one breath, the caesura at the end being marked by a pause or the particle iti.
Vedic Brahmins continue to the present day to recite mantrasin this manner.
Ritualists and reciters generally do not know – and need not know – their
meaning; but they know their precise formalong with their accents and modes
of recitation which incorporate a good measure of linguistic analysis.
For the Vedas to be orally transmitted, its sentences were analysed “word-for-
word.” This is not easy because Sanskrit possesses sandhior “junction” (literally
“putting together”). Sandhi is common in spoken English but uncommon in
writing where, for example: the indefinite article “a” is replaced by “an” when
avowelfollows so that we have: “abook” but “anapple.” (The rule could be
formulated the other way round depending on what is taken to be the default
option: “an” is replaced by “a” when aconsonantfollows.) In Sanskrit, sandhiis
all-pervasive, for example:
orvapra ̄ amartya ̄ nivato devyudvatah.(Rigveda10.127.2)
“The immortal Goddess has pervaded wide space, depths and heights”The CONTINUOUS RECITATION of this mantrais called sam.hita ̄-pa ̄t.ha(the word
for “continuous”, sam.hita ̄, is related to sandhi, and pa ̄t.hameans “recitation”).
The WORD-FOR-WORD ANALYSIS, called padapa ̄t.ha(frompada“word”), is:
a ̄ / uru / apra ̄h./ amartya ̄ / ni-vatah./ devı ̄ / ut-vatah.//
(“per / wide / vaded / immortal / depths / goddess / heights”)This analysis goes deeper than words: the “pre-verb” a ̄is separated from the verb
apra ̄h.(in the translation: “per” from “vaded”). Later rules express sandhitrans-
formations, e.g.:
a ̄+uru >oru
uru +apra ̄h.>urvapra ̄h.,where the arrow “>” may be read as: “has to be replaced by”, “changes into,” or
“becomes.”
Generalizations of such rules are the su ̄traswith which the linguistic study
of language or “grammar” (vya ̄karan.a) began. I shall subdivide its history into
four parts or periods: (1) PADAPA ̄T.HA or “word-for-word” analysis; (2)
PRA ̄TIS ́A ̄KHYA or treatises that formalize these procedures; (3) PA ̄N.INI; and (4)
LATER SCHOOLS.
1 Padapa ̄t.ha
The first system we know of is S ́a ̄kalya’s Padapa ̄t.haof the Rigveda but it contains
ideas and techniques that may go back to an older period (also preserved in the
the science of language 349