
# ''ac'' ⇒ vowels
# ''haL'' ⇒ consonants

Vowel groups

# ''1aK'' ⇒ ''a i u ṛ ḷ''
# ''aṆ'' ⇒ ''a i u''
# ''iC'' ⇒ ''i u ṛ ḷ e o ai au''
# ''iK'' ⇒ ''i u ṛ ḷ''
# ''uK'' ⇒ ''u ṛ ḷ''
# ''eC'' ⇒ ''e o ai au''
# ''eṆ'' ⇒ ''e o''
# ''aiC'' ⇒ ''ai au''

Vowel and consonant groups

# ''aŚ'' ⇒ vowels and voiced consonants
# ''aM'' ⇒ vowels, ''h'', semivowels, and nasal stops
# ''aṆ'' ⇒ vowels, ''h'', and semivowels
# ''aṬ'' ⇒ vowels, ''h'', and semivowels other than ''l''
# ''iṆ'' ⇒ vowels other than ''a''; ''h'' and semivowels

Consonant group

# ''haŚ'' ⇒ voiced consonants
# ''yaR'' ⇒ semivowels, stops, and voiceless spirants
# ''yaY'' ⇒ semivowels and stops
# ''yaÑ'' ⇒ semivowels, nasal stops, ''jh bh''
# ''yaM'' ⇒ semivowels and nasal stops
# ''yaṆ'' ⇒ semivowels
# ''vaL'' ⇒ consonants other than ''y''
# ''vaŚ'' ⇒ voiced consonants other than ''y''
# ''raL'' ⇒ consonants other than ''y'' and ''v''
# ñam ⇒ nasal stops
# ''maY'' ⇒ stops other than ''ñ''
# ''ṅaM'' ⇒ ''ṅ ṇ n''
# ''jhaL'' ⇒ consonants other than nasal stops and semivowels
# ''jhaR'' ⇒ nonnasal stops, voiceless aspirants
# ''jhaY'' ⇒ nonnasal stops
# ''jhaŚ'' ⇒ voiced nonnasal stops
# ''jhaṢ'' ⇒ voiced aspirated stops
# ''bhaṢ'' ⇒ voiced aspirated stops other than ''jh''
# ''jaŚ'' ⇒ voiced unaspirated nonnasal stops
# ''baŚ'' ⇒ voiced unaspirated nonnasal stops other than ''j''
# ''khaR'' ⇒ voiceless stops, voiceless aspirants
# ''khaY'' ⇒ voiceless stops
# ''chaV'' ⇒ ''ch ṭh th c ṭ t''
# cay ⇒ voiceless unaspirated stops
# ''caR'' ⇒ voiceless unaspirated stops, voiceless spirants
# ''śaL'' ⇒ spirants
# ''śaR'' ⇒ voiceless spirants

See also

*Generative grammar
*Aṣṭādhyāyī
*Pāṇini
*Sanskrit grammar

;Organization of sounds in other languages
*Alphabet song
*Iroha, a Japanese pangram
*Thousand Character Classic, a Chinese mnemonic traditionally popular in Korea

Notes

Glossary

References

Bibliography

*
* (Books I to VIII reflecting the original)
*{{cite book , last= Cardona , first = George , title=Pāṇini - His work and its traditions , year= 1997 , publisher=Motilal Banarsidass , isbn=81-208-0419-8

External links

Paper by Paul Kiparsky on 'Economy and the Construction of the Śiva sūtras'

Paper by Andras Kornai relating the Śiva sūtras to contemporary Feature Geometry.

Paper by Wiebke Petersen on 'A Mathematical Analysis of Pāṇini’s Śiva sūtras.'

Paper by Madhav Deshpande on 'Who Inspired Pāṇini? Reconstructing the Hindu and Buddhist Counter-Claims.'

Vyakarana
Collation
Shaiva texts
Sanskrit texts
Hindu texts