Story
Panini, from Shalatula near Gandhara, composed the Ashtadhyayi, a grammar of Sanskrit in about 4,000 compact rules. Its use of rules, meta-rules and recursion is so systematic that it is often compared to modern computer languages.
Key contributions
- Created a complete, generative description of Sanskrit in about 4,000 sutras
- Used rule ordering, abbreviations (pratyaharas) and recursion — ideas central to formal language theory
- Influenced modern linguistics and the notation used to describe programming languages