Piṅgala (Acharya Pingala)

Acharya Pingala (Sanskrit: पिङ्गल, romanized: Piṅgala; c. 3rd–2nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian poet and mathematician, and the author of the Chandaḥśāstra (Sanskrit: छन्दःशास्त्र, lit. 'A Treatise on Prosody'), also called the Pingala Sutras (Sanskrit: पिङ्गलसूत्राः, romanized: Piṅgalasūtrāḥ, lit. 'Pingala's Threads of Knowledge'), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody. The Chandaḥśāstra is a work of eight chapters in the late Sūtra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to the last few centuries BCE. In the 10th century CE, Halayudha wrote a commentary elaborating on the Chandaḥśāstra. According to some historians Maharshi Pingala was the brother of Pāṇini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian, considered the first descriptive linguist. Others identify him as Patanjali, the 2nd century BCE scholar who authored Mahabhashya.

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