Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) begins in late Vedic India, and culminates in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini (ca. 5th century BC).

Panini's school

Panini's work had a phenomenal success, and later Sanskrit grammarians were essentially reduced to the role of his commentators, and his predecessors are only known from references in the Ashtadhyayi itself. His work is still used, or at least referred to, in the teaching of Sanskrit today.

Panini's grammar consists of several parts, of which the Ashtadhyayi, containing the morphological rules, forms the core:

• Shiva Sutras: phonology (śikṣā)
• Ashtadhyayi: morphology
• Dhatupatha (lists classes verbal roots)
• Ganapatha (lists classes of primitive nominal stems)
• Kātyāyana
• Patanjali a few centuries after Panini commented the Ashtadhyayi in his Mahabhashya.
• Yaska
• Varadaraja, Laghukaumudi,

Early Accounts

The earliest historical accounts of

• Hsüan Tsang (602-664)
• I Tsing (634-713)
• Fa Tsang (643-712)

The Indica of Abu Raihan al-Biruni (973-1048), dating to ca. 1030 contains detailed descriptions of all branches of Hindu science.

Similar to the Chinese Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhism aroused interest in India among its followers. Taranatha (born 1573) in his treatise of the history of Buddhism in India (completed around 1608) speaks about Panini and provides some information about grammars, but not in the manner of a person familiar with their content.

Beginning of Western scholarship

• Jean Francois Pons
• Henry Thomas Colebrooke
• August Wilhelm von Schlegel
• Wilhelm von Humboldt

19th century

• Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar
• Franz Kielhorn
• William Dwight Whitney
• Bruno Liebich
• Otto Boehtlingk
• Georg Bühler

Modern period

• Bernhard Geiger
• Leonhard Bloomfield
• Paul Thieme
• Louis Renou

References

• Frits Staal, A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1972), reprint by Motilal Barabasidass, Delhi (1985), ISBN 812080029X.