Which one among the following is the earliest text?

Correct — C, Ashtadhyayi. Panini's grammar of Sanskrit is conventionally placed in the fifth or fourth century BCE, and no serious dating puts it later. That makes it earlier than the other three as they survive. The Natyashastra attributed to Bharata is usually dated between about the second century BCE and the second century CE. The Manusmriti is placed in roughly the same window, about the second century BCE to the second century CE. The Sushruta Samhita is the trickiest of the four, because a core of surgical knowledge attributed to Sushruta may well be old, but the text we actually have was substantially redacted later — the standard recension is associated with Nagarjuna and is generally dated to the early centuries CE. On any of these datings the Ashtadhyayi comes first. A useful cross-check is that Patanjali's Mahabhashya, itself of about the second century BCE, is a commentary on Panini — a text old enough to have attracted a major commentary by then must be older still.

• (a)Natyashastra of Bharata — The foundational treatise on drama, dance and music, but later than Panini — usually placed between about 200 BCE and 200 CE.
• (b)Sushruta Samhita — The great surgical compendium. Its core tradition may be early, but the surviving text is a later redaction of the early centuries CE, not a fourth-century-BCE work.
• (d)Manusmriti — The best known of the Dharmashastras, dated to roughly 200 BCE–200 CE. Later than the Ashtadhyayi by a comfortable margin.

The Ashtadhyayi — literally 'eight chapters' — is Panini's grammar of Sanskrit, built from just under four thousand sutras of extreme compression. It does not merely describe the language; it generates it, deriving correct forms from roots and affixes by ordered rules, with conventions for rule conflict that modern linguists compare to formal systems. It fixed classical Sanskrit so firmly that the language changed very little afterwards, and it is the reason we speak of 'Panini's Sanskrit' as a standard.

Chronology questions in Indian history are rarely about precise dates, because most of these texts cannot be dated precisely. They are about relative order, and about knowing which datings are secure. Panini is one of the few fixed points: fifth to fourth century BCE, tied down partly by the commentarial chain that grew around him — Katyayana's varttikas, then Patanjali's Mahabhashya of about the second century BCE. The other three options all fall in the loose 200 BCE to 200 CE band that so much Sanskrit literature occupies, so once you place Panini before that band the question resolves without needing exact dates for any of them. The trap is the Sushruta Samhita, where the antiquity of the medical tradition tempts you to date the book to match; the distinction between an old tradition and the later text that records it is worth carrying into other questions too.

• Panini's Ashtadhyayi is dated to the fifth or fourth century BCE and contains just under 4,000 sutras.
• Katyayana wrote varttikas — critical notes — on Panini, and Patanjali's Mahabhashya of about the second century BCE is a commentary on both.
• The Natyashastra attributed to Bharata is generally placed between about 200 BCE and 200 CE.
• The Manusmriti belongs to roughly the same 200 BCE–200 CE window and is the best known Dharmashastra.
• The surviving Sushruta Samhita is a later redaction of the early centuries CE, even though the surgical tradition it records may be considerably older.

• Dating the Sushruta Samhita to the antiquity of Indian surgery rather than to the surviving redaction.
• Assuming a grammar must post-date the literature it describes — the Ashtadhyayi is older than most classical Sanskrit texts.
• Confusing Patanjali the grammarian, author of the Mahabhashya, with the Patanjali of the Yoga Sutras.

As a chronological-order or earliest/latest item across four well-known Sanskrit works, or as an author-to-text match. Panini and Patanjali recur constantly.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Patanjali's Mahabhashya is a commentary on the work of which one of the following?

  • (a)Bharata
  • (b)Panini
  • (c)Sushruta
  • (d)Kautilya

  Answer(b) Panini — the Mahabhashya, of about the second century BCE, comments on the Ashtadhyayi and on Katyayana's varttikas upon it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ashtadhyayi of Panini is a foundational work in which one of the following fields?

  • (a)Dramaturgy
  • (b)Medicine
  • (c)Grammar
  • (d)Statecraft

  Answer(c) Grammar — it is a rule-governed grammar of Sanskrit in just under 4,000 sutras, and it fixed the classical form of the language.