Talk:Panini/Archive 1

ancient pakistani! O_O! this is why wikipedia will never be credable.--D-Boy 06:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

guys are you enjoying your trolling session? The page said "Ancient Pakistani" for like five minutes. This is an example of why (and how) Wikipedia does manage its credibility. dab (𒁳) 08:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Why yes I am! I'm sure this will please my master Rajnath Singh, and my guru L.K. Advani.Bakaman 16:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

glad to hear it. dab (𒁳) 16:31, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Doesnt anyone else think that claiming greats from the past is a bit rich from a culture that if the individual in question was alive today would have been marginalized (at best) and persecuted (at worst). If Panini were to be reclassified as an "Ancient Pakistani" I would hope that the educational establishments of Pakistan would reflect the glories of vedic culture, and that Pakistani children would be exposed to the literature that inspired Panini. Fat chance. And anyway, Pakistan having been purely created as an "Islamic" state, I though that any culture before the Prophet was concidered to dwell in the "Dark Ages"?? 80.194.239.33 08:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)resign....80.194.239.33 12:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

yes yes. if you people would invest as much zeal in documenting the intricacies of Ashtadhyayi as you do in bashing Pakistan, we would have a great article by now. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. If you are so proud of Panini, show it by studying his work and honouring it by writing good articles. dab (𒁳) 11:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Dab... I believe you are the best person to edit this article. I'd taken Sanskrit for my GCSE. How i used to curse panini! All those sandhis and samases still give me creeps!

अमेय आर्यन DaBrood^© 23:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I have given the briefest of overviews at Ashtadhyayi, and it's been on my todo list for a long time now. Not sure when or if I'll get round to adding deeper detail, it is a rather involved topic. dab (𒁳) 14:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Did Panini even know of Pakistan or islam??? both of which did not even exist at that time. Pakistan may or may not be there tommorow but history will record it as the ancient country of Pakistan, but ancient India(most of which is still India) was there and was known to the world as such that is 'India' or persian Hind during Panini's time, check any ancient greek, roman or persian texts. Also it was a country where hinduism was prevelant and later buddhism and then again hinduism, it was not an empire, but a country divided into kingdoms, collectively known as India or Hind to the rest of the world. So, its not the same as Roman empire ro the greek empire, the lands that Alexander conquered like egypt or central asia are not today known as ancient greece. Egyptian history from that time is not ancient greek history. Mesopotamia will not be known as ancient Iraq, unless they want to revert back to the the name Mesopotamia, same with ancient Persians of Iran they are not ancient Iranians. Only Pakistan's Islamo-centric jeans and t-shirt clad men directed by bearded salwar kameez clad islam inspired political/religious leaders and so called Pakistani historians with little credibility anywhere in the world have a problem with their own colour and their own ancient Indian ancestry, just imagine for a moment that what is now Pakistan was not Islamic and was hindu majority today would it not be a part of India, would there have been a partition in 1947 then??? as the whole basis of 20th century creatin of Pakistan and its existence today is the theory that Muslims(where ever they are in majority) and non-muslims are seperate nations and should form seperate countries. March 25, 2007

I removed a couple of links whose relevance was not immediately evident (to me) -- if anyone feel strongly that they should be re-added, plz. discuss it here. Thanks Zero sharp 21:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Did Panini even know of Pakistan or islam??? both of which did not even exist at that time. Pakistan may or may not be there tommorow but history will record it as the ancient country of Pakistan, but ancient India(most of which is still India) was there and was known to the world as such that is 'India' or persian Hind during Panini's time, check any ancient greek, roman or persian texts. Also it was a country where hinduism was prevelant and later buddhism and then again hinduism, it was not an empire, but a country divided into kingdoms, collectively known as India or Hind to the rest of the world. So, its not the same as Roman empire ro the greek empire, the lands that Alexander conquered like egypt or central asia are not today known as ancient greece. Egyptian history from that time is not ancient greek history. Mesopotamia will not be known as ancient Iraq, unless they want to revert back to the the name Mesopotamia, same with ancient Persians of Iran they are not ancient Iranians. Only Pakistan's Islamo-centric jeans and t-shirt clad men directed by bearded salwar kameez clad islam inspired political/religious leaders and so called Pakistani historians with little credibility anywhere in the world have a problem with their own colour and their own ancient Indian ancestry, just imagine for a moment that what is now Pakistan was not Islamic and was hindu majority today would it not be a part of India, would there have been a partition in 1947 then??? as the whole basis of 20th century creatin of Pakistan and its existence today is the theory that Muslims(where ever they are in majority) and non-muslims are seperate nations and should form seperate countries. March 25, 2007

