Pani

Pani

Pāṇi is a surname used in India, found in the state of Orissa. There are two stories how this surname came about. The first one says the great grammar pundit Pāṇini is the descendant of Pāṇis, and the other story is that a king of Kalinga conferred the title Pāṇi to Brahmins who could easily memorize all of the Vedas.

Some Pāṇis migrated inland to the tribal areas of Jharkhand and settled during the Mughal period (17th century). (The migrants' descendants still identify themselves as residents of Orissa.) There are a few Pāṇis from this migratory group in Bengal and in western Orissa.