Panini symposium next week, Panini as a scientist and a mathematician

[Bijoy Misra]

Dear friends,

Many of you are strong Sanskrit scholars, I would like to draw your attention

to view Panini as the world's first formal scientist.  A scientist asks the question

"why" and tries to find laws if the object/event can be reproduced.  Panini's "object"

is human speech.  Before him some had tried sky mappings to correlate terrestrial

events to sky and some others had tried to correlate human conditions to activities 

in life.  Rules were modeled, but the simulations have more of a belief than of 

science.  Panini creates science and creates a standardization. In the process, speech 

becomes a language.  Lately we don't speak naturally but speak a language.  Only,

the Vedas are the natural speech, natural speech is spontaneous, possibly it has a 

natural grammar, which is neural.      

Panini, as he himself suggests, is a culmination of a long list of early grammarians/scientists 

who examined speech.  The fundamental contribution is that the human thought is analog,

it converts to speech which is discretized through uttered syllables.  The thought is neural, 

it is a field.  One does not know the expanse of the field, but we capture a part which is a 

sentence वाक्य in the Paninian framework.   A वाक्य is an acoustic blob, which is heard as a 

continuous signal, though it is produced by the muscles in a discrete manner.  We have

not inquired to find the original person who proposed this hypothesis, but we know that 

the hypothesis has held in India and is true in human biology.

The basic observation for the grammar possibly came from the Vedas that there is a 

repetition of sound segments to make the analytic statement that a produced sound is

not trivial, it is associated with a meaning.  Discovery of meanings in sounds obsessed 

many but the fundamentals are still not fully established.  Panini made rules how the 

sounds combine through the process of biological utterance and went on to discover 

the brain functions of metaphorical processing.  In the metaphorical processing the sound

may not point to the object.  The Greek scientist Aristotle came in a hundred years later

and analyzed language.  He didn't have the privilege of a line of grammarians like Panini 

had, and he missed the observation of connecting sound to the object.  That the object

assumes many names through metaphorical cognitive function of the brain failed

to reach the western grammar.  Words became discrete objects in the west unlike 

in Paninian India as parts of trees driven by roots.

Paninian sound trees are marvels of Indian science.  A word is cognitive, musical

and expressive.  I wish I could write this mail in Paninian style which would be more

precise and creative.  The style will capture a natural melody that makes us human.

I will like to convene a "Panini as a Scientist" panel on Sunday May 10, at 11:30 AM

our time (9PM in India).  Please write to me if you wish to join as a Panelist.  You

can prepare a short ten minute presentation of your observations. 

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra 

 

         

[BVK Sastry (G-S-Pop)]

Namaste

On < I will like to convene a "Panini as a Scientist" panel on Sunday May 10, at 11:30 AM

our time (9PM in India). >

I would like to join in.

Regards

BVK Sastry

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[Bijoy Misra]

I appreciate.

This conversation would have a life of its own when done orally.

That the speech is a "living entity" could be the original hypothesis,

This assertion should be much older than Panini.  This could

be connected to the larger thought that the universe is a "living 

medium", thus has its own speech (expression).   Human beings

have the potential to communicate to the universe. This communication

standardizes grammar.  

I invite scholars to analyze and comment.  Let us explore.

Please do listen to Prof Korada's keynote lecture May 9, 9 AM 

our time (6:30 PM india).

I invite other researchers to the panel.

Best regards,

Bijoy Misra

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