Meaning of Panini

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Anshuman Pandey said:
> 
> 
> Sorry to wander off-topic, but I was reading a work titled "The Early 
> Aryans of India" by S. B. Roy in which he writes that Panini was a 
> Pathan. Is there any information to validate this claim?

What a lovely image!  Rifle in one hand, sash of cartridges over his
shoulder, red bandanna, muttering "vrddhiraadaic adengunah...".

Perhaps the only sensible comment we can make about "who Panini was" is
that made by Scharfe (citing Filliozat), who noted that given the
traditional location of Panini near Attock, and his presumed date in the
fifth century or so, he was technically a subject of the Achaemenid
empire, i.e., a Persian (Grammatical Literature, Wiesbaden, 1977).

Presumably the legendary statue of Panini is buried somewhere near
Attock, and if someone could just dig it up, we would have quite a
treasure.  :-)

Dominik