A grammatical conundrum presented by the writings of the ancient Sanskrit scholar and “the father of linguistics,” Panini, that has baffled scholars since the 5th century BC, has been resolved by Rishi Atul Rajpopat, a PhD student at the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in St. John’s College, Cambridge, reported Daily Mail.

Paṇini’s text Aṣṭādhyāyī, which consists of a series of rules for deriving or forming new words from root words, frequently contains contradictory rules for generating new words, leaving many scholars perplexed as to which principles to use. The 4,000 rules that comprise Panini’s methodology successfully assist users in creating grammatically accurate word formations.

The discovery makes it possible to "derive" any Sanskrit word—to construct millions of grammatically correct words including "mantra" and "guru"—using Pāṇini's revered "language machine," which is widely considered to be one of the great intellectual achievements in history.

Panini developed one metarule to assist users in deciding which of the two rules should be used in the event that a user discovered that two of these rules were relevant, a circumstance known as rule conflict. When two rules of equal strength collide, the rule that appears later in the grammar’s serial sequence is considered the more accurate one.

Leading Sanskrit experts have described Rajpopat's discovery as "revolutionary" and it could now mean that Pāṇini's grammar can be taught to computers for the first time.

Rishi Rajpopat said he had a “eureka moment” after his supervisor at Cambridge, Professor of Sanskrit Vincenzo Vergiani, advised him, “If the solution is complicated, you are probably wrong.”

“I had a eureka moment in Cambridge. After nine months trying to crack this problem, I was almost ready to quit, I was getting nowhere. So I closed the books for a month and just enjoyed the summer, swimming, cycling, cooking, praying and meditating. Then, begrudgingly I went back to work, and, within minutes, as I turned the pages, these patterns started emerging, and it all started to make sense," he said.

In his dissertation, Rajpopat argues that this metarule was historically misunderstood — instead, what Paṇini meant was that between rules applicable to the left and right sides of a word, he wanted the reader to choose the rule applicable to the right side. 

With this logic, Rajpopat finds that Paṇini’s algorithms produce grammatically correct words and sentences without errors. 

Rajpopat’s work is a rebuttal to scholars over the course of two and a half millennia. 

Image source:  PA