Pingala is the traditional name of the author of the Chandahsastra (also Chandahsutra), the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on prosody. Nothing is known about Pingala himself. In Indian literary tradition, he is variously identified either as the younger brother of Panini (4th century BCE), or as Patanjali, the author of the Mahabhashya (2nd century BCE). The chandahsastra is a work of eight chapters in the late Sutra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to either the final centuries BCE or the early centuries CE, at the transition between Vedic meter and the classical meter of the Sanskrit epics. This would place it close to the beginning of the Common Era, likely post-dating Mauryan times. The 10th century mathematician Halayudha wrote a commentary on the chandahsastra and expanded it.
