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The Pāṇinian commentator Kātyāyana (c. 3rd–4th century BCE) knew of the coexistence of Middle Indic forms with earlier ones. There is a Pāṇinian rule that provides that verb bases listed in an appendix to the Aṣṭādhyāyī have the class name dhātu (verbal base, root). Kātyāyana discusses whether one could define verbal bases semantically and thereby possibly do without the verb list. He remarks that even if one defines a verbal base as denoting an action, the roots must be listed in order to preclude the possibility that constituents of terms such as āṇapayati/āṇavayati ‘commands' be assigned the class name in question; āṇapayati/āṇavayati is a Middle Indic counterpart of Sanskrit ājñāpayati.