of southern India, but with the decline of
the Cholas the Pandyas became the
dominant regional power, eventually
absorbing the Chola kingdom in 1279. At
their zenith in the thirteenth century the
Pandyas controlled most of the southern
part of India, but were in turn conquered
and annexed early in the fourteenth cen-
tury by the Sangama dynasty, also known
as the Vijayanagar dynastyafter their
capital city.
Panguni
Twelfth month in the Tamil solar year,
corresponding to the northern Indian
solar month of Mina (the zodiacal sign of
Pisces), which usually falls within March
and April. This name is a modification of
Phalgun, the twelfth month of the lunar
calendar. The existence of several differ-
ent calendars is one clear sign of the con-
tinuing importance of regional cultural
patterns. One way that the Tamils retain
their culture is by preserving their tradi-
tional calendar. Tamil is one of the few
regional languages in India with an
ancient, well-established literary tradi-
tion. See also Tamil months, Tamil
Nadu, and Tamil language.
Pani
A group of northern Indian people men-
tioned in a hymn in the Rg Veda(10.108),
the oldest Hindu religious text. This ref-
erence speaks poorly of this group, since
it portrays them as cattle thieves. The
hymn is spoken as a dialogue between
the Panis and Sarama, the divine dog
who is the servant of the god Indraand
who has been sent by Indra to recover
the cattle the Panis have stolen. This
hymn may refer to an actual incident
and an actual group of people, but it is
impossible to say. Certainly the Vedas
were not written as a strict historical
record, and it is perilous to read them as
such. At the same time, as the earliest
textual records they preserve references
to the culture and to contemporary
times that can be found nowhere else.
Panigrahana
A minor rite, performed in many Hindu
marriages, in which the groom grasps
the bride’s right hand as a symbol of
their impending marital union. See also
marriage customs.Panini
(4th c. B.C.E.) The greatest Sanskrit
grammarian, whose descriptive account
of that language in his Ashtadhyayi
(“Eight Sections”) became the prescrip-
tive norm for the language in later gen-
erations. Panini was not the earliest
grammarian, since he names several in
his text; his genius lay rather in his skills
as an organizer and systematizer. Each
of the Ashtadhyayi’s eight sections is
written as a series of brief aphorisms
(sutras), each of which provides the
foundation and necessary background
for those that follow. Panini’s use of this
form allowed him to provide a complete
account of the language in the briefest
possible space, and the text’s condensed
form made it easier to memorize. As
with most sutra texts, the Ashtadhyayi’s
terseness of expression presupposes a
commentary, of which the most famous
is the Mahabhashya, written by the
grammarian Patanjali in the second
century B.C.E.Panth
General term used for a particular reli-
gious community, such as the
Dadupanth, Varkari Panth, or the
Nanak Panth—an older name for the
Sikh community, which has simply been
abridged to “Panth” by contemporary
Sikhs. The word is derived from the
Sanskritword for “path” and is here
used metaphorically to indicate a fixed
pattern of belief and behavior, often
rooted in a particular individual’s teach-
ings. There is a certain amount of
semantic overlap between the words
panthand sampraday, both of which
denote religious communities, and
there is no hard-and-fast rule dividing
the two. In general, however, the termPanth