Re-evaluating anubandha selection in the Śivasūtras: A functional–phonological justification

The fourteen Śivasūtra s of Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī organize the phonological inventory of Sanskrit through ordered phoneme sequences marked by thirteen mute consonants ( anubandhas : Ṇ, K, Ṅ, C, Ṭ, M, Ñ, Ṣ, Ś, V, Y, R, L ), enabling the formation of pratyāhāras —compressed representations of phonological classes that underlie the grammar’s derivational rules. While their structural economy has been noted in modern graph–theoretic and set–theoretic treatments, the principles governing the selection and exclusion of specific anubandha s remain insufficiently explained. This study proposes a functional-phonological account of the anubandha inventory by examining patterns of feature contrast, sonority hierarchy, articulatory ease, morphophonemic stability, and pratyāhāra economy. In most cases, the selected anubandha is typically phonetically distinct from the phoneme set it delimits through contrasts in manner, voicing, place of articulation, or a combination of these features. Sonorant anubandha s—particularly nasals and semivowels—are preferred in many environments because they permit smoother articulation and reduced boundary disruption, whereas stops and fricatives tend to occur in environments involving stronger phonetic demarcation. The study further examines the exclusion of aspirated stops, the glottal/ h /, and dentals, arguing that these omissions reflect concerns of phonological stability, recoverability, and structural economy within the grammatical system. Counterfactual substitutions demonstrate that alternative configurations often reduce the phonological coverage or increase descriptive complexity. By integrating evidence from grammatical usage, phonetic organization, and traditional commentary, the paper argues that the Śivasūtra anubandha s constitute a highly constrained and carefully stabilised metalinguistic system rather than an arbitrary mnemonic arrangement.