Paniniya Shiksha: The Vedic Shikhsa

Paniniya Shiksha is one of the popular 72 Vedic Shiksha. Shiksha is a Sanskrit word that refers to "teaching, lesson, study, and skill learning." Shiksha is the discipline of Vedic sound research that focuses on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, emphasis, quantity, stress, melody, and the laws of euphonic word combination during a Vedic recitation.

Shiksha (Science of Phonetics), Vyakarana (Science of Grammar), Chandas (Science of Meters), Nirukta (Science of Etymology), Jyotisha (Science of Movement of Cosmic Bodies), and Kalpa are the six limbs that help in the study of Vedas (methodology of performing rituals).

The Shiksha, for example, goes into great length regarding each and every sound in the Sanskrit language, its origin and the effort necessary in pronunciation, the intricacies of effective pronunciation, numerous flaws that may develop during the speech, and so on. The goal of Shiksha is to ensure that the Vedic sounds are passed down through generations in their original, pristine form, with no alterations.

There are several works on Shiksha written by various Sages, including Yajnyavalkya, Parasharya, Vaasishtha, and others. The most well-known is the Paniniya Shiksha, which is attributed to Panini. It is a short text of 60 verses that explains the fundamentals of phonetics.

Paniniya Shiksha describes the process of speech production involving both the mental and the physical faculties.