this template is being added to this page again and again. At least give a source that says Pakistan recognises Panini's Sanskrit as a language before you add this template (or i shall be removing it shortly).BTW, do we have a reference to Panini in any of the Pakistani textbooks.nids(♂) 18:38, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I shall be removing the pakistani template soon. Before you reinsert it, please find a citation which says that "history for pakistan" started before 700 CE. (BTW, we wouldnt have required partition, if Pakistani's would have recognised anything happening before 700 CE as history.) nids(♂) 21:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It IS irrelevant. Its like calling Moctezuma Mexican.Bakaman 23:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Who cares if a project tag is there or not? It's not worth fighting over. If they want to help with the article, that's fine. Just leave the tag, it's not hurting anything. If you guys spent half the time researching material for the article as you do arguing, it would be a featured article by now. - Taxman ^Talk 04:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It does hurt. Its like claiming that Einstein was a Nazi scientist. Sorry, but thats the best analogy that i could find. And anyway, all i am asking is a citation which says that they recognize Panini (or any Kaafir before 600CE for that matter) as a Pakistani. Or even a citation which says that anything that happened before 622 CE is considered history in any of the pakistani textbooks.nids(♂) 04:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It's nothing of the sort. It's a talk page project template and nothing more. It has nothing to do with the article other than who is trying to help with it. You guys are just too much. Instead, why not figure out how to stop fighting about things that aren't that important? - Taxman ^Talk 03:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, i must clarify here that there is no way that Pakistani editors can improve this article. And even if they could, you can be rest assured that they will not waste their time in glorifying a Kaafir. And as i have already pointed out, the whole purpose of adding "wp pakistan" template is to cause disruption. you can check the link given in my post below for further example. nids(♂) 11:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, just to inform you that Nadirali accused you to be an ultra-imperialist Indian administrator(sigh) here.nids(♂) 12:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

He said as much on my talk page, so I'm not surprised. What's funny is I'm 100% Caucasian and have never been to India or Asia at all. But his being wrong about that does not automatically mean his position on including the project template is wrong. The real problem here (well half of it at least) is your statement "there is no way that Pakistani editors can improve this article". That is demonstrably false, and is part of the root of this whole problem. Basically if someone adds the project tag and you can't prove it's bad faith, you need to assume good faith and leave it. - Taxman ^Talk 20:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, i have proved that the tag was added in bad faith. See the link below for another example of bad faith addition of this tag. Thanks.nids(♂) 21:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be really curious how you'd justify that statement. Just adding another link does not make it bad faith. It may not be correct, but calling an edit bad faith just because you disagree with an editor is just as outrageous and unhelpful to the project as Nadirali calling everyone that disagrees with him an ultra-imperialist Indian. - Taxman ^Talk 01:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, i admit that you are logically right as i have just provided a single link. But do you really think that i am wrong or that i cannot produce more evidence for this insanity??? I can do that if you really think that i am wrong, just that it will take up a bit of my time.nids(♂) 21:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, please note that this is not an isolated behaviour of insanity. See [10] for example.nids(♂) 05:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Taxman, considering Ive added sections on Ashtadyayi concerning modern usage of Panini's work, I have all the legitimacy I need and I created Category:Hindu mathematicians. Taxman if you havent realised by now, WP:PAKISTAN is only used now to tag talk pages with their graffiti to mark their dominion.Bakaman 18:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Some side questions out of curiosity. Is there a Sanskrit department in any university in Pakistan? Are there any Sanskrit scholars in Pakistan? Is there anyone in Pakistan who knows Sanskrit? Does promoting Arabic and Persian leave any resources for the "Ancient Pakistani" language? How does their archaeological department work? deeptrivia (talk) 19:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely no chance that you can have a sanskrit department in any university of Islamic republic of pakistan. However, there may be some pakistani Hindus who are sanskrit scholars. Anyhow, it seems that younger generation of Islamic republic of Pakistan is facing an identity crisis. They are even unable to accept revisions to pure Hudood laws. nids(♂) 20:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? The language was used by the Pakistani people. Pāṇini was born in what is now Pakistan, not India. You dont really get to decide this anyway. Facts speak for themselves. India is a country born in 1947, and you cant call South Asia, India. So please, use facts before you comment on this matter again. While you might be right in saying, Sinskrit is no longer used in Pakistan, you cant change the fact that it was the language of Ancient Pakistan. Anything Hindu doesnt make it Indian.Unre4LITY 00:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Both of the sides aren't grasping the fact that adding the WikiProject Notice doesn't make Panini a Pakistani, Indian or whatever. The WikiProject tag indicates that participants on WikiProject Pakistan are willing to improve this article, ultimately into a Feature article. Unre4L, if you colleagues are interested in Panini and one day might be interested in improving the actual article, you are welcome to tag it. The same applies for the Indians. Gizza^{Chat ©} 12:40, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

