The Shiva Sutras (also Maheshvara Sutras) are the 14 sutras that form the basis of the Aṣṭādhyāyī (See: Aṣṭādhyāyī), the Sanskrit grammar by Pāṇini (See: Pāṇini). According to legend, these sutras were revealed to Pāṇini by Shiva, who then composed his grammar to be dependent on them.

The purpose of the sutras is to give a list of all Sanskrit phones. But rather than listing just the phonemes, they are interspersed by meta-linguistic markers, the so-called "IT sounds" (later called "anubandhas"). By naming one phoneme and one marker, a list of all intervening phonemes is intended, allowing the grammar to refer to classes of sounds by just one syllable. These syllables referring to lists of phonemes are called pratyaharas, and the sutras themselves are also known as pratyahara-vidhayaka-sutrani (Sutras forming Pratyaharas).

For example, al refers to the list of all phonemes, ac refers to all vowels, hal to all consonants and ñam to all nasals - the purpose of the a in hal etc. is to ease pronunciation.

The 14 sutras are (the IT sounds are at the end of each sutra, transcribed in boldface):

1. a i u ṇ (simple vowels)

2. ṛ ḷ k (sonorant vowels)

3. e o ṅ

4. ai au c (diphthongs)

5. h y v r ṭ

6. l ṇ (voiced fricative + semi-vowels)

7. ñ m



ṅ ṇ n m (nasals)

8. jh bh ñ

9. gh ḍh dh ṣ (voiced aspirate stops)

10. j b g ḍ d ś (voiced unaspirated stops)

11. kh ph ch ṭh th ca ṭ t v

12. k p y (unvoiced stops)

13. ś ṣ s r (sibilants)

14. h l (voiced fricative, the only phoneme listed twice)

These 14 sutras encompass the phones of the Sanskrit language. The first 4 sutras cover all the vowels and the last 10 sutras include all the consonants. Again, all vowels and consonants of Sanskrit have been arranged in such a way in these sutras that they can be referred to without mentioning them separately.

Of the hundreds pratyaharas that could in principle be formed from these sutras, Panini has used 41 (with a 42nd introduced by later grammarians, raṇ=r,l).

Note that some pratyaharas are ambiguous. For example, IT ṇ occurs twice in the list, which means that you can assign two different meanings to pratyahara aṇ (including or excluding ṛ etc.); in fact, both of these meanings are being used in the grammar. On the other hand, pratyahara hal is always used in the meaning "all consonants" - Panini never uses pratyaharas to refer to sets consisting of a single phoneme.