A Grammar of The Sanskrit Language

Franz Kielhorn, an uncontested master in the field of Indian linguistic sciences, published in 1870, i. e. exactly hundred years ago, the first edition of his famous grammar of ‘d-al Sanskrit. Based on his critical studies of Indian grammar, transferred in this work the linguistic data from of the Vaiyakaranas directly into the frame of our modern descriptive grammar.

For many year the work has been sold out.

As this ok as mo authorative grammar of classical Sanskrit in English is indispensable for Sanskrit studies (the German version being re-published in 1965 in Germany), its reprint was urgently needed.

Now, that Kielhorn’s Grammar is here again offered to the public our thanks are due to the Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series office for having made it available.

The present grammar, which is published at the request and patronage of Mr. J. B. Peile, the Director of Public in this Presidency, is intended principally for Indian students. It contains as much of the Sanskrit accidence as is necessary for the ordinary B. A. examination. Those who look I refer to the Siddbânta-Kaumudi and other indigenous works on grammar, without a careful study of which a scholar like of the Sanskrit language appears to me unattainable.

My chief aim in composing this grammar has been correctness, and to attain this object I have considered it the safest plan not to give any rules nor to put down any forms without the authority of the best native grammarians. I trust I may not appear presumptuous in maintaining that’ this has not always been an easy Task, and that in many cases much patient labour and weighing Arguments had to be gone through before a certain form could, the best possible authority, either be accepted as correct r rejected as incorrect. The result of my labour is before the public; and having done my best, I shall be grateful to every one who will take the trouble to point out to me any errors which insufficient care or reading or want of judgment has allowed me o pass unnoticed.

On the arrangement of my grammar only few words need be id here. I have considered it necessary to separate the roots of the tenth class from those of the other nine classes, and to treat of them under the head of derivative verbal bas4s. Most scholars will, I hope, approve of this change. Nor will they, I trust, object to the introduction of the Subjunctive mood in § 2 l8 That the terms Rudical Aorist and S-Aorist will be generally approved of I feel less assured, and I shall be ready to give up the S-Aorist for any better or more scientific term that may be suggested to me.* To introduce into a Sanskrit grammar the expressions First and Second Aorist at a time when the best Greek grammars try to get rid of them, appears to me little advisable; and I cannot see the appropriateness of the terms Simple and Compound Aorist when it is far from certain that the letter s, which is employed in the formation of the four last varieties of the Aorist, is really the remainder of the root as ‘to be’.

In the third edition of this grammar I have drawn more pro’ minently attention to the insertion of the intermediate i, and have introduced the very convenient terms anit and set. I have also added a chapter on syntax which, like the rest of my grammar, is based on the rules of the native grammarians.

This fourth edition is a revised reprint of the third. For the publication of it I am indebted to the Proprietor of a Press which has many claims on the gratitude of both Indian and European scholars.