The Śiva·sūtras, technically akṣara·samāmnāya, variously called , pratyāhāra·sūtrāṇi, varṇa·samāmnāya, etc., refer to a set of fourteen aphorisms devised as an arrangement of the sounds of Sanskrit for the purposes of grammatical exposition as carried out by the grammarian Pāṇini in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.[1] [2]
Pāṇini himself uses the term akṣara·samāmnāya whereas the colloquial term "Shiva sutra" is a later development, as per claims by Nandikeśvara in his Kāśikā, that the god Śiva sounded his drum fourteen times to reveal these sounds to Pāṇini. They were either composed by Pāṇini to accompany his or predate him.[1] [2] [3]
Each verse consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes (i.e. open syllables consisting either of initial vowels or consonants followed by the basic vowel "a") followed by a single 'dummy letter', or anubandha, conventionally rendered in upper case and named '' by Pāṇini.
The following table shows the Shiva Sutras in Devnagri Script and their transliteration into the well-used transliteration scheme of Indic characters by Latin scripts viz. ISO 15919 and ITRANS.
| 1. a i u ṇ,2. r̥ l̥ k, 3. ē ō 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 cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta v 12. ka pa y 13. śa ṣa sa r 14. ha l | 1. a i u N,2. R^i L^i k, 3. e o ~N, 4. ai au ch, 5. ha ya va ra T, 6. la N, 7. ~na ma ~Na Na na m, 8. jha bha ~n 9. gha Dha dha Sh 10. ja ba ga Da da sh 11. kha pha Cha Tha tha cha Ta ta v 12. ka pa y 13. sha Sha 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 |
This allows Pāṇini to refer to groups of phonemes with , which consist of a phoneme-letter and an anubandha (and often the vowel a to aid pronunciation) and signify all of the intervening phonemes. Pratyāhāras are thus single syllables, but they can be declined (see Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77 below). Hence the pratyāhāra aL refers to all phonemes (because it consists of the first phoneme of the first verse (a) and the last anubandha of the last verse (L)); aC refers to vowels (i.e., all of the phonemes before the anubandha C: i.e. a i u ṛ ḷ e o ai au); 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 (including or excluding ṛ, etc.); 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 280 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 (as Pāṇini does not use single element pratyāhāras) minus 11 (as there are 11 duplicate sets due to h appearing twice); the second multiplier in each term represents the number of phonemes in each. But Pāṇini uses only 41 (with a 42nd introduced by later grammarians, raṆ=r l) pratyāhāras in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.
The Akṣarasamāmnāya puts phonemes with a similar manner of articulation together (so sibilants in 13 śa ṣa sa R, nasals in 7 ñ m ṅ ṇ n M). Economy is a major principle of their organization, and it is debated whether Pāṇini deliberately encoded phonological patterns in them (as they were treated in traditional phonetic texts called Prātiśakyas) 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 Akṣarasamāmnāya 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: :[4]
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:
Despite the possible combinations seen above, here are the 41 pratyāhāras in actual use by Pāṇini:[9]