ban-skt-indx.htm
by Chi Hisen-lin, Journal of the Burma Research Society, XLIII, i, June 1960
Pali in multi-scripts - UKT
What language? - Chi Hisen-lin
Language problem of primitive Buddhism -
lang-probl.htm
Mahabharata -
Mahabha.htm
Bhagavagītā -
Gita.htm
Early Buddhism and Bhagavagītā -
Budd-Gita.htm
Mahayana Buddhism and Vajrayana Buddhism - mahayana.htm
UKT notes
• Brahmanism •
Gujarati • Tenuis •
Yāska
Noteworthy passages in this file:
• Rice became a
main crop. [UKT: in Cemetery H culture]
- by UKT 101112
Pali-Myanmar (Pal-Myan), like Burmese-Myanmar (Bur-Myan), but unlike English-Latin (Eng-Lat), does not have uppercase letters. In order to keep this tradition intact, I have changed upper case letters in Pal-Lat into lower case letters. Please note that not until recently, the differentiation between language (spoken language) and script (written language) was not made, and the Pal-Lat sentences were written by the Chi Hisen-lin like regular English sentences. In this paper, I (UKT) have given the Pali words both in Myanmar script and Romabama aka Burmese in extended Latin script (Bur-Lat).
Though we say that Pali is the holy language of Buddhism, it is not exactly correct. Buddhism is not language-specific, and there was an incident involving the proposal to have a standardised liturgy for Buddhism in which Buddha specifically allowed his teachings to be propagated in the vernacular and not in a specific language such as Sanskrit. It is not well known that Pali is also the holy language of Jainism and it is written in Gujarati (see my note) script which is also an alphasyllabic script aka abugida.
I have been asked why the Buddha was so much against Sanskrit as a language. After going
through my present work, I have come to realize that the Hindu (Vedic) religion and
the Sanskrit language were so intertwined, and because Buddhism was
diametrically opposed to Hinduism, Buddha had no choice but to ban the use
of Sanskrit as the liturgical language in Buddhism. See the idea of sphoṭa
in the following files:
•
sphota.htm •
sphota2.htm •
spho-matilal.htm
•
sp-writ.htm .
See Language problem of primitive Buddhism - lang-probl.htm , a photocopy of which was provided to me by Daw Papa Aung, lecturer in Pali, Yangon University. [Regretfully I have not recorded the date - sometime in 2004 - when the photocopy came into my hands.]
-- Chi Hisen-lin, Journal of the Burma Research Society, XLIII, i, June 1960
What language was used by primitive Buddhism? This is a problem yet unsolved among the learned circles. Based upon some new materials I wish to propose my personal views concerning this problem. In the Cullavagga, V. 33. 1, there is narrated the following story:
Now there were two Bhikkhus surnamed Yamelutekula, who were brothers born in a Brahman family. They had good voice and were expert in conversation. They came to the presence of the Blessed One, to whom they paid their homage and sat aside. After having taken their seat, the two Bhikkhus said to the Blessed One,
"Bhante, now the Bhikkhus with different family names and personal names, of different social ranks and families, have come to join the Order. With their own vernaculars they have marred the Buddha's words. Please permit us to express the Buddha's words in Sanskrit."
The Buddha reproached them, saying,
"You fools, how dare you say, 'Please permit us to express the Buddha's words in Sanskrit!' Fools, by doing so you could neither induce those who did not have faith in the Buddha to have faith in him, nor could you enhance the faith of those who already had it in the Buddha. You could only help those who did not believe in the Buddha and change the mind of those who already believed in him."
