Description
The Vaiyākaraṇasiddhāntabhūṣaṇa, also known as the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇa, is a commentary on the great 17th-century grammarian Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita’s Vaiyākaraṇamatonmajjana, written by Bhaṭṭọji’s nephew Kauṇḍabhaṭṭa. It is one of the most important texts of the late Pāṇinian grammatical tradition on questions of semantics. The main intention of Kauṇḍabhaṭṭa’s commentary is to refute objections raised by proponents of the two rival systems of Logic (Nyāya) and Exegesis (Mīmāṃsā) on various aspects of semantics, and to establish the Grammarians’ views on these subjects. The Vaiyākaraṇasiddhāntabhūṣaṇasāra, an abridged version of the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇa by the same author, is a popular work that was commented upon more than ten times. On the other hand, nobody so far has attempted to write a commentary on the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇa itself. The present work contains the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇa along with a commentary called Nirañjanī by Pandit Ramyatna Shukla and explanatory notes (Prakāśa) by the editor. This fourth and last part of the work discusses specific issues of semantics: the expressive power (śakti) of words, the meaning of negation, particles, abstract suffixes, etc. It also contains an extensive discussion of the philosophical concept of sphoṭa, one of the most fundamental notions introduced by the Pāṇinian tradition to account for the understanding of expressive units as undivided wholes.
About the Author
After retiring from his position as the Head of the Department of Vyākaraṇa in the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University in Varanasi, Prof. Ramyatna Shukla served as a Visiting Professor at the Lal Bahadur Sanskrit Vidyapeetha and was a Shastra Chudamani Scholar at the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. He was also associated with the French Institute of Pondicherry as an Honorary Professor. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Certificate of Honour for Proficiency in Sanskrit conferred by the President of India and the Vachaspati Puraskar Award of the K.K. Birla Foundation for a work entitled Vyākaraṇadarśane Sr̥ṣṭiprakriyāvimarśaḥ (2005) and most recently the Padma Shree, India’s fourth highest civilian award. He holds titles such as Mahāmahopādhyāya, Abhinava Pāṇini, and Sarasvatīputra.
Prof. K. V. Ramakrishnamacharyulu is the former Vice-Chancellor of the Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Rajasthan Sanskrit University, Jaipur and a retired Professor in Vyākaraṇa at the Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha in Tirupati. He has studied in depth the Vaiyākaraṇabhūṣaṇasāra and all its commentaries, and is now engaged in writing a comprehensive commentary on this text. He has been honoured with titles such as Mahāmahopādhyāya (honoris causa), Śāstravidvanmaṇi, Vyākaraṇa Śāstra Viśārada, and with various awards, including the Certificate of Honour for Proficiency in Sanskrit for the year 2017, conferred by the President of India, and the Ramakrishna Award from the Sarasvati Vikas, Canada. He is currently associated with the French Institute of Pondicherry as an Honorary Professor.
