The Silence of the Commentaries Pradeśāḥ in the Text of the Kāśikāvṛtti

Abstract

As is well known, the Kāśikāvṛtti is the oldest extant rule-by-rule commentary on the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini. Two major commentaries on it are available, the Nyāsa from the eighth century and the Padamañjarī, most likely from the eleventh century. In this article we focus on the term pradeśa, which is a familiar feature of the printed editions of the Kāśikāvṛtti on the sañjñā sūtras of the Aṣṭādhyāyī. A closer examination, however, shows that the sentence “Xpradeśāḥ — X . . . ity evamādayaḥ” (where X is the sañjñā) is not met with in either of the two commentaries. This has consequences for our understanding of the textual transmission of the Kāśikāvṛtti.