This paperback edition of the 1927 text supplies a complete account of classical sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India. After a brief history of sanskrit grammar and a chart of the Devanagari letters, Macdonell, former Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University provides chapters on alphabet, declension, conjugation, indeclinable words, nominal stem formation, and syntax.

The two great epics of (old) India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are written in a language, which differs from so-called classical Sanskrit in many details. Both texts still are of an enormous importance in India and other countries. Because of this, a grammar describing all the different characteristics of epic Sanskrit has been missed until now. The Grammar of Epic Sanskrit will now close this gap.

This book is the revision of the book "Sanskrit Grammar for Vedanta Students." This series provides basic Sanskrit grammar which is sufficient to allow the student to read slokas and commentaries on Bhagavad Gita. I changed the title to "Enjoyable Sanskrit Grammar" because the more I teach the more I find that the impediment in learning Sanskrit is not intellectual, but psychological. As repeatedly emphasized by my respected guru, Sri Pujya Svami Dayananda Sarasvati, it is important to be relaxed and make the study enjoyable. In this book the presentation of the topics is based purely on the tradition, but at the same time I have tried to make it easily understandable by the student in the modern scheme. Throughout this series of grammar books, the knowledge of Sanskrit grammar is presented for understanding, rather than just memorizing. Only when the grammar and Panini's system to explain the grammar are understood, can one fully enjoy the language and the knowledge given through it. This series of books is therefore useful not only for students of scriptures in Sanskrit, but also for those who just want to gain an overview of the linguistics aspect of the Sanskrit language.

This book is designed to serve as a convenient quick-reference guide to the grammar of classical sanskrit, for the use of university students and others. It is not intended to be a complete grammar of the language.

This monograph owes its existence to certain puzzles in universal grammar and the theory of language which led the author to an investigation of word order in Sanskrit and its possible analyses and descriptions. Not unexpectedly, the raw material was found to be too vast for a first-hand treatment even to be attempted. Rather surprisingly, however, its inter pretations by Indian and Western theorists and grammarians turned out to be so greatly at variance, that an analysis of these interpretations seemed rewarding. Accordingly, theoretical issues within the framework of generative grammar had to be faced anew, and alternative solutions suggested them selves. In this connexion the Sanskrit grammarians proved not only in spiring but positively helpful. This book may invite the accusation that it wilfully mixes disciplines. There were alternatives: one could try to write a history of the subject; or construct a merely formal edifice, leaving it to others to test its adequacy; or else one could make the notorious attempt to stick to the facts, which is not only unilluminating but also bound to fail. Any such self-imposed restrictions seemed to conflict with the original intent. And so it was decided not only to make available the results of the investigation into Sanskrit word order, but also to introduce a theory of universal grammar to account for these and other results.

The work is intended especially as a supplement to the author's Sanskrit Grammar giving a fullness of detail that was not there practicable, nor admissible as part of the grammar itself, all the quotable roots of the language, with the tense and conjugation-systems made from them and with the noun and adjective (infinitival and participial) formation that attach themselves most closely to the verb and further with the other derivative noun and adjective-stems usually classed as primary. Everything given is dated with such accuracy as the information thus far in hand allows. In the indexes of stems given at the end of the volume, a classification is adopted which is intended to facilitate the historical comprehension of the language, by distinguishing what belongs respectively to its older and to its later periods from that which forms a part of it through the whole history.