﻿AND PRACRIT LANGUAGES. 205 



the kno\\lcil<i:e of tlie key to their interpretation, 

 the student thuls thcni ambiguous. In the apphca- 

 tion of them when understood, he discovers many 

 seeming- contradictions ; and, with every exertion 

 of practised memory, lie must experience the utmost 

 ditTiculty in combining- rules dispersed in apparent 

 confusion through different portions of Pan'ini's 

 eiirht lectures. A commentary was therefore indis- 

 pensabiy requisite. ]\Iany were composed by an- 

 cient grammarians to elucidate the text of Pan'ini. 

 A most copious one on the emendations of his rules 

 was compiled in very ancient times by an uncertain 

 author. This voluminous work, known by the title 

 of jMahdhJui.sliya, or the great commentary, is 

 ascribed to Patanjali, a fabulous personage, to 

 whom mythology has assigned the shape of a ser- 

 pent. In this commentary every rule is examined 

 at great length. Al! possible interpretations are 

 proposed : and the tnie sense and import of the rule 

 are deduced through a tedious train of argument, in 

 which all foreseen objections are considered and re- 

 futed ; and the wrong interpretations of the text, 

 with all the arguments which can be invented to 

 support them, are obviated or exploded. 



V^OLUMi xoLS as it is, the Malicihhdshya has not 

 exhausted the subject on which it treats. Its defi- 

 ciencies have been supplied by tlie annotations of 

 modern grammarians. The most celebrated among 

 these scholiasts of the Blidshi/a is Cai yat A,alearned 

 Cashmirian. Mis annotations are almost equally 

 copious with the conmicntary itself. Yet they too 

 are loaded by numerous "-losses : amonc: which tlic 

 old and new I'ivarands are most esteemed. 



The difficulty of combining the dispersed rules 

 of o-rammar, to inflect an v one verb or noun through 

 all its variations, renders further aid necessary. 

 This seems to have been anciently afforded in voca- 

 bularies, one of which exhibited the verbs classed in 



the 



