Kashmir, Tamilnadu, Panini, Abhinavagupta, etc.

[DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA]

At 11:36 AM 1/7/99 PST, N.Ganesan wrote:
>Reading Prof. Aklujkar, Interpreting VP 2.486 historically
>(Part 3), UMich, 1991
>
>parvatAd Agamam labdhvA ...
>
>Because the Mountain is referred by a very general term
>'parvata' in the South, could it be the well known
>Malaya mountain occuring in many Sanskrit texts?

Most improbable.

The author of vAkyapadIya, bhartRhari, is supposed to belong to the
second half of fifth century and first quarter of sixth century A.D.
The older purANAs were already in existence for several centuries and
they contain references to Malaya as one of the kulaparvatAs. For example

mahEndrO malayaH sahyaH zuktimAnRkshaparvataH |
vindhyazca pAriyAtrazca saptAtra kulaparvatAH || vishNu purANa (2.3.3)

Therefore the word Malaya as kulaparvata must have been well known to
bhartRhari. If he wanted to say that the vyAkaraNAgama was obtained
from Malaya mountain he had only to say

                "malayAdAgamaM labdhvA"
instead of

                "parvatAdAgamaM labdhvA".

It is as easy as that. The fact that he did not say so indicates clearly
that mount MalayA was not meant here.

Books are written by authors to convey information to the readers.
This is done best by using suprasiddha (wellknown) words rather than
aprasiddha (illknown) words. This is true for all books except
material of cryptographic nature and material for entertainment
like puzzles. Malaya is a well known word and it conveys the meaning
readily. The word "parvata" to mean Malaya mountain is worse than
aprasiddha. For a North Indian reader who does not know dravidian it
does not convey the meaning of Malaya mountain at all. It tells him that
vyAkaraNAgamA was obtained from some mountain. For a reader
who knows dravidian also, it does not immediately mean Malaya mountain.
First of all he must relate "parvata" to common noun "malai" and then to
the proper noun Malaya. And we have to conclude that bhartRhari wanted
to keep North Indian readers in the dark about the place from which
the vyAkaraNAgamA was obtained and the South Indian readers to know
about the location only after solving a small puzzle. I need not say
that such a conclusion will be absurd.

More about "parvata" later.

regards,

sarma.