Śalātura was the birthplace of the Sanskrit grammarianPāṇini who is considered to the oldest grammarian whose work has come down to modern times. In an inscription of Siladitya VII of Valabhi, he is called Śalāturiya, which means "man from Salatura". This means Pāṇini lived in Salatura of ancient Gandhara, which likely was near modern Lahor, a small town at the junction of the Indus and Kabul Rivers, 20 miles north west of the Attock Bridge. According to the CE 646 book Great Tang Records on the Western Regions of 7th-century Chinese scholar Xuanzang, there was a town called Suoluoduluo on the Indus where Pāṇini was born, and he composed the Qingming-lun. He mentioned that a statue of Panini was in existence there.
Within the city of F'o -lo-tu-lo was a tope where an arhat had converted a disciple of Panini. Five hundred years after the Buddha's decease a great arhat from Kashmir in his travels as an apostle arrived at this place. Here he saw a brahmin teacher chastising a young pupil : in reply to the arhat's question the teacher said he beat the boy for not making progress in etymology. The arhat smiled pleasantly and in explanation said — You must have heard of the treatise on Etymology made by the rishi Panini and given by him to the world for its instruction. The brahmin replied— "He was a native of this city; his disciples admire his excellences, and his image is still here". To this the arhat answered — This boy of yours is that rishi. He added that in his previous existence Panini had devoted all his energies to worldly learning but that from some good Karma he was now the teacher's son.
Panini describes in great detail the local accents used for the names of wells north and south of Vipasha river. He also mentions the Yavanas, which is taken to be Greeks. Prof. Ahmad Hasan Dani, the late Pakistani Sanskritist stated in a letter that the village has shifted and the old village was 3 km to the west of the main road, where there was a big mound in ancient times. The mound has since been levelled down.
Region
The region is well known for ancient remains. The Bakhshali manuscript was found in nearby Bakhshali which is 23 miles. The route passes through Shahbaz Garhi which has an Ashokan inscription. Nearby was the Udhabandhapur or Waihind, the Shahi capital until 1001, which is about 18 miles The language Panini has described came to be regarded as the standard Sanskrit, Panini himself did not use the term. The Kaushitaki Brahmana states that “In the northern direction a more mature language is being spoken. Therefore, people go tothe north to learn speech or they desire to listen to him who comes from that direction”. According to the scholars, Panini was primarily concerned with the north-western dialect of Sanskrit spoken during his period and secondarily with the Vedic language, he did mention other dialects which were spoken in the neighboring regions.
