Vararuchi


Vararuci is a name associated with several literary and scientific texts in Sanskrit and also with various legends in several parts of India. This Vararuci is often identified with Kātyāyana. Kātyāyana is the author of Vārtikās which is an elaboration of certain sūtrās in Pāṇini's much revered treatise on Sanskrit grammar titled Aṣṭādhyāyī. Kātyāyana is believed to have flourished in the 3rd century BCE. However, this identification of Vararuci with Kātyāyana has not been fully accepted by scholars.
Vararuci is believed to be the author of Prākrita Prakāśa, the oldest treatise on the grammar of Prākrit language.
Vararuci's name appears in a verse listing the 'nine gems' in the court of one Vikramaditya. Vararuci appears as a prominent character in Kathasaritsagara, a famous 11th century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold by Somadeva.
The Aithihyamala of Kottarathil Shankunni states that Vararuchi was the son of Govinda Swami i.e. Govinda Bhagavatpada. It also states that King Vikramaditya, Bhatti and Bharthari were his brothers. Vararuci is the father figure in a legend in Kerala popularly referred to as the legend of the twelve clans born of a pariah woman .
The Vararuci of Kerala legend was also an astute astronomer believed to be the author of Chandravākyas, a set of numbers specifying the longitudes of the Moon at different intervals of time. These numbers are coded in the katapayādi system of numeration and it is believed that Vararuci himself was the inventor of this system of numeration. The eldest son of Vararuci of Kerala legend is known as Mezhathol Agnihothri and he is supposed to have lived between 343 and 378 CE.
The name Vararuchi is associated with more than a dozen works in Sanskrit, and the name Katyayana is associated with about sixteen works. There are around ten works connected with astronomy and mathematics associated with the name of Vararuci.

Vararuci, the astronomer

Possibly there are at least three persons named Vararuci in the astronomical tradition of South India.

Vararuci (Kerala, fourth century CE)

This Vararuchi is the father figure in the astronomical tradition of Kerala. He is also the father figure in the legend of the twelve clans born of the Pariah woman. The eldest son of this Vararuci, the establisher of the first of the twelve clans, was one Mezhattol Agnihotri and he is supposed to have lived between 343 and 378 CE. Based on this, Vararuci is supposed to have lived in the first half of the 4th century CE. The manuscript tradition of Kerala ascribes to Vararuci the authorship of Chandravākyās which is a set of 248 numbers for calculating the position of the sun and moon. This work is also known by the name Vararuci-Vākyās. Vararuci is also believed to be the originator of the Katapayadi notation of depicting numbers, which has been used in the formulation of Chandravākyās.

Vararuci (Kerala, 13th century CE)

This astronomer is the author of the well-known Vākyakaraṇa, which is the source book of the Vākya Panchānga, popular in South India,. This Vararuchi belonged to the Kerala region, as is clear from the introductory verses of the work. It has been shown that this treatise was originally produced around 1282 CE. The treatise is also known as Vākyapañcādhyāyī and is based on the works of Haridatta of Kerala. Sundararaja, an astronomer from Tamil Nadu contemporaneous with Nilakantha Somayaji, has composed a commentary on Vākyakarana and the commentary contains several references to Vararuci. In five chapters Vākyakaraṇa deals with all aspects of astronomy required for the preparation of the Hindu almanac. Chapter I is concerned with the computation of the sun, the moon and the moon's nodes, Chapter II with that of the planets. Chapter III is devoted to problems involving time, position and direction and other preliminaries like the precession of the equinoxes. Chapter IV deals with the computation of the lunar and solar eclipses. Chapter V is devoted to computation of the conjunction of the planets and of the planets and stars.

Vararuci (several persons)

Many texts have been ascribed to Vararuci, such as Kerala-Vararuchi-Vakya, Kerala-Vararuchi-proktha, Kerala-dvādaśa-bhāva-vākyāni, Vararuchi-Kerala, Bhārgava-pañcāṅga etc. The Vararuchi, who is the author of the above works on astrology might be identical to Vararuchi of Kerala, but it is not possible to assert that he is the same as the author of the Chandra-Vākyās.

Vararuci, the grammarian

The author of Vartikas

In ancient India, grammar was the first and most important of all sciences. When one had first studied grammar, he could go in for learning any other science.
This historical mindset justifies the great respect and prestige attributed to the ancient grammarians of India like Pāṇini and Patanjali. Pāṇini was an ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara.
He is known for his Sanskrit grammar text known as . The Ashtadhyayi is one of the earliest known grammars of Sanskrit. After Pāṇini, the of Patañjali on the Ashtadhyayi is one of the three most famous works in Sanskrit grammar. It was with Patañjali that Indian linguistic science reached its definite form.
Kātyāyana was a Sanskrit grammarian, mathematician and Vedic priest who lived in ancient India. He is known as the author of the Varttika, an elaboration on Pāṇini grammar. Along with the Mahābhāsya of Patañjali, this text became a core part of the canon. In many accounts Katyayana has been referred to as Vararuci. Kātyāyana's Vārtikās correct, supplement, eliminate as unnecessary, or justify the rules of Pāṇini.
In his Vajasaneyi Pratisakhya, he subjected about 1500 sutras of Panini to critical
observations.

