ABSTRACT
We have a fair understanding of the history of the formal traditions of Sanskrit grammar and phonetics through the research of modem scholars. However, our understanding of how these formal traditions evolved out of the preceding period is not very clear, in spite of a good beginning made in several small areas. A formal account of the history of morphological conceptions in ancient India may begin with a treatment of formal works like the Vedic Padapa.!has, Yaska's Nirukta and P~'s A~!adhya.yI. However, it is clear that many of the formal conceptions have an informal and prescientific ancestry which goes way back before the emergence of the formal literature on Sanskrit grammar, phonetics, and etymology. To trace this prescientific and pre-formal ancestry of morphological conceptions, one needs to carefully search through the Vedic literature. Secondly, one must recognize that conceptions relating to language and linguistic units are simply a special case of some other generic philosophical, magical, and religious conceptions, and thus linguistic conceptions need to be understood in relation to this wider context. In this connection, especially significant are the wider conceptions regarding the relationship between parts and wholes, as well as original and transformed states of entities. We shall begin our quest with such pre-formal and pre-scientific materials .
