The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the root… - William Wilson Hunter

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The grammar of Panini stands supreme among the grammars of the world, alike for its precision of statement, and for its thorough analysis of the roots of the language and of the formative principles of words. By employing an algebraic terminology it attains a sharp succinctness unrivalled in brevity, but at times enigmatical. It arranges, in logical harmony, the whole phenomena, which the Sanskrit language presents, and stands forth as one of the most splendid achievements of human invention and industry. So elaborate is the structure that doubts have arisen whether its complex rules offormation and phonetic change, its polysyllabic derivatives, its ten conjugations with1heir multiform aorists and long array of tenses, could ever have been the spoken language of a people." 29

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About William Wilson Hunter

Sir William Wilson Hunter KCSI CIE (15 July 1840 – 6 February 1900) was a Scottish historian, statistician, a compiler and a member of the Indian Civil Service.

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Alternative Names: Sir William Wilson Hunter William Hunter Sir William Hunter Sir William W. Hunter
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... the entry ‘Saraswati (Sarsuti)’, defined as a ‘sacred river of the Punjab, famous in the early Brahmanical annals’. We learn that the river rises ‘in the low hills of Sirmur State, emerges upon the plain at Zadh Budri [Ad Badri], a place esteemed sacred by all Hindus’, and, before joining the Ghaggar, ‘passes by the holy town of Thanesar and the numerous shrines of the Kuruksetra, a tract celebrated as a centre of pilgrimages, and as the scene of the battle-fields of the Mahabharatha’. The Gazetteer repeats, ‘In ancient times, the united stream below the point of junction appears to have borne the name of Sarsuti, and, undiminished by irrigation near the hills, to have flowed across the Rajputana plains . . .’ ‘Some of the earliest Aryan settlements in India were on the banks of the Saraswati, and the surrounding country has from almost Vedic times been held in high veneration. The Hindus identify the river with Saraswati, the Sanskrit Goddess of Speech and Learning.’

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