» See Panis for the Rigvedic race of demons. Pani 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 ancestor of Panis, and the other story is that a king of Kalinga conferred the title Pani to Brahmins who could easily memorize all of the Vedas. Some Panis migrated inland to the tribal areas of Jharkhand and settled during the Mughal period (17th century). (The migran… (More on Pani)