And this language, Sanskrit, is classified into the vedic and the mundane. Panini has described the vedic Sanskrit as chhandas and the mundane as bhaasha. The vedic Sanskrit is classified further into epic and poetic. The language of the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana is the former, and the language in the poetic-dramas is the latter. The language of the epics and puranas is also known as Middle-age Sanskrit. The language that took a diversion from the language of the Vedas and its shoots grew up, and during the period of the puranas and the epics became the lingua franca. But later on it moved away from the status of a living language and found its place as a dead language, as was Latin.

It was not just Panini alone, but Katyayana and Patanjali too were there, and together they laid the foundations for the development of Sanskrit into a medium for social interaction and for literary creativity.