The study of the Sanskrit grammarians, and in particular of Pänini, has been regarded for almost a century as a hyperspecialist occupation. Only the specialists of vyäkarana ('grammar') among specialists of Sanskrit philology were considered capable of arriving at an understanding of the difficult texts of the Indian grammatical tradition. Pänini was accordingly treated even by linguists as an object of Indological investigation, not as a deceased colleague of great genius. This view has not always been predominant, however, and today, for reasons that will be sketched here, it is once again beginning to change. It is now generally recognized that Pänini, despite his exclusive preoccupation with Sanskrit, was the greatest linguist of antiquity, if not of all time, and deserves to be treated as such. Accordingly, linguists, dissatisfied with mere lip service, are beginning to turn to him and to the Sanskrit grammarians, just as logicians turn to Aristotle. But the difficulties awaiting them are still formidable. Pänini's insights about language are disguised in his metalinguistic analysis of Sanskrit in Sanskrit, which presupposes some familiarity with the complexities of the Sanskrit language. Also, the arguments and patterns of reasoning of Pänini, Patañjali, and many later grammarians are no less compact, precise, and profound than those of Aristotle. In addition, neither is Sanskrit as familiar as Greek, nor are notions in contemporary linguistics derived from Pänini in the way many notions in modern logic are derived from Aristotle.