well said. argue about content, don't waste time arguing about talkpage templates. dab (𒁳) 13:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

You never know, this article could become FA because of Pakistani involvement. :D This is a pointless debate, let them tag the article with whatever they want. Nobleeagle ^[TALK] [C] 23:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems you are not getting the point. The whole purpose of wikiproject pakistan is to revert war and tag the talk pages to mark their dominion. See an example. I am in no mood to revert war, so i may leave the tag as it is. But it is as relevant as adding wikiproject India to great barrier reef, or wikiproject Islam to Salman Rushdie. While an average pakistani's thought could be summarized as this, i feel that it is quiet unlikely that Pakistanis themselves would support such a move (i.e. to tag this page with wp pakistan). nids(♂) 14:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

this is, if you don't mind my saying so, bollocks. The purpose of wikiproject pakistan is documenting Pakistan, a perfectly honourable goal. Some editors may be into pissing contests, on either side of the fence, but that doesn't impinge on the project's validity. dab (𒁳) 14:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, it would be good to see the article featured. The article contents are not being compromised with the template, and even if the only benefit of adding the WP:PAK template is less waste of time on these disruptions, it's a good deal to just let it stay here and focus on the article. deeptrivia (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd been tring to convince Unre4L and Nadirali of unter futility of talk-page tag-ntionalism... But then when users of User:Zora's stature indulge in it... who can blame User:Unre4L. Amey Aryan DaBrood^© 22:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ambroodey, it is best that you don't add fuel to fire in this situation. Let them leave their WikiProject tag on the talk page and then we'll see whether they become involved in these types of articles. To be honest, the Indian Wikipedians have done very little work on this article. When I checked the history, excluding edit-warring, maintenance and anons, it almost appeared that the sole contributor to the article was dab, which I commend (though they were few others like Angr, Jagged 85 but no Indians!). Anyone who brings out their nationalistic prejudice into Wikipedia should be told to become Wikipedians who contribute to Indian/Pakistani articles instead of acting as Indians/Pakistanis/XYZians who contribute to articles on Wikipedia. Gizza^{Chat ©} 22:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Girik, when did i ever remove WP:PAKISTAN tags? I have no probs with it whatsoever. But in case you didnt notice, WP:PAKISTAN members are replacing Indian tags with theirs... which I feel is a touch childish. Btw here is Zora's comment on ANI which seems to have escalated this tall-page tag-bitch fight. [11] .

Anyways agree taht we should stop getting embroiled in useless discussions over tags and templates and get on with artilce editing! Amey Aryan DaBrood^© 11:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

From what I can see in the edits over the last three weeks, Nadirali tried only to *add* the Pakistan project tag, never to remove WP:India. But it was repeatedly removed by multiple editors. Anyway, let's ignore the past for the moment. Do we (Indian editors) have a consensus that it is alright for Nadirali or the rest to add the WP:Pakistan tag, as long they don't remove the WP:India tag ? Tintin (talk) 13:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not refering to this article in particular. See Indus Valley Civilization and Taxila... Amey Aryan DaBrood^© 14:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I added a paragraph on [[Ashtadyayi] but it was lost in the editing history thanks to a half-brained c+p by some user.Bakaman 23:18, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I undid that c-p move. Your paragraph was

