Sanskrit [antikvár]

Preface The plan, scope and length of this book have been determined primarily by the aim of enabling students to cope as rapidly as possible with straightforward Classical Sanskrit texts. The material has been drawn almost entirely from the Sanskrit (not Prakrit) prose dialogue of the major dramas, extracted onto cards and then graded according to the main morphological and syntactical features which required explanation. From Chapter 6 onwards all the sentences of the exercises and all the more elaborate examples given in the chapters themselves are taken without change from actual Sanskrit works. While the intention is to provide an introduction to the Classical language in general, because of the nature of the bulk of the material the book is, in the first place, a guide to Sanskrit dramatic prose; and it is probable that I have sometimes incautiously presented as generally valid points of usage which really hold good only of the Classical dramatists. Existing Sanskrit primers tend to be admirably systematic in their presentation of the complicated morphology of Sanskrit (which includes a mass of verb forms little used by most writers) but rather cursory in their treatment of such basic facts of life as the prevalence of nominal constructions and compound formations. The student may get the misleading impression that Classical Sanskrit syntax is very similar to that of Latin and Greek, and emerge well drilled in the varieties of athematic inflexion and yet quite unprepared, for instance, for such simple discoveries as the fact that someone in a play, speaking from the heart, instead of saying 'Thank