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'' is a Sanskrit grammarian of Iron Age India (fl. roughly 8th c. BCE). His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska (around 7th c. BCE) and Pāṇini (circa 5th c. BCE), as well as other Sanskrit grammarians, but is
lost to us today.
He claimed that all nouns are ultimately derived from some verbal root. This process is reflected in the Sanskrit grammar as the
system of krit-pratyayas or verbal affixes.
In his ''The word and the world'', the philosopher
Bimal Krishna Matilal refers to this debate (which lasted several
centuries) as an

interesting philosophical discussion between the
''nairuktas'' or etymologists and the ''pāṇinīyas'' or grammarians.
According to
the etymologists, all nouns (substantives) are derived from some verbal root or the other. Yāska in his ''Nirukta'' refers to this view (in fact defends it) and ascribes it to an earlier scholar Śākaṭāyana. This would require that all words are to be analysable into atomic elements, 'roots' or 'bases' and 'affixes' or 'inflections' — better known in Sanskrit as ''dhātu'' and ''pratyaya'' [...] Yāska reported the view of Gārgya who opposed Śākaṭāyana (both preceded Pāṇini who mentions them by name) and held that not all substantival words or nouns (''nāma'') were to be derived from roots, for certain nominal stems were 'atomic'. (p. 8-9)

His text may have been called the '', in which
he also describes the process of determining gender in animate
and inanimate creation.

Contents

See also

References

See also

★ Morphology

References

★ .