Pingala

Acharya Pingala^[2] (Sanskrit: पिङ्गल, romanized: Piṅgala; c. 3rd–2nd century BCE)^[1] was an ancient Indian poet and mathematician,^[3] and the author of the Chhandaḥśāstra (Sanskrit: छन्दःशास्त्र, lit. 'A Treatise on Prosody'), also called the Pingala-sutras (Sanskrit: पिङ्गलसूत्राः, romanized: Piṅgalasūtrāḥ, lit. 'Pingala's Threads of Knowledge'), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody.^[4]

The Chandaḥśāstra is a work of eight chapters in the late Sūtra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to the last few centuries BCE.^[5][6] In the 10th century CE, Halayudha wrote a commentary elaborating on the Chandaḥśāstra. According to some historians Maharshi Pingala was the brother of Pāṇini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian, considered the first descriptive linguist.^[7] Another think tank identifies him as Patanjali, the 2nd century CE scholar who authored Mahabhashya.