After having reprimanded them, he preached the Dhamma for them, and then said to the Bhikkhus,
"Bhikkhus, you are not allowed to express the Buddha's words in Sanskrit. Those who act contrarily will be considered as having committed the offence of Dukkata
{doak~ka.Ta.}." fn09-01
And finally the Buddha said,
anujānāmi bhikkhave sakāya niruttiyā buddhavacanam pariyāpunitum
Though the question of using Sanskrit to express Buddha's words should have been laid to rest with the above rule laid down by the Buddha, it is not so because the question resurfaced in our times around the meaning of the word of nirutti . So it is imperative to concentrate on this word and a work on it by Yāska, यास्क
{yaaþ~ka.}, an ancient Sanskrit grammarian. Refer to Wikipedia articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirukta 090806 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas 090807; or my notes on it in the files buddh-philo.htm [UKT lost file 101107] and brah.htm [UKT lost file 101107] and accompanying files. At the present Nirukta has been identified with Etymology. -- UKT 090807
UKT:
{ni.roat~ti.} (PMDict-495) nirutti (Sk. nirukti ) (PTSDict-370) in Pali means:
- one of the Vedāngas, explanation of words, grammatical analysis, etymological interpretation, pronunciation, dialect, way of speaking, expression. - UKT2004
¤ Pal-Myan:- UHS-PMD0540
Surprisingly, SpkSkt, does not give Nirukta निरुक्त IPA: [n̪irukt̪ə], given by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirukta 101115 - UKT101115
UKT: Yāska यास्क
{pa-Ni.ni.} ((fl. 4th c. BC). If we assumed the Classical Sanskrit began with Pāṇini
• Yāska यास्क = य ा स ् क --> {yaaþ~ka.}
Secondly, what about the word 'Sanskrit' itself. Was the Buddha referring to Sanskrit of the Vedas [now referred to as 'Vedic Sanskrit', or Sanskrit of Pāṇini
A comparatively important problem of primitive Buddhism, the problem of language [speech - not script], is involved in this story. Buddhism during the period of its initiation may be considered, in many respects, as a sort of resistance or revolution against Brahmanism (see my note), the principal religion that occupied the position of predomination at the time. It was but natural that it should have opposed with determination the use of Sanskrit, the language of Brahmanism. In spite of the fact that during the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., the development of the Sanskrit language had reached its zenith, and if used, it would bring many advantages for the propagation of the Buddhist doctrines, but for the sake of carrying out his own ideas, the Buddha would not consider the use of that language and scolded the two Bhikkhus as "fools" Probably because they were the descendants of a Brahman family, these two Bhikkhus still had some old conceptions in their brains. That was why they made the proposal to the Buddha for the adoption of Sanskrit and incurred his rebuke.
If Sanskrit was not used, then what language did they use? For the propagation of religion, the "policy of language" was a comparatively important problem, which must be settled. The Buddha's last sentence in the above story was for the solution of this problem. [end JBRS p09]
UKT: More in the original paper. See Language problem of primitive Buddhism - lang-probl.htm
UKT01: I cannot agree with Chi Hisen-lin that Brahmanism was the predominant principal religion of the time. Though I have no supporting evidence for my view, I must stress that neither had the author to make such a sweeping statement. Why Buddha was against the use of Sanskrit was probably due to
• Sanskrit being the language of Brahmanism which was the embodiment of the caste system which was anathema to Buddhism.
• Sanskrit is supposed to be speech of the creator of the universe, Brahma, and is "heard" by his chosen "Shrautins". (The word "Shrautins" is derived from the Sanskrit Śrauta श्रौत . Buddha obvious did not want any reference to Brahma or the idea of "Creation".
• Buddha was probably aware of the works of Sanskrit linguists such as Śākaṭāyana , Yāska (यास्कः) and Pāṇini (पाणिनि) who were engaged in "fruitless" and insolvable questions connecting language (particularly correct pronunciation) to questions such as the origin of suffering and freedom. Buddha did not wish his teachings to be dominated by linguistic controversies. Even though it is possible that both Yāska and Pāṇini were born much later than Buddha, but the very ideas used by them would have been extant during the time of Buddha.
• For the alleged influence of Hinduism on Buddhism see the accompanying article, Early Buddhism and Bhagavagītā by Kashi Nath Upahyaya, Google Book Preview, 100224 - - Budd-Gita.htm .
The rise of Sanskrit and its suppression of Pali was the main cause for the eventual disappearance of Theravada Buddhism in India. UKT01b
UKT: What was Brahmanism and what is the situation of its modern version "Hinduism" at the present? We are not interested in the present-day Hinduism, and so we turn our attention to the ancient form of Brahmanism or the Vedic Brahmanism, probably the one current in the time of Buddha.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_Brahmanism 090720
The religion of the Vedic period (also known as Vedism or
Vedic Brahmanism or, in a context of Indian antiquity, simply
Brahmanism [Wiki-fn01] ) is the historical predecessor of Hinduism.
