A pandit is a scholar learned in Sanskrit and in the classical disciplines, and the title marks learning and mastery of a tradition of knowledge rather than any priestly office.
Master of the disciplines
The pandit is versed in Sanskrit and in the classical sciences, grammar, logic, ritual, law, astrology and the interpretation of the scriptures, and the title recognises deep learning in these fields, so that a pandit is an authority of scholarship whose standing rests on knowledge. The office is not in itself priestly, though many pandits also serve as priests or ritual specialists, and its core is the mastery and transmission of the classical learning, whether in traditional instruction, in the interpretation of texts, or in the counsel that learning commands.
Learning and its transmission
The status is achieved through long study, traditionally in the household of a teacher or in the centres of Sanskrit learning, and it is recognised by the scholarly community and by those who seek the pandit knowledge, so it is an attainment rather than an appointment. The word has passed into wider use, in English as a term for an expert commentator and in modern India as a common honorific, but its proper sense is the deeply learned master of the classical Hindu disciplines. The pandit represents the scholarly tradition of Hinduism, the keeper and interpreter of its texts and sciences, an office of knowledge that stands beside, and often overlaps with, the ritual offices of the priesthood.