Thus it has been said—
"They call it the door of emancipation, the medicine of the diseases of speech, the purifier of all sciences, the science of sciences."[347]
And so again—
"This is the first foot-round of the stages of the ladder of final bliss, this is the straight royal road of the travellers to emancipation."
Therefore our final conclusion is that the Śástra of grammar should be studied as being the means for attaining the chief end of man.
E. B. C.
FOOTNOTES:
[307] Mádhava uses this peculiar term because the grammarians adopted and fully developed the idea of the Púrva-Mímáṃsá school that sound is eternal. He therefore treats of sphoṭa here, and not in his Jaimini chapter.
[308] Rig-Veda, x. 9, 4.
[309] Śabdánuśásana, if judged by the apparent sense of Páṇini, ii. 2, 14, would be a wrong compound; but it is not so, because ii. 2, 14 must be interpreted in the sense of ii. 3, 66, whence it follows that the compound would only be wrong if there were an agent expressed as well as an object, i.e., if such a word as ácháryeṇa followed. In the example given, we cannot say áścharyo godoho śikshitena gopálena (as it would violate ii. 2, 14), neither can we say áścharyo gaváṃ doho' śikshitasya gopálasya (as it would violate ii. 3, 66).