Ten lost grammars hide in the options

Status: Anticipated · untested

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

The Aṣṭādhyāyī names ten predecessors — Āpiśali, Kāśakṛtsna, Gārgya, Gālava, Cākravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja, Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka, Sphoṭāyana — and every one of their grammars is lost: an entire pre-Pāṇinian discipline surviving as names in the winner's text. But the names are not decoration. An observation going back to Kielhorn holds that Pāṇini cites a teacher by name precisely where doctrines diverged and both outputs circulated — name-citation as option-licensing, the doxographic footnote of a winner-take-all pedagogy. If that is right, ten grammatical systems were compressed into a residue of licensed doublets, and the residue is countable: rules citing predecessors should overwhelmingly generate optional forms, while the anonymous mass of the grammar is obligatory. Prediction: enumerating every Aṣṭādhyāyī sūtra that cites a predecessor by name and classifying each via the Kāśikāvṛtti as optional (licensing doublet forms) or obligatory, at least 80% of the name-citing rules will be optional, against under 20% for a size-matched random sample of anonymous sūtras (primary clause: the 80% optionality share; the verdict follows it). Exact computation: locate the name-citing sūtras by searching the e-text for the teachers' genitives, then classify each rule from the Kāśikā's gloss. Kill: the GRETIL e-texts of the Aṣṭādhyāyī and the Kāśikāvṛtti, with the register of predecessor citations in George Cardona's Pāṇini: A Survey of Research (1976) as the control list.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Prediction: enumerating every Aṣṭādhyāyī sūtra that cites a predecessor by name and classifying each via the Kāśikāvṛtti as optional (licensing doublet forms) or obligatory, at least 80% of the name-citing rules will be optional, against under 20% for a size-matched random sample of anonymous sūtras (primary clause: the 80% optionality share; the verdict follows it). Exact computation: locate the name-citing sūtras by searching the e-text for the teachers' genitives, then classify each rule from the Kāśikā's gloss.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the GRETIL e-texts of the Aṣṭādhyāyī and the Kāśikāvṛtti, with the register of predecessor citations in George Cardona's Pāṇini: A Survey of Research (1976) as the control list.

Nobody has run this test. The kill-data is named above. If you can run it — or you know the paper that already settles it — claim the kill or submit the prior scholarship. Kills and prior scholarship are credited here, by name, as they come in.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Fresh blind generation by claude-fable-5, 2026-07-16, breadth wave weighting India/South Asia by inferred textual production rather than survival; every item grounded in real works, authors, catalogues, and testimonia, including the real evidence of loss (citing authors, catalogue entries, translation corpora, rediscovery cases); no fabricated citations.

Novelty / leakage triage

anticipated in the literature — this exact test has never been run

The option-licensing reading of Panini's name-citations is a long-standing observation (going back to Kielhorn's era and debated within the tradition itself as pujartha versus vikalpa; surveyed by Cardona and Scharfe), and the register of predecessor-citing sutras is enumerated in the surveys. The quantitative census — classifying every name-citing rule via the Kasika against a size-matched anonymous control sample — has not been run.

G. Cardona, Panini: A Survey of Research (Mouton, 1976), section on the pre-Paninian grammarians
H. Scharfe, Grammatical Literature (History of Indian Literature V.2, Harrassowitz, 1977)

Predictions

Open registered 2026-07-17 calibration prediction (parent triage: leaked/adjacent)

Registered against the GRETIL e-texts of the Astadhyayi and the Kasikavrtti. Claim under test (primary clause): among the Astadhyayi sutras that cite a named predecessor grammarian, AT LEAST 80% license an OPTIONAL rule (a doublet/alternative form), against under 20% for a size-matched random sample of non-name-citing sutras.

Resolution criteria: DATA: GRETIL Astadhyayi + Kasikavrtti e-texts; freeze sha256. Cardona 1976 (Panini: A Survey of Research) register of predecessor citations as the control list of expected name-citing sutras. POPULATION: name-citing sutras = those naming one of Apisali, Kasakrtsna, Gargya, Galava, Cakravarmana, Bharadvaja, Sakatayana, Sakalya, Senaka, Sphotayana (located by the teacher's genitive in the sutra text). CLASSIFY each such sutra OPTIONAL vs OBLIGATORY from the Kasika's gloss (OPTIONAL = the gloss marks an alternative via va / vibhasa / anyatarasyam and cognate optionality terms). PRIMARY = optionality-share among name-citing sutras. COMPARISON = optionality-share in a size-matched random sample of non-name-citing sutras. CLAUSE PRECEDENCE: (1) INCONCLUSIVE_BY_DESIGN if the e-texts cannot be parsed/aligned, OR fewer than 8 name-citing sutras are located, OR the Kasika optionality gloss cannot be classified. (2) SUPPORTED if optionality-share(name-citing) >= 0.80 AND optionality-share(anonymous sample) < 0.20. (3) KILLED otherwise. Report the two shares, the located name-citing sutra list (for audit), and the classification rule; if optionality classification admits more than one reasonable reading report the share range. computed_at postdates registered_at.

Known priors disclosure: Held: Kielhorn's classic observation that Panini's named predecessors survive as optionality residue, and general knowledge the Astadhyayi + Kasika are in GRETIL. NOT computed: the optionality shares. The 80%/20% thresholds are the conjecture's own.

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