As similarities have been found between this and the Backus-Naur form, linguists have started to use Ashtadhyayi to explain fundamental methods of syntax definition for the creation of new languages. It has been used of late to try and teach computers Sanskrit as well.^[1]

I do not think it has much value, incidentially. The link you give is good, but you misrepresent what it is saying by quoting verbatim (copyvio, too) one of its weaker paragraphs. After the development of formal grammar in the 1950s, there is nothing more to be learned from Panini in that quarter. The link says, correctly, that computer scientists and linguists remain impressed with what Panini achieved some 2,000 years before western grammarians. Panini is nowhere near what would be required of a modern formal grammar, it's just that he employs some concepts that didn't re-emerge until modern times. And it's not like Panini is somehow 2,000 years ahead now because he started early: after Panini, innovation ceased, his successors being content to gloss and comment on his work, because it was so opaque and not human-readable. Panini should be studied in his own right, and not based on a flawed allegation that contemporary formal grammars may still learn from him. "try to teach computers Sanskrit" is not encyclopedic language. What you mean is "implement the grammar of Classical Sanskrit in software". Implementing the grammar of Classical Sanskrit means implementing Panini, since his is the authority for Classical Sanskrit. However, you will not implement it using his formalism, believe me, I tried this for a laugh once, it means basically you are solving differential equations instead of simply following an algorithm, which is about a gazillion times less efficient. Panini's formalism is powerful in principle, much too powerful for a simple task that can be implemented with a bunch of foreach-if-then statements. dab (𒁳) 15:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually it was thought that panini's formalism is good for computer softwares running on Artificial Intelligence. Other language which had similar implications was Esparanto. But the point in favour of Panini's Sanskrit was Phonetics. I dont know about the recent debates on the topic, though. It is useless for the current scenario in IT though, as dab has correctly pointed out, where a bunch of for-if-then statements can do the similar job, quiet efficiently. nids(♂) 18:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Panini's grammar is precisely not fuzzy, which makes it essentialy a constructed language. You would need "computers running on Artificial Intelligence", if they existed, to process real (fuzzy) languages, but Panini' Sanskrit is so rigid, it is far removed from such concerns. dab (𒁳) 18:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Did Panini leave any irregularities in the Sanskrit grammar? Gizza^{Chat ©} 02:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

yes, but he exhaustively enumerates them. the whole structure of the astadhyayi is "rule, exception, exception to the exception, exception to that exception (which may be a single case)" etc. dab (𒁳) 22:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose Ashtadhyayi should really be merged here. When we discuss "Panini", we are really discussing the Ashtadhyayi. The auxiliary texts are simple lists (ganapatha, dhatupatha), as it were data hashes, and when this article talks of "Panini and computing", "Panini and modern linguistics" etc., "Panini" is always "Panini's Ashtadhyayi". I don't see any reason to keep the two articles separate. dab (𒁳) 22:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.135.173.84 (talk) 00:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

I've read unsourced assertions that claim that Pāṇini was the first person to actually name the language Sanskrit as "Sanskrit." Is this true? If so, what did users call the language before Pāṇini came along to write his grammar? Patiwat 07:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

answered on Talk:Sanskrit. dab (𒁳) 11:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Somebody writing on "Shiva" is not a hindu?

It is fairly idiotic for people here to decide arbitrarily on what they are writing article about. How can you say that it is not important to state that Panini was a hindu? When you write about Panini, you are writing about him and not just one gact about him. You should aim to cover as many facts as possible. So how come you don't state that Panini was an Indian/Hindu grammarian.

Again let me know why you have chosen not to associate word "hindu" with Panini. I want to understand how good is your reasoning behind it.

