Shiva Sutras


The Shiva Sutras or ' are fourteen verses that organize the phonemes of Sanskrit as referred to in the of, the foundational text of Sanskrit grammar.
Within the tradition they are known as the ', "recitation of phonemes," but they are popularly known as the Shiva Sutras because they are said to have been revealed to Pāṇini by Shiva. They were either composed by Pāṇini to accompany his or predate him. The latter is less plausible, but the practice of encoding complex rules in short, mnemonic verses is typical of the sutra style.

Text

IASTदेवनागरी తెలుగు ಕನ್ನಡ

1. a i u Ṇ
2. ṛ ḷ K
3. e o Ṅ
4. ai au C
5. ha ya va ra Ṭ
6. la Ṇ
7. ña ma ṅa ṇa na M
8. jha bha Ñ
9. gha ḍha dha Ṣ
10. ja ba ga ḍa da Ś
11. kha pha chha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta V
12. ka pa Y
13. śa ṣa sa R
14. ha L
१. अ इ उ ण्।
२. ऋ ऌ क्।
३. ए ओ ङ्।
४. ऐ औ च्।
५. ह य व र ट्।
६. ल ण्।
७. ञ म ङ ण न म्।
८. झ भ ञ्।
९. घ ढ ध ष्।
१०. ज ब ग ड द श्।
११. ख फ छ ठ थ च ट त व्।
१२. क प य्।
१३. श ष स र्।
१४. ह ल्।
1. అ ఇ ఉ ణ్
2. ఋ ఌ క్
3. ఏ ఓ ఙ్
4. ఐ ఔ చ్
5. హ య వ ర ట్
6. ల ణ్
7. ఞ మ ఙ ణ న మ్
8. ఝ భ ఞ్
9. ఘ ఢ ధ ష్
10. జ బ గ డ ద శ్
11. ఖ ఫ ఛ ఠ థ చ ట త వ్
12. క ప య్
13. శ ష స ర్
14. హ ల్
1. అ ఇ ಉ ಣ್
2. ಋ ಲೃ ಕ್
3. ಏ ಓ ಙ್
4. ಐ ಔ ಚ್
5. ಹ ಯ ವ ರ ಟ್
6. ಲ ಣ್
7. ಞ ಮ ಙ ಣ ನ ಮ್
8. ಝ ಭ ಞ್
9. ಘ ಢ ಧ ಷ್
10. ಜ ಬ ಗ ಡ ದ ಶ್
11. ಖ ಫ ಛ ಠ ಥ ಚ ಟ ತ ವ್
12. ಕ ಪ ಯ್
13. ಶ ಷ ಸ ರ್
14. ಹ ಲ್

Each of the fourteen verses consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes followed by a single 'dummy letter', or anubandha, conventionally rendered by capital letters in Roman transliteration and named by Pāṇini.
This allows Pāṇini to refer to groups of phonemes with ', which consist of a phoneme-letter and an anubandha and signify all of the intervening phonemes. Pratyāhāras are thus single syllables, but they can be declined. Hence the pratyāhāra aL refers to all phonemes and the last anubandha of the last verse ; aC refers to vowels ; haL to consonants, and so on.
Note that some pratyāhāras are ambiguous. The anubandha Ṇ occurs twice in the list, which means that you can assign two different meanings to pratyāhāra aṆ ; in fact, both of these meanings are used in the Aṣṭādhyāyī. On the other hand, the pratyāhāra haL is always used in the meaning "all consonants"—Pāṇini never uses pratyāhāras to refer to sets consisting of a single phoneme.
From these 14 verses, a total of 281 pratyāhāras can be formed: 14*3 + 13*2 + 12*2 + 11*2 + 10*4 + 9*1 + 8*5 + 7*2 + 6*3 * 5*5 + 4*8 + 3*2 + 2*3 +1*1, minus 14 minus 10 ; the second multiplier in each term represents the number of phonemes in each. But Pāṇini uses only 41 pratyāhāras in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.
The Shiva Sutras put phonemes with a similar manner of articulation together. Economy is a major principle of their organization, and it is debated whether Pāṇini deliberately encoded phonological patterns in them or simply grouped together phonemes which he needed to refer to in the Aṣṭādhyāyī and which only secondarily reflect phonological patterns. Pāṇini does not use the Shiva Sutras to refer to homorganic stops, but rather the anubandha U: to refer to the palatals c ch j jh he uses cU.
As an example, consider Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77: इकः यण् अचि ':
Hence this rule replaces a vowel with its corresponding semivowel when followed by any vowel, and that is why ' together with ' makes '. To apply this rule correctly we must be aware of some of the other rules of the grammar, such as:
Also, rules can be debarred by other rules: