The 27-year-old accomplished the feat by decoding a rule taught by “the father of linguistics,” Pāṇini. The discovery makes it possible to “derive” any Sanskrit word – constructing millions of grammatically correct words including “mantra” and “guru” – using Pāṇini’s famous “language machine.” Pāṇini’s system — which includes 4,000 rules detailed in his greatest work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī — was written around 500 BC. Linguists say it works like a machine. Feed in the base and suffix of a word and it should turn them into grammatically correct words and sentences through a step-by-step process. Until now, however, there has been...