Introduction

This paper is devoted to a comparison of the Pratyāhārasūtra (psū) section of the Cāndravyākaraṇa with that of the Kāśikāvṛtti. The Cāndravyākaraṇa is a grammar of the Sanskrit language, composed in Sanskrit and intended for Buddhists. Although it has disappeared from the Indian territory, it has been maintained and transmitted in countries where Buddhism became widespread. The aim of its author, the Buddhist scholar Candragomin, who is thought to have lived around the 4th-5th century C.E., is to present an effortless, clear and exhaustive grammar. In fact, it is the first great revised edition of the Aṣṭādhyāyī (A.) of Pāṇini: Candra preserves most of the content of the Pāṇinian treatise but forsakes its generative pattern and adopts a thematic scheme. He also incorporates some of Kātyāyana's and Patañjali's suggestions.

The present study is justified in so far as the Kāśikāvṛtti shows numerous similarities with the commentary on this grammar (the Cāndravṛtti —CV— which was believed for a long time to have been composed by Candra himself; today some scholars maintain that its author was a certain Dharmadāsa), even if the Kāśikāvṛtti does not make reference to it explicitly. To date, the origin of these similarities has given rise to two main hypotheses. According to one view, defended in particular by R. Vedalankar (1977: 250-69) and P. Visalakshy (1981), the Kāśikā was influenced by the Cāndravyākaraṇa and the Cāndravṛtti.