The reason why Panini is notable is because he is a grammarian first and foremost and everything else (including his religion) is secondary. Wikipedia bases the content of its article one's notability, not one's religion. For example, the only reference to Bill Clinton's page that he is a Christian is once in the infobox and once in the categories. It is never mentioned in the text because the prose talks about his political career which is why he is famous. On the other hand, Shankaracharya is identified as a Hindu throughout his article because his fame is related to his religion. In Panini's case, Hinduism had little to do with the Sanskrit grammar, which is why it is given minimal attention. I don't understand why some people want everything Ancient Indian to be linked to Hinduism (or if not Hinduism, then Buddhism and Jainism). There were many great secular aspects in Ancient Indian society which should be treasured just as much. Gizza^{Chat ©} 06:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

"Everything else is secondary", you are right, but why shouldn't you mention somewhere, may be at the end of page in smallest font possible that he was Hindu by religion? Why do you give rise to speculations that he might not have anything to do with Hinduism? If you ask Panini what is your religion, what do you think he will say? In Hinduism almost all Hindu scholars who wrote religious text and who were the guardians of Hinduism were secular, because most of the Hindu texts after 800 BC talk more about universal understanding of God and values than on anything else. Hinduism is certainly not an important thing related to Panini, it is his ideas( or his grammer as you say) that is important. But you should keep things in a way that create less speculation and controversies. So if you know something is a fact, you should state it with relevant importance, if it is not don't state it.

When talking to one Muslim friend of mine when I referred that Panini was a Hindu Grammarian, He objected that nowhere on wikipedia it is stated that he was Hindu. And i had to say that by that way nothing good in Hinduism belong to Hinduism!!!, Because Hindu philosophy, the base of Hinduism is so much secular. Skant 19:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)skant

sigh, is anyone here interested in discussing Panini at all, or is everyone just into religious or nationalist chauvinism? Poor Panini deserves better than to be made some kind of badge waved about by adolescent patriots. dab (𒁳) 11:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Panini may deserve much better things than mere association with religion, but there are others who deny truths who deserve smaller things like religious association to understand (or to be able to understand) better facts at some later time.Skant 19:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)skant

Panini was a Hindu. But he is not notable for having be a Hindu. He was a Hindu like Cicero was a Roman pagan, or Ferdinand de Saussure was a Christian. Saying "Panini was a Hindu grammarian" is about as pointless as saying "Saussure was a Christian linguist". Or "Saussure was a Christian, heterosexual, chubby, dark-haired linguist with a big moustache and a penchant for absinthe." It's all true, but patently silly. Category:Mathematicians by religion is a silly category, and belongs Cfd'd. It's about as sensible as a Category:Mathematicians by hairstyle or Category:Religious leaders by mechanical aptitude. Now, I'm not objecting to the category, mind you, it would be a lifetime's task to clean up WP's categorization system, but I am saying the information isn't exactly of lead-paragraph-notability. dab (𒁳) 11:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The cat "Hindu mathematicians" already denotes his religious preference, if that is so important.Bakaman 00:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. The category clearly defines his religious affiliation, so no one has hatched the "evil conspiracy" to "hide" this. But just as Newton isn't famous for his Christian beliefs, or Einstein for his Jewish background, Panini is not famous for his being a Hindu. Rather his genius is what makes him famous. The category inclusion is enough for showing his religious preference. Thanks. --Ragib 01:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Not indeed, It is not a great idea to tell facts about object of discussion through article-categorization, when categorization is already so bad and can change anytime (you already said so; and you can check how good and meaningful are categories listed for this article, half of them start with "low importance xyz"). So far i have not read your rules or styles of composing articles, still i would like to suggest that you use some heading like "Other facts", (or if you want to make it much less important then may be something like "facts that are too trivial to be read in our opinion":-)) and state such facts there. We can still give another reason of not doing so by saying that increase in size of articles by a few bytes is very important to us even if the arcticle does have too many related facts. In case of Einstein and most others you nicely mention whether they were Jew or something else in those articles. While as you said it is equally trivial for their notability or popularity. I gave you a secondary reason of why you should do so, to make it a worthwhile reference even when the topic may not be that worthwhile in your opinion. When you are talking about person, you shouldn't try to be too prudent in deciding what is important about that person and what is not, it is better that you state known facts in some "less important" heading at the end of page. Under such heading you can very well negate wrong yet popular notion or beliefs about that person (if you can establish them wrong for sure). So we shouldn't worry whether Panini is famous for being Hindu or something else, stating his religion by no means changes that fact, nor I am asking you to make any such impression in your article. I waited for a day perhaps and then made that change in introduction to get attention of elite here. There is another article on meditation where neither you have a disambiguation page and nor do you start with relevant facts initially. Check that article. The introduction talks about Christianity and tries to give dictionary definition of "Meditation" unnecessarily.

