Mahabhashya (, IAST: , , "Great Commentary"), attributed to Patañjali, is a commentary on selected rules of Sanskrit grammar from PÃÂá¹Âini's treatise, the Aá¹£á¹ÂÃÂdhyÃÂyë, as well as KÃÂtyÃÂyana's VÃÂrttika-sà «tra, an elaboration of PÃÂá¹Âini's grammar. It is dated to the 2nd century BCE.
Patañjali is one of the three most famous Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, other two being PÃÂá¹Âini and KÃÂtyÃÂyana who preceded Patañjali (dated to c. 250 BCE). KÃÂtyÃÂyana's work (nearly 1500 verses on ) is available only through references in Patañjali's work.
It was with Patañjali that the Indian tradition of language scholarship reached its definite form. The system thus established is extremely detailed as to shiksha (phonology, including accent) and vyakarana (grammar and morphology). Syntax is scarcely touched, but nirukta (etymology) is discussed, and these etymologies naturally lead to semantic explanations. People interpret his work to be a defence of PÃÂá¹Âini, whose Sutras are elaborated meaningfully. Patañjali also examines KÃÂtyÃÂyana rather severely. But the main contributions of Patañjali lies in the treatment of the principles of grammar enunciated by him.
KÃÂtyÃÂyana introduced semantic discourse into grammar, which was further elaborated by Patañjali to such an extent that ' can be called a mix of grammar as such as well as a philosophy of grammar. KÃÂà Âika-vritti by JayÃÂditya and VÃÂmana (mentioned by Itsing) included viewpoints of other grammarians also which did not conform to Patañjali's views.
The extant MahÃÂbhÃÂá¹£ya text is available on 1228 of the 3981 sà «tras of the Aá¹£á¹ÂÃÂdhyÃÂyë. The MahÃÂbhÃÂá¹£ya is divided into eighty five sections called ÃÂhnika consisting of subject matter of one day's study each.