Computational Structure of the Astadhyayı and Conflict Resolution Techniques

Abstract

Panini’s Astadhyayı consists of sutras that capture fundamentals of Sanskrit language and define its structure in terms of phonology, morphology and syntax. The As. t.¯adhy¯ay¯ı can be thought of as an automaton to generate words and sentences. In object oriented programming terms, prescribing s¯utras are objects having its transformation rule as its method. The meta rules or paribh¯as.¯a s¯utras and paribh¯as.¯a v¯artik¯as define the flow of the program. During application of s¯utras, conflicts may arise among two or more competing s¯utras. In this paper, computational structure of the As. t.¯adhy¯ay¯ı, s¯utra objects observing the environment, tree representation of s¯utras and mathematical representation of conflict resolution techniques are presented.