After 2,500 years Sanskrit grammatical puzzle solved by Indian student at University of Cambridge

Panini was a Sanskrit grammatist, scholar and philologist, also considered as “first descriptive linguist” and even know as “the father of linguistics”. Panini is very famous for the comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology and morphology. His text “Astadhyayi” which have been written around 500 BC, is the foundational text on rules of linguistics, syntax and semantics and grammar theories of Vedanga. Astadhyayi elaborates in detail around 4,000 rules of linguistics and other areas of language and it is meant to work like language machine. Revered “language machine” of Panini’s is considered to be one of the great intellectual achievements in the history.

But there has been one great dilemma, where two or more of Panini’s rules can be applicable at the same step, leaving Sanskrit scholars indecisive on which one to choose. An certain type of algorithm is required to solve such “rule-conflicts”. Metarule of Panini is used in such “rule-conflict” issues to give us proper indication of which rule should be used, but from 2,500 years scholars have been misinterpreting the metarule and ending up with the grammatically incorrect results. To solve this, up until many scholars have created hundreds of other metarules but ended up having too many exceptions.

Rishi Rajpopat, Indian Ph. D. student at University of Cambridge, solved the so-called “rule-conflict” from Panini’s linguistics rules. This discovery of Rishi Rajpopat considered as the ‘revolutionary’ by the Sanskrit scholars and making it possible to use Panini’s “language machine”, resulting in grammar of Panini can be taught to even computers for the first time.

Ph. D. student Rishi Rajpopat decoded 2,500 years old “rule-conflict” or the algorithm while researching on his Ph. D. thesis, which made it possible to use Panini’s “language machine”. Rishi said, “Panini was the great linguistic with an extraordinary mind which invented language machine first time in ever human history. Panini’s work is very deep and precise and more we fiddle with it, the more it becomes eluding.” Rishi even argued on the many other metarules created by scholars and said, “Panini wanted us to choose the rule applicable to the right side. In the event of rule-conflict of two equal strength rules, the rule which comes later in the grammar’s serial number wins”.

Rishi Rajpopat even said that this discovery can be used as major implication in teaching grammar to computers to produce human speech and intentions of speaker.  If this implication is successful then this will be major milestone in the history of human interaction with machines as well as in India’s intellectual history.