Its liturgy is reflected in the Mantra portion of the four
Vedas [Skt वेद véda
{wé-da.}
meaning "knowledge"], which are compiled in
Sanskrit. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering
rites that often involved sacrifices. This mode of worship is largely unchanged today
within Hinduism; however, only a small fraction of conservative Shrautins continue the tradition of oral recitation of hymns
learned solely through the oral tradition.
UKT: Scholars place the Vedic period in the second and first millennia BCE continuing up to the 6th century BCE based on literary evidence. -- from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_period 090720
The word " Shrautins" is derived from the Sanskrit Śrauta श्रौत
Rendering of the above Devanagari word gives:
¤ Decimal numbers: श्रौत
¤ Hexadecimal/Unicode numbers: U0936 U094D U0930 U094C U0924
¤ Character map: Sha Virama Ra vow-sign-Au Ta
-->(this is my rendering of Sanskrit-Devanagari into Pali-Myanmar -- awaiting comment from my peers.)
See, PTS-725: Sotar [n. ag. fr. suṇāti ] a hearer
Texts dating to the Vedic period, composed in Vedic Sanskrit, are mainly the four Vedic Samhitas, but the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and some of the older Upanishads ( Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana) are also placed in this period. The Vedas record the liturgy connected with the rituals and sacrifices performed by the 16 or 17 shrauta priests and the purohitas. According to traditional views, the hymns of the Rigveda and other Vedic hymns were divinely revealed to the rishis, who were considered to be seers or "hearers" (shruti means "what is heard") of the Veda, rather than "authors". In addition the Vedas are said to be "apaurashaya", a Sanskrit word meaning uncreated by man and which further reveals their eternal non-changing status. However, the Rigvedic hymns clearly speak about composing new hymns by individual authors who were in competition with their colleagues and looked to being rewarded (dakṣiṇā) by local chieftains.
The mode of worship was worship of the elements like fire and rivers, worship of heroic gods like Indra, chanting of hymns and performance of sacrifices. The priests performed the solemn rituals for the noblemen (Kshsatriya) and some wealthy Vaishyas. People prayed for abundance of children, rain, cattle (wealth), long life and an afterlife in the heavenly world of the ancestors. This mode of worship has been preserved even today in Hinduism, which involves recitations from the Vedas by a purohita (priest), for prosperity, wealth and general well-being. However, the primacy of Vedic deities has been seconded to the deities of Puranic literature.
UKT: This insert is from Social Classes and Castes in Ancient India adapted from the Mystica site @ Indiaculture online.
"The Rig-Veda ... divides ancient Indian society into four separate but interdependent castes or classes of people. According to the Puranas ... Brahmins or priests were born of the mouth of Lord Brahma ... Kshatriyas or rulers and warriors were born of Lord Brahma's arms ... using weapons. The Vaishyas (business people and originally farmers) were born of his thighs ... Shudras (or common laborers) were born of Brahma's feet ... In addition to the four named castes, another category ... Chandalas. They were the outcastes or "untouchables" ... This "caste sytem" grew in the later days of Magadhan imperialism (i.e. after 500 B.C.E.). Buddhism and Jainism were both against this system and drew converts from all groups of people."
Elements of Vedic religion reach back into Proto-Indo-European times. The Vedic period is held to have ended around 500 BC, Vedic religion gradually metamorphosizing into the various schools of Hinduism, which further evolved into Puranic Hinduism. Vedic religion also influenced Buddhism and Jainism. However the Historical Vedic Religion survived in corners of the Indian Subcontinent, such as Kerala where the Nambudiri Brahmins continue the ancient Srauta rituals, which are considered extinct in all other parts.
Go back brahmanism-note-b
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_language 101114
Gujrati (ગુજરાતી Gujrātī ) is an Indo-Aryan [ IA] language, and part of the greater Indo-European (IE) language family. It is derived from a language called Old Western Rajasthani (1100 - 1500 AD) which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages. It is native to the Indian state of Gujrat, and is its chief language, as well as of the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
There are about 46.1 million speakers of Gujrati worldwide, making it the 26th most spoken native language in the world. Along with Romany and Sindhi, it is among the most western of Indo-Aryan languages. Gujrati was the first language (L1) of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the "father of India" and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the "iron man of India."