A Prākṛt grammarian

The term Prākṛt or Prakrit denotes a multitude of languages all originated from Sanskrit. They are all considered as derived from Sanskrit and developed by adopting deviations and by corruption. Indian languages including those in the south are considered Prakrut in Indian classification. There is now no complete agreement on what languages are to be included in this group. Prakrit is also closely connected with the development of Buddhist and Jaina philosophical thought.
Vararuci is the name of the author of the oldest extant grammar of Prakrit, titled. In this work Vararuci has considered four different dialects: Maharashtri, the older form of Marathi; Sauraseni, which evolved into the Braj language; Magadhi, the former form of Bihari; and Paisaci, a language no longer extant. The book is divided into twelve chapters. The first nine chapters containing a total of 424 rules are devoted to Maharashtri and of the remaining three chapters, one each is devoted to Paisaci with 14 rules, Māgadhi with 17 rules, and Sauraseni with 32 rules respectively.
The author of Prakrita Prakasa was also known by the name Katyayana, perhaps the gotra name of Vararuci. This gotra name was given to him by the unknown author of a commentary of Prakrita Prakasa named Prakritamanjari. In Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara and Kshemendra's Brihatkathamanjari one can see that Katyayana was called Vararuci. The oldest commentator of Prakrita Prakasa was Bhamaha an inhabitant of Kashmir who was also a rhetorician as well as a poet.

Vararuci ''Śulbasūtras''

The Śulbasūtras are appendices to the Vedas which give rules for constructing altars. They are the only sources of knowledge of Indian mathematics from the Vedic period. There are several Śulbasūtras. The most important of these are the Baudhayana Śulbasūtra, written about 800 BCE; the Apastamba Śulbasūtra, written about 600 BCE; Manava Śulbasūtra, written about 750 BCE; and the Katyayana Śulbasūtra, written about 200 BCE. Since Katyayana has been identified with one Vararuci, possibly the author of the Vartikas, Katyayana Śulbasūtra is referred to as Vararuci Śulbasūtra also.

Vararuci, the ''littérateur''

Vararuci was also a legendary figure in the Indian literary tradition.

Author of ''Ubhayabhisarika''

Though littérateur Vararuci is recorded to have composed several Kavyas, only one complete work is currently extant. This is a satirical monologue titled Ubhayabhisarika.
The work titled Ubhayabhisarika appears in a collection of four monologues titled Chaturbhani, the other monologues in the collection being Padma-prabhritaka by Shudraka, Dhurta-vita-samvada by Isvaradatta and Padataditaka by Shyamalika. The collection along with an English translation has been published in Clay Sanskrit Library under the title The Quartet of Causeries. Ubhayabhisarika is set in Pataliputra and it is dated to somewhere between the 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE. It might be the earliest Indian play extant. Some scholars are of the opinion that the work was composed in the 5th century CE.

Other works

He is also said to have written two kavyas by names Kanthabharana and Charumati. There are several verses ascribed to Vararuci appearing in different literary works. Other works attributed to Vararuci are: Nitiratna, a book with didactic contents; Niruktasamuccaya, a commentary on the Nirukta of Yaska; Pushpasutra, a Pratishakhya of the Samaveda; a lexicon; and, an alamkara work.

Vararuci, a 'gem' in the court of Samrat Vikramaditya

Vararuci's name appears in a Sanskrit verse specifying the names of the 'nine gems' in the court of the legendary Samrat Vikramaditya who is said to have founded the Vikrama era in 57 BCE. This verse appears in Jyotirvidabharana, which is supposed to be a work of the great Kalidasa but is in fact a late forgery.
This verse appears in the last chapter of Jyotirvidabharana. That the great Kalidasa is the author of Jyotirvidabharana is difficult to believe because Varahamihira, one of the nine gems listed in the verse, in his Pancasiddhantika refers to Aryabhata, who was born in 476 CE and wrote his Aryabhatiya in 499 CE or a little later. Jyotirvidabharana is a later work of about 12th century CE. There might have been a very respected Vararuci in the court of one King Vikrama, but the identities of the particular Vararuci and the King Vikrama are uncertain.
The names of the nine gems are found in the following Sanskrit verse:

dhanvantarikṣapaṇakāmarasiṃhaśaṅku
vetālabhaṭṭa ghaṭakarpara kālidāsāḥ |
khyāto varāhamihiro nṛpate sabhāyāṃ
ratnāni vai vararucirnava vikramasya ||

The names of the nine gems and their traditional claims to fame are the following:
  • Dhanvantari, a medical practitioner
  • Kshapanaka, probably Siddhasena, a Jain monk, author of Dvatrishatikas
  • Amarasimha, author of Amarakosha, a thesaurus of Sanskrit
  • Sanku
  • Vetalabhatta, a Maga Brahmin known as the author of the sixteen stanza Niti-pradeepa in tribute to Vikramaditya
  • Ghatakarpara, author of Ghatakarpara-kavya, in which a wife sends a message
  • Kalidasa, a renowned classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language
  • Varahamihira, astrologer & astronomer
  • Vararuchi, poet & grammarian