/lit/ - Literature

>It is probably true to say that linguistics was the most advanced branch of science in India throughout its history. It was so advanced
that even today it remains modern, and it is the methods of the ancient Indians which have formed the basis of modern linguistic science in the West. The most remarkable point here is that linguistics was from the Vedic period an independent science, using scientific method in the analysis of the data with which it was concerned: it was not a branch of philosophy or an application of philosophical or logical concepts to the study of language. (In this it differed fundamentally from Western 'grammar' stemming from the ideas of Aristotle.) Indian linguistics in fact is as old as Indian philosophy and older than Indian logic; it thus established itself on its own ground before it could be influenced by logic: it applied itself to the analysis of the sentences of natural language as they occur, not trying to force them into the pattern of the artificially formulated propositions of logic. Linguistics exerted a strong influence on other sciences because it was widely recognised to be a model of what a science should be, with careful, painstaking analysis of its data and precise formulation of the resulting description. The same influence affected philosophers and encouraged a preoccupation with precise definitions, also with economy of statement.

>The highest peak of achievement in linguistics was probably reached as early as c. 350 B.C. with Pāṇini's description of the Sanskrit
language, which seems still to be more complete, as well as more scientific, than any other description yet produced of any language. It is also highly economical of words and as far as possible uses symbols instead to indicate the phenomena of the language. The entire language is shown analysed into its constituent meaningful elements, namely roots, suffixes and inflections, with the various ways in which these combine. An important feature is the use of a symbol for zero (vi) in the description (where mere common sense would say there
is 'no' suffix in the form of a certain word): this enables Pāṇini to operate consistently, distinguishing analysis at the level of words from
that at the level of roots (a root is not a word: all words contain suffixes, in certain cases 'zero' suffix). This invention of zero to take
care of 'empty' places in a system seems to have been due to the linguists: mathematicians are known to have used it only somewhat
later. By the 2nd century A.D. the idea got into philosophy in a modified form, combining with the conception that things are not what
they appear to be but are 'empty' (śūnya, 'zero'), are like places in a system and nothing in themselves (e.g. Nāgārjuna).

>>11762964
I've been studying Sanskrit for 2 years now. Now starting with the Vedasamhitas (using translated text and original side-by-side). Gotta go for the Upanishads and Brahmanas later on. Mahabharata and Ramayana are after that, and then there's still Grammarians, Kamasutram and Kalidasa. Would like to read all of those in the original but this would probably take 10 years full study time.