Notices of New Works. 
[No 1, 
44 
It is well known that the usual date for Panini, in the fourth cen- 
tury B. C., rests on a combination of slight circumstances which only 
gains its currency from the utter absence in Indian literature of any 
thing approaching to historical certainty. Dr. Johnson used to talk 
of the ‘ one-eyed monarch of the blind,’ and, compared with the hope- 
less obscurity of all other Indian literary dates, that of Panini from 
Buddhist books backed by the story-teller Somadeva, really does seem 
to give a shadow of basis for historical research ; still it is well for 
the Sanskrit student to be occasionally reminded by such a rough 
realist as Dr. Goldstiicker, of the uncertain materials on which at best 
we ground the assumed era for Panini. It is only in Hindu literature 
that such a list of infinitesimal probabilities would be allowed to add 
up into an assumed certainty,— and even then we have no right to be 
content with doubts and guesses, if better materials are in our reach. 
Dr. Goldstiicker professes to have settled the era of Patanjali on 
far more reliable grounds, and as the question is of no little import- 
ance, we wish to give our readers a clear idea of his reasonings. 
They rest on a single rule in the Mahabhashya, — Patanjali’s great 
commentary on Panini’s Sutras and Katyayana’s supplementary 
aphorisms, — a rule well worth all Pythagoras’s ‘ golden rules,’ if it 
leads us to the one authenticated date in the literary history of 
ancient India. 
In one of his rules, Patanjali refers to the Maurya kings, which 
proves that at any rate he was posterior to Chandragupta, the con- 
temporary of Seleueus, while the liajatarangim shews that his gram- 
mar was known in Kashmir in Abhimanyu’s reign about 60 A. D. ; but 
another of his rules determines his date more precisely, as follows : 
“ In Siitra iii. 2. Ill, Panini teaches that the imperfect must be 
used, when the speaker relates a past fact belonging to a time which 
precedes the present day. Katyayana improves on this rule by observ- 
ing that it is used too when the fact related is out of sight, notorious, 
hut could be seen by the person who uses the verb. And Patanjali 
again appends to this Vartika the following instances and remark, 
“ The Yavana besieged (imperfect) Ayodhyd ; the Yavana besieged 
(imperfect) the Madhyamikas. Why does Katyayana say ‘ out of 
sight f ’ (because in such an instance as) ‘ the sun rose,’ (the verb 
must be in the aorist). Why ‘notorious?’ (because in such an 
