Pingala

Acharya Pingala (; c. 3rd2nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian poet and mathematician, and the author of the '' (), also called the Pingala Sutras'' (), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody.

The ' 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. In the 10th century CE, Halayudha wrote a commentary elaborating on the '. According to some historians Maharshi Pingala was the brother of Pāṇini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian, considered the first descriptive linguist. Others identify him as Patanjali, the 2nd century CE scholar who authored Mahabhashya.