Shiva Sutras

1. a i u Ṇ
2. ṛ ḷ K
3. e o Ṅ
4. ai au C
5. ha ya va ra Ṭ
6. la Ṇ
7. ña ma ṅa ṇa na M
8. jha bha Ñ
9. gha ḍha dha Ṣ
10. ja ba ga ḍa da Ś
11. kha pha cha ṭha tha ca ṭa ta V
12. ka pa Y
13. śa ṣa sa R
14. ha L

Each verse consists of a group of basic Sanskrit phonemes (i.e. open syllables consisting either of initial vowels or consonants followed by the basic vowel "a") followed by a single 'dummy letter', or anubandha, conventionally rendered in upper case and named 'IT' by Pāṇini.

The following table shows the Shiva Sutras in Devanāgarī Script and their transliteration into the well-used transliteration scheme of Indic characters by Latin scripts viz. ISO 15919, ITRANS, and IPA.

This allows Pāṇini to refer to groups of phonemes with pratyāhāras, which consist of a phoneme-letter and an anubandha (and often the vowel a to aid pronunciation) and signify all of the intervening phonemes. Pratyāhāras are thus single syllables, but they can be declined (see Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77 below). Hence the pratyāhāra aL refers to all phonemes (because it consists of the first phoneme of the first verse (a) and the last anubandha of the last verse (L)); aC refers to vowels (i.e., all of the phonemes before the anubandha C: i.e. a i u ṛ ḷ e o ai au); haL to consonants, and so on.

As an example, consider Aṣṭādhyāyī 6.1.77: iKaḥ yaṆ aCi:^[3]

• iK means i u ṛ ḷ,
• iKaḥ is iK in the genitive case, so it means ' in place of i u ṛ ḷ;
• yaṆ means the semivowels y v r l and is in the nominative, so iKaḥ yaṆ means: y v r l replace i u ṛ ḷ.
• aC means all vowels, as noted above
• aCi is in the locative case, so it means before any vowel.

Hence this rule replaces a vowel with its corresponding semivowel when followed by any vowel, and that is why dadhi together with atra makes dadhyatra. To apply this rule correctly we must be aware of some of the other rules of the grammar, such as:

• 1.1.49 ṣaṣṭhī sthāneyogā which says that the genitive case in a sutra signifies "in the place of"^[4]
• 1.1.50 sthāne 'ntaratamaḥ which says that in a substitution, the element in the substitute series that most closely resembles the letter to be substituted should be used (e.g. y for i, r for ṛ etc.)^[5]
• 1.1.71 ādir antyena sahetā which says that a sequence with an element at the beginning (e.g. i) and an IT letter (e.g. K) at the end stands for the intervening letters (i.e. i u ṛ ḷ, because the Akṣarasamāmnāya sutras read i u ṛ ḷ K).^[6]

Also, rules can be debarred by other rules:

• 6.1.101 aKaḥ savarṇe dīrghaḥ ^[7] teaches that vowels (from the aK pratyāhāra) of the same quality come together to make a long vowel, so for instance dadhi and indraḥ make dadhīndraḥ, not *dadhyindraḥ. This aKaḥ savarṇe dīrghaḥ rule takes precedence over the general iKaḥ yaṆ aCi rule mentioned above, because this rule is more specific.

Despite the possible combinations seen above, here are the 41 pratyāhāras in actual use by Pāṇini:^[8]

• Generative grammar
• Aṣṭādhyāyī
• Pāṇini
• Sanskrit grammar

Organization of sounds in other languages

• Alphabet song
• Iroha, a Japanese pangram
• Thousand Character Classic, a Chinese mnemonic traditionally popular in Korea