Shaunaka (a patronym of Shunaka "little dog", the name of a Rishi) is the name applied to teachers, and to a Shakha of the Atharvaveda. It is especially the name of a celebrated Sanskrit grammarian, author of the Rigveda-Pratishakya, the Bṛihad-devatā, the Caraṇa-vyūha and other works. He is claimed as the teacher of Katyayana and especially of Ashvalayana, and is said to have united the Bashkala and Shakala Shakhas of the Rigveda. In legend, he is sometimes identified with Gritsamada, a Vedic Rishi. According to the Vishnu Purana, Shaunaka was the son of Gritsamada, and invented the system of the four Hindu castes. In Hinduism, a Rishi () is a sage and/or seer who heard (cf. ... Shakha (IAST ), literally branch or limb, is the Sanskrit term for a recension or version of Vedic texts according to a particular school. ... The Atharva Veda is a sacred text of Hinduism, part of the four books of the Vedas. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम्) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... Katyayana was probably a priest who lived in India around 200 BC. Like Baudhayana, he composed Shulba Sutra, or sacred mathematical texts. ... The Rigveda (Sanskrit: , a tatpurusha compound of praise, verse and knowledge) is a collection of hymns (, plural ) counted among the four Hindu religious texts known as the s, and contains the oldest texts preserved in any Indo-Iranian language. ... The Vishnu Purana is one of the oldest of the Puranas (dating to maybe the 5th century), containing some 23,000 shlokas, presented as a dialogue between Parasara with his disciple Maitreya. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

References

• Monier-Williams