Wiki-insert: Gujrati script, former use of Devanagari before invention of Gujarati Script, also use of Arabic script by the Ismaili community and other Gujarati communities, mainly in Pakistan. [UKT: note the spelling for 'script': Gujrat, is different for 'speech': Gujarati. Tentatively I will refer to this speech-script as "Gujarati-Gujrati". When referring to Jaina texts in Pali it will be "Pal-Gujr" to differentiate from Pal-Myan (used in Myanmar with its unique pronunciation of /θ/) and Pal-Latin (International Pali). - UKT101114 ]
Gujarati (also having been variously spelled as Gujerati, Gujarathi, Guzratee, Guujaratee, Gujrathi, and Gujerathi[1][6]) is a modern Indo-Aryan language evolved from Sanskrit. The traditional practice is to differentiate the IA languages on the basis of three historical stages[6]:
1. Old IA (Vedic and Classical Sanskrit)
2. Middle IA (various Prakrits and Apabhramshas)
3. New IA (modern languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, etc..)UKT: What were the spoken languages of the India before Sanskrit came into being? My conjecture is just south of the Himalayas, the language family in dominance was Tibeto-Burman (Tib-Bur) and in the southern part Austro-Asiatic (Dravidian included). IE languages were imported languages that came through the north-western overland routes or through south-western sea routes. Of course, Tib-Bur languages and Austro-Asiatic languages would also be exported through the same routes. However, since Man must have started using hand gestures (sign language) and body language, and started using tools (and of course his finger) making marks to represent the sound made in his throat almost at the same time, script would have been invented at the same time. And so, the statement in the above paragraph "Gujarati ... is a modern Indo-Aryan language evolved from Sanskrit" should be disputed. The statement is based on the biased assumption that Sanskrit is the perfect language and other local languages are evolved from it. - UKT101114
Another view accords successive family, tree splits, in which Gujarati is assumed to have separated from other IA languages in four stages[7]:
1. IA languages split into Northern, Eastern, and Western divisions based on the innovate characteristics such as stops [UKT. tenuis plosives: /k/ /t/ /p/] becoming voiced [UKT: vd. plosives: /g/ /d/ /b/] in the Northern (Skt. danta 'tooth' > Punj. dānd) and dental and retroflex sibilants [UKT: fricatives] merging with the palatal in the Eastern (Skt. sandhya "evening" > Beng. śājh).[8]
UKT:
• Skt-Dev: दन्त danta m. tooth - SpkSkt
Pal-Myan:{dûn~ta.} -
- UHS-PMD0459
• Skt-Dev: सांध्य sāṃdhya adj. evening - SpkSkt
Pal-Myan:{þän-wa.ri} -
- UHS-PMD0930
2. Western, into Central and Southern.
3. Central, in Gujarati/Rajasthani, Western Hindi, and Punjabi/Lahanda/Sindhi, on the basis of innovation of auxiliary verbs and postpositions in Gujarati/Rajasthani.[6]
4. Gujarati/Rajasthani into Gujarati and Rajasthani through development of such characteristics as auxiliary ch- and the possessive marker -n- during the 15th century.[9]
The principal changes from Sanskrit are the following[7]:
¤ Loss of phonemic length for vowels
¤ Change of consonant clusters to geminate and then to single consonants (with compensatory vowel length)
UKT: The following examples are given in tabular form in Wiki article. I've reformatted them as follows with additions of Skt-Dev and Pal-Myan characters. The word "Prakrit" used here presumably is the Western division and is not the Eastern division nor the Northern division. This Western Prakrit (sibilant) is expected to be different from Eastern Prakrit and Northern Prakrit. Pal-Myan (thibilant) would be similar to Eastern-Prakrit and more so to Northern Prakrit. I expect the reader would pay close attention to "pronunciation" differences between Prakrit (sibilant /s/) and Pal-Myan (thibilant /θ/) using Romabama transcription provided. Note also the vowel lengths in Pal-Myan and Gujarati. - UKT101114
