Five technical terms of Panini Grammar for analyzing oral language.
Dr. BVK Sastry ( Venkatakrishna V Bevoor Sastry)
Designation: Professor
Affiliation: Yoga Samskrutham University, Florida, USA.
E-mail: < yogasamskrutham@gmail.com >
Panini’s grammar provides a systematic framework for analysing oral language through Varna—the syllable—as a quantized biological unit of human thought articulation. The paper focuses on the scientific dimensions of Panini’s system, exploring overlaps between the Varna model and modern theories of language modelling, emphasizing natural processes over historical or faith-based narratives.
This study highlights five technical terms—Varna, Akshara, Svara, Naada, and Dhvani—as essential for decoding the interface of mind, brain, and body in speech production- in all contexts of veda and all language usage. Effort is made to conceptually map the traditional understanding with modern science perspectives and identify research-gaps and challenges due to translation and modelling. This model of Varna-based bio-neural framework projects a theory of how intended meaning is computationally, contextually and consciously loaded onto words, produced as biologically articulated, time-space located acoustic signals. Beyond speech-analytics, the quantized syllabic architecture extends into music, chants, and ritual prayer.
Panini situates Varna as vocalizable linguistic quanta, linked to neural processes to generate oral language as acoustic signal flow. Panini Shikshaa, is the Panini model of biological grammar. This is elaborated in the Upavedas and explained by Patanjali and Bhartruhari through concepts of Chitta-Vrutti and Shabda-Brahma-Sphota. This tradition carries over the ‘Varna’-clarity - in fourteen Shiva Sutras, comprising 44 syllabic units, forming the structural base for ‘Oral language- Word formation’.
Panini’s sutras explain the ‘How of’ ‘Thought-Articulation- Transmission- Comprehension Cycle’ which covers the gamut of oral language in phases of: (a) Pada Nishpatti (word formation) (b) Vivakshitaartha Vachana (intelligent formation of articulatable and sentence usable word) (c) Vakya (meaningful sentence as ‘Word-Cluster-Structure- Architecture’) (d) Samvaada (contextual conversation (e) culminating in Taatparya-Bhaava –Grahana / Bhaavartha Nirnaya(cognitive comprehension).