Vyāḍi’s Paribhaṣavṛtti is the earliest Sanskrit work entirely devoted to discussing the metarules and underlying assumptions of Pāṇini’s formal grammar of Sanskrit (5th-4th century BC). As such, it has much to teach us about the early development of ideas in this difficult and technical area which spans Indology and the history of linguistics. While Vyāḍi does not admit it explicitly, he borrows heavily from Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya, but often changes or disregards the original purpose of these borrowed arguments. Vyāḍi’s discussions are, in turn, typical of those used by later commentators, and the present book traces the development of these lines of thought from Patañjali in the third century BC to Nāgeśa in the seventeenth century.

All volumes of the print edition will become available in individual e-books: 9789004534018 (volume 1) - 9789004534025 (volume 2).