• <hand> ref. [10]
Skt-Dev: hasta हस्त = ह स ् त hasta m. hand - SpkSkt
Prakrit: hattha
Pal-Myan:{hût~ta.} -
- UHS-PMD1076
Gujarati: hāth• <seven> ref. [11] [UKT: note /s/ of Prakrit and /θ/ of Pal-Myan]
Skt-Dev: sapta सप्त = स प ् त sapta adj. seven - SpkSkt
Prakrit: satta
Pal-Myan:{þût~ta.} -
- UHS-PMD0958
Gujarati: sāt• <eight> ref. [12]
Stk-Dev: aṣṭā अष्ट = अ ष ् ट aṣṭa -- eight - SpkSkt
Prakrit: aṭṭha
Pal-Myan:{ûT~Hta.} -
- UHS-PMD0024
Gujarati: āṭh• <snake> ref. [13]
Stk-Dev: sarpa सर्प = स र ् प m. snake
Prakrit: sappa
Pal-Myan:{þûp~pa.} -
- UHS-PMD0973
Gujarati: sāp
¤ Reduction in the number of compounds
¤ Merger of the dual with plural
¤ Replacement of case affixes by postpositions
¤ Development of periphrastic tense/ voice/ mood constructions• Syntax
¤ Split ergativity
¤ More complex agreement system
Gujarati is then customarily divided into the following three historical stages[6]:
Old Gujarati or Gujjar Bhakha (AD 1100 - 1500), ancestor of Gujarati and Rajasthani,[4] was spoken by the Gurjars in northern Gujarat and western Rajasthan.[14] Texts of this era display characteristic Gujarati features such as direct/oblique noun forms, postpositions, and auxiliary verbs.[7] It had 3 genders as Gujarati does today, and by around the time of 1300 CE a fairly standardized form of this language emerged. While generally known as Old Gujarati, some scholars prefer the name of Old Western Rajasthani, based on the argument that Gujarati and Rajasthani were not yet distinct at the time. Also factoring into this preference was the belief that modern Rajasthani sporadically expressed a neuter gender, based on the incorrect conclusion that the [ũ] that came to be pronounced in some areas for masculine [o] after a nasal consonant was analogous to Gujarati's neuter [ũ].[15] A formal grammar of the precursor to this language was written by Jain monk and eminent scholar Hemachandra Suri in the reign of Solanki king Siddharaj Jayasinh of Anhilwara (Patan).
Major works were written in various genres, for the most part in verse form, such as[16]:
• rāsa, predominantly didactic narrative, of which the earliest known is Śālibhadrasūri's Bhārateśvarabāhubali (1185).
• phāgu, in which spring time is celebrated, of which the earliest is Jinapadmasūri's Sirithūlibadda (ca. 1335). The most famous is the Vasantavilāsa, of unknown scholarship, which is undeterminedly dated to somewhere in 14th or 15th century, or possibly earlier.
• bārmāsī, describing natural beauty during each of the twelve months.
• ākhyāna, in which different sections are each in a single metre.
Narasimha Mehta (c. 1414 - 1480) is traditionally viewed as the father of modern Gujarati poetry. By virtue of its early age and good editing, an important prose work is the 14th-century commentary of Taruṇaprabha, the Ṣaḍāvaśyakabālabodhavr̥tti. [16]
Middle Gujarati (AD 1500 — 1800), split off from Rajasthani, and developed the phonemes ɛ and ɔ, the auxiliary stem ch-, and the possessive marker -n-. [17] Major phonological changes characteristic of the transition between Old and Middle Gujarati are [16]:
• i, u develop to ə in open syllables
• diphthongs əi, əu change to ɛ and ɔ in initial syllables and to e and o elsewhere
• əũ develops to ɔ̃ in initial syllables and to ű in final syllables
These developments would have grammatical consequences. For example, Old Gujarati's instrumental-locative singular in -i was leveled and eliminated, having become the same as Old Gujarati's nominative-accusative singular in -ə. [16]
Modern Gujarati (AD 1800 - ). A major phonological change was the deletion of final ə's, such that the modern language has consonant-final words. Grammatically, a new plural marker of -o developed. [16] In literature, the third quarter of the 19th century saw a series of milestones for Gujarati, which previously had had verse as its dominant mode of literary composition. [18]
• 1840s, personal diary composition; Nityanondh, Durgaram Mahetaji.
