Pāṇini (Devanagari: पाणिनि, pronounced [paːɳɪnɪ]) was a Sanskrit philologist, grammarian, and revered scholar in ancient India, variously dated between the 6th and 4th century BCE.

Since the discovery and publication of his work by European scholars in the nineteenth century, Pāṇini has been considered the “first descriptive linguist”, and even labelled as “the father of linguistics”.Pāṇini’s grammar was influential on such foundational linguists as Ferdinand de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.