An Indian student has solved the 2500-year-old mystery of Sanskrit

Since the 5th century BC, scholars have puzzled over the grammar of Sanskrit, but now a PhD student at Cambridge University has solved the mystery, twenty-seven-year-old Rishi Rajpopat.

Around two and a half thousand years ago, the famous teacher Panini founded the principle of Sanskrit.

Today, Sanskrit is only spoken in India, where 25 thousand speakers are estimated to speak this ancient language.

For nine months, Rishi Rajpopat had been studying and searching but his research had not progressed at all.

At last, he realized what the secret was.

'When I couldn't understand anything, I closed the books for a month and stepped out to enjoy the summer. Sometimes I swam, sometimes I cooked, and sometimes I prayed and thought.'

Rishi says he would 'sit in the library for many hours, sometimes late into the night'. It took him two and a half years to unravel the mystery.

Rajapopat's theory is based on an ancient manuscript by Panini published in the 18th century.

Despite not being widely spoken today, Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism and is used in science, philosophy, poetry, literature and other non-religious works.

Panini's grammar is known as 'Ustadhai'. In this system, words are formed using prefixes and suffixes, followed by meaningful words or phrases. Each word in Panini's grammar is often governed by two or more rules.

Traditionally, if two rules of grammar conflict in a word, the rule that follows wins. Panini created this meta-rule hundreds of years ago, and experts have taken it to mean that if two rules of grammar conflict in a word, the rule that follows wins.

However, Rishi Rajapopat rejects the traditional interpretation of Panini's key principle. In his view, Panini was referring to the 'right' and 'left' coming principles of the word, not the 'before' and 'after' interpretation. In other words, if there are two major grammar rules that conflict in a word; Panini's rule dictates that the left rule takes precedence.

This interpretation of Panini's Meta-Rule also led him to trace Panini's 'Language Machine', through which almost all the words of Sanskrit follow the rules of grammar. As he put it, ‘I hope that this discovery will instill a new sense of self-confidence, pride, and hope among Indian students.’

A professor of Sanskrit at the University of Cambridge, Rishi Rajpopat's PhD supervisor, said his student had "discovered a brilliant solution to a problem that scholars have puzzled over for centuries."

This discovery will bring about a revolution at a time when Sanskrit's popularity is on the rise.