• 1851, first essay; Maniaḷī Maḷvāthi thātā Lābh, Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave.
• 1866, first novel; Karaṇ Ghelo, Nandashankar Mehta.
• 1866, first autobiography; Mārī Hakīkat, Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave.
Of
the approximately 46 million speakers of Gujarati, roughly 45.5 million reside
in India, 150,000 in Uganda, 250,000 in Tanzania, 50,000 in Kenya and roughly
100,000 in Pakistan.[1]
There is also a large Gujarati community in
Mumbai [Bombay, India.
The United Kingdom has 300,000 speakers, many of them situated in the London areas of Wembley, Harrow and Newham and in Leicester, Coventry and Bradford. A considerable population exists in North America as well, most particularly in the cities of New York, USA and Toronto, Canada. A portion of these numbers consists of East African Gujaratis who, under increasing discrimination and policies of Africanisation in their newly-independent resident countries (especially Uganda, where Idi Amin expelled 50,000 Asians for not participating in the local cultures or allowing Asian women to marry African men though Asian men did marry African women), were left with uncertain futures and citizenships. Most, with British passports, settled in the UK. [4][19]
Indeed, due to the large Gujarati diaspora in the UK, Gujarati is offered as a GCSE subject for students in the United Kingdom.
Besides being spoken by the Gujrati people, non-Gujarati residents of and migrants to the state of Gujarat also count as speakers, among them the Kutchis (as a literary language)[4], the Parsis (adopted as a mother tongue), and Hindu Sindhi refugees from Pakistan.
Gujarati is one of the twenty-two official languages and fourteen regional languages of India. It is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India.
... ... ...
Similar to other Nāgarī writing systems, the Gujarati script is an abugida. It is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of Devanāgarī script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a small number of modifications in the remaining characters.
Gujarati and closely related languages, including Kutchi, can be written in the Arabic or Persian scripts. This is traditionally done by many in Gujarat's Kutch district.
UKT: More in the Wikipedia article.
Go back gujarati-note-b
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenuis_consonant 101030
In linguistics, a tenuis consonant (pronounced /ˈtɛnjuː.ɨs/) is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like [p, t, ts, tʃ, k], with a voice onset time close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or English p, t, k after s, as in spy, sty, sky.
UKT: In Bur-Myan, c1 consonants of the
{wag}-consonants are tenuis, i.e.:
{ka.},
{sa.},
{Ta.},
{ta.},
{pa.}
Tenuis consonant are not normally marked explicitly, with voiceless IPA letters such as [p, t, ts, tʃ, k] assumed to be unaspirated unless indicated otherwise. However, there is an explicit diacritic for a lack of aspiration in the Extensions to the IPA, the superscript equal sign: [p⁼, t⁼, ts⁼, tʃ⁼, k⁼].
The term tenuis comes from Latin translations of Ancient Greek grammar, which differentiated three series of consonants, voiced β δ γ /b d ɡ/, aspirate φ θ χ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/, and tenuis π τ κ /p⁼ t⁼ k⁼/; these series have close parallels in other IE (Indo-European) languages.
Go back tenuis-note-b
Yāska (यास्क)From Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C4%81ska 101115
{yaaþ~ka.} was a
Sanskrit grammarian who preceded
Pāṇini
{pa-Ni.ni.}
(fl. 4th c. BC), assumed to have been active in the 5th or 6th century
BC.He is the author of the Nirukta, a technical treatise on etymology, lexical category and the semantics of words. He is thought to have succeeded Śākaṭāyana, an old grammarian and expositor of the Vedas, who is mentioned in his text.
The Nirukta attempts to explain how certain words get to have their meanings, especially in the context of interpreting the Vedic texts. It includes a system of rules for forming words from roots and affixes, and a glossary of irregular words, and formed the basis for later lexicons and dictionaries. It consists of three parts, viz.:(i) Naighantuka, a collection of synonyms; (ii) Naigama, a collection of words peculiar to the Vedas, and (iii) Daivata, words relating to deities and sacrifices.
The nirukta was one of the six vedangas or compulsory ritual subjects in syllabus of Sanskrit scholarship in ancient India.
UKT: More in the Wikipedia article.
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