Also Panini was not a Hindu in the same sense as Cicero was Christian. If you are working here on facts you should try to stay as close to facts as possible??Christianity started well after Cicero, while Hinduism or whatever you may like to call it, started well before Panini. If you ask Panini what is his religion he will in turn ask you what you call that Sanatan Dharma of mine now a days and will confirm that it is same. While if you ask same to Cicero, he will have to say he was "Pagan" as per your understanding of his religion (the same is mentioned in wikipedia article).

Skant 04:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)skant

No one said cicero was christian, and the article already categorizes him as Hindu. Skant, I suggest you take the time you spend arguing to effectively categorize Hindus on wikipedia rather than beat a dead horse when we all know he was Hindu.Bakaman 05:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion and let me know what you mean by categorization of Hindus? Your rightly said that almost everyone knows that he was a hindu, but that is not stated in the article. Let's decide what you want to call Hinduism later, and for the time being state that he was a Hindu, later when you get a proper name/definition for "Hinduism" change it here as well as in your article on Hinduism (or elsewhere). Your so caled category of "Hindu Mathematicians" has already been nominated for deletion by people who seem to know too much about definitions (like what "religion" is, what "Christianity" is or what "Hinduism" is). How can you define such terms perfectly?Skant 17:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)skant

I grant you that Panini's religion is not completely irrelevant, since he is in fact a Vedic scholar -- there was no "secular" grammar, grammar was inherently a "limb of the Vedas". In this sense, Panini was an adherent of Vedic religion. It is of course legitimate to include this under "Hinduism" by definition, but calling Panini a "Hindu" is strictly an anachronism, because there were no "Hindus" by that name in his time. What I am saying is that we should make a brief coherent statement of the religious nature of Panini's work, linking to historical Vedic religion, rather than just dropping the term "Hindu" which in this case is rather meaningless for lack of a clear definition. dab (𒁳) 18:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agree with dab. Even though the word "Hindu" has probably existed since the time of Delhi sultanate, its connotation as a religion is pretty modern. Literally meaning the same thing as "Indian", it's separation from "Indian" remained vague for a long time. (e.g., the Hindoo Invasion actually referred to mostly Sikh immigration. I know some French people who still keep confusing between Indien and Hindou). So, "Hindu" is anachronistic for Panini in that sense. Its meaning as an ethnicity (e.g., Hindu vs. Turk in Bulleh Shah) is already covered within the modern English term Indian. And, as dab mentions, the religious side of his work should be linked to Vedic religion. However, we must keep in mind that by his time, the Vedic age was over, and all the major Upanishads had been written. So, his religion must have been considerably different from that prevalent in the early vedic age. I don't think mentioning religion is important here -- all ancient Indian scholars would have been "Vedic" scholars in some sense (Veda means knowledge), and they would have considered the Vedas as a compendium/encyclopedia of all knowledge of that age. In fact, I feel that many a times the term "veda" in Upanishadic texts is rather simplistically translated to mean The Four Vedas, when the author might have been refering to knowledge in general. deeptrivia (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with deep that 500/400 BC sounds like the early period of transition from Vedic to modern Hinduism so it is hard to classify him as one or the other. After all, his texts are called the Shiva Sutras, not the Agni Sutras or Soma Sutras and as the Wiki-article mentions, the common people during his time no longer spoke Vedic Sanskrit. Nevertheless, going back to the original point brought up in this discussion, Panini's religion should only be discussed as much as it impacted on his works on the Sanskrit language. Gizza^{Chat ©} 08:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, but you should allow for the possibility that Panini did not himself call his list of phonemes "Shiva Sutras" :) (and I don't think you can talk of "classical", let alone "modern", Hinduism before the Puranas. Panini's time saw the rise of Vedanta and Buddhism, which would eventually, after a millennium, result in "modern" Hinduism). Anyway, I think the present approach, presenting Vyakarana as inherently cultic, is a good solution. dab (𒁳) 21:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This is not the page to debate theories as to the origins of modern Hinduism, rather since Skant seems to have left the discussion, the status quo seems to be acceptable to all parties involved.Bakaman 23:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear BackMan, I didn't notice your comment on classical hinduism, modern hinduism, and Vedanta. Can you tell me who appointed you or anybody else to tell Hindus whether they belong to modern hinduism, classical hinduism, Vedic religion or something else? Who are you to decide what Hinduism is when Hindus consider the whole thing as Hinduism? Do you think