Part 2: The Lego Blocks of Sanskrit

If you’ve seen a Lego brick, you know those little pieces can be powerful. They may look tiny, but snap them together and you can build castles, spaceships, or an entire city.

Sanskrit words work the same way. Instead of memorizing every single word, you start with a root word, a dhatu (धातु)—the basic building block of a word. Add a prefix here, a suffix there, and suddenly you have a new word.

For example:

• Root: गम् gam (to go)

• Add a suffix: ti → आगच्छति gacchati (he/she goes) [gacchati is a modified root]

• Add a prefix aa → आगच्छति  aagacchati (he/she comes)

• Add yet another prefix anu → अनुगच्छति  anugacchati (he/she follows)

Thus, the Aṣhṭadhyayi is basically the Lego instruction manual for all of this. He tells you which blocks can snap together, which combinations don’t work, and how to swap parts out without breaking the model.

Instead of memorizing a dictionary the size of a mountain, you learn the process for making words on the fly. And once you’ve got the hang of it, you can generate thousands of correct forms like a pro. This is why people say Sanskrit is “mathematical” or “structured,”.

Shortcuts, Rules, and Magic Formulas

Panini loved efficiency. If he lived today, he’d probably be the person squeezing a 100-page manual into a single PostIt note. That’s what his sutras are —short, bite-sized formulas that pack an incredible punch. Some are just a couple of syllables long, but each one controls whole families of words. Of course, the magic only works if you know how to read the formula—and that’s what makes the work both brilliant and a little intimidating. His shorthand is famously dense. But once decoded, it’s breathtakingly precise. Thus, he basically created a compression algorithm for grammar before computers were even a thing.

Each sutra works like an “if–then” statement:

• If this condition is met, apply this transformation.

• If not, skip ahead.

Rules can even call other rules, creating a chain reaction. That’s recursion—something we modern programmers use all the time.

The Soundtrack of Grammar – The Maaheshwara Sutras

Legend says that after Shiva’s cosmic dance, fourteen mysterious sound-clusters (Shiva sutras) were revealed. Panini adopted them as the foundation of his grammar. Because they originated from Maheshawara (Lord Shiva), it is called Maaheshwara Sutras.

This is also depicted in the picture below.

Source: Internet

This is depicted in the table below:

1	अ इ उ ण्	a i u Ṇ
2	ऋ ऌ क्	ṛ ḷ K
3	ए ओ ङ्	e o Ṅ
4	ऐ औ च्	ai au C
5	ह य व र ट्	ha ya va ra Ṭ
6	ल ण्	la N
7	ञ म ङ ण न म्	ña ma ṅa ṇa na M
8	झ भ ञ्	jha bha Ñ
9	घ ढ ध ष्	gha ḍha dha Ṣh
10	ज ब ग ड द श्	ja ba ga ḍa da Śh
11	ख फ छ ठ थ च ट त व्	kha pha cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta V
12	क प य्	ka pa Y
13	श ष स र्	śha ṣha sa R
14	ह ल्	ha L

Table 1 - Maaheshwara Sutras

At first sight, it looks cryptic. But they’re not chants—they’re compressed sound indexes. Each sequence ends with a “marker” letter (indicated in Red), which isn’t a real sound but a stop sign.

👉 Example: अच् “ac” means “all vowels from a up to au.” i.e. Rows 1 to 4. So, instead of listing a, i, u, ṛ, ḷ, e, o, ai, au every time, Panini just writes “ac.” in sutras referring to vowels. This shorthand is called a pratyahara (प्रत्याहार). That’s like keyboard shortcuts for phonetics. With this trick, he shrank what could have been thousands of clunky lists into sleek, reusable formulas.

Now that we know the basics, in the next part we will delve deeper into some of the rules. As always your comments and suggestions will be very welcome.