you can define anything in this world perfectly without assumption? If you want to debate on this, create a page and let me know. Did you check with some western scholars why they had to consider Hinduism as oldest religion? If it was that easy to divide hinduism, they could have dated Hinduism to be around 2 days old and they could have argued that rest of Hinduism falls in prehistoric time as per the savage behavior of native Hindus and will be considered un-defined!! In anycase, I would like to see arguments of people who want to define and divide Hinduism and then want to argue what doesn't belong to Hinduism. You think that all hindus are perfect idiots, you will tell them how they need to be divided and when they were not Hindus?? What do you understand by word Hindu? I am a Brahmin, we never call ourselves Hindus!! We call our religion to be Vedic religion or Sanatan Dharma. Who you are to tell me that I belong to modern Hindu religion and not Vedic one, or that Vedic religion cease to exist by year so and so? There is no such word as old or modern Hindu religion. Hindus started using word Hindu as Islamic invaders called them Hindu, prior to that there was no such word as "hindu". The religious text of so called Hindus do not have this word "Hindu" in them. And irrespective of where the Hindus or Vedic people came from, they became Vedic in India and they till date consider themselves to be the same Vedic people, following the same Vedic religion (Megasthenese writes that the philosopher/Brahmin sect that he found in India told him that all diverse type of people you see here belong to this place itself, they never came from anywhere else and they never went to any other place). Skant 03:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Can we please get over this, dbachmann is not the resident Hinduism expert per WP:CAU, but neither should you spend your time writing long speeches noone is going to read. There is no doubt panini was a Hindu, and moreover, it is more imperative to categorize who is a Hindu now, rather than engage in historical categorization. He's a dead man.Bakaman 21:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Bakasuprman, I may not be able to heed you advice on how to spend my time and nor will i care for how many people are reading my idiotic points. But if you have already read it and still you make statements like "it is more imperative now......" you should better give proper arguments to support. These things can not be and should not be just as per your wishSkant 03:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You know you're begninning to act like those armchair nationalists at Hindu Unity, completely ignorant of the real world around them.Bakaman 04:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Like you said Baka, nobody is listening to his rants, so lets not feed him anymore. Skant can't do anything if doesn't have reliable sources so it is better to ignore him. What he's arguing about is becoming more and more irrelevant to the Panini article anyway. Gizza^{Chat ©} 07:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Baka, do quote lines or ideas when you make your claims about me. I am not saying so in anger. I do not know about Hinduunity, but still if something made you feel that I am behaving more zealously then what i claimed earlier, do point to that statement. You can use my user page to give details, if this page is sacrosanct. Secondly, the last speech (which Baka didn't like at all and Gizza is too happy to support him with utmost sincerity) is not to ask you to make any change in this article. It was to ask you whether you believe in idiotic idea of claiming that Vedic religion, Hindu religion, modern hindu religion are different things or not; and if you do, then what is your reason behind it. This idea is used by many people on wikipedia to kind of create objections and to prevent word Hindu to be used for many ideas or concepts which certainly belongs to that religion. I don't need support from either idiots or scholars in support of the arguments that i gave against that trickery. But if you do have arguments in favour of that concept, please provide your ideas on my user page. And Gizza is right I am not speaking on Panini anymore and I was already happy with the addion of "Vedic" related lines as per your assumption. Skant 17:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You'll find a more eager audience at Talk:History of Hinduism. I agree with most of your points, but charcha is not my game, nor am I religious.Bakaman 00:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Baka, I will go to that page soon. "Charcha" is my game (I am more concerned about intentions of people than multitude of facts, but i do not argue against facts at all). On religion: I dislike the concept of religion in totality, unfortunately we do not have a good word for people believing in God but not in religions, do let me know if you know of a good word except secular ("secular" has been politicized and tarnished beyond recognition by corrupt religious propagandist); that word can be a killer of religions and psychologically-corrupt people thriving on religions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.7.175.2 (talk) 01:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC).forgot to singn-in again.Skant 01:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The exhaustive answer to these questions is: WP:RS. dab (𒁳) 08:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)