Description
This book of Sanskrit has been prepared under instructions from Sir A. Grant, Director of Public Instruction. Its plan is nearly the same as that of the First Book, which the student is supposed to have read and mastered. Each lesson consists of four parts? 1st, Grammar; 2nd, Sanskrit sentences for translation into English; 3rd, English sentences for translation into Sanskrit? both intended to exercise the student in the rules of Grammar given at the top of the Lesson; and 4th, a Vocabulary. This and the First Book together contain as much Grammar as is needed for all practical purposes, perhaps more. The author has adopted the terminology of the English Grammarians of Sanskrit, but have strictly followed Panini, as explained by Bhattoji Dikshita in his Siddhantakaumudi. Most of the rules are mere translations of the Sutras. Words adapted to express a particular meaning are as necessary here as in other affairs of human life. The general rules of Grammar, and such exceptions as are important, have been given in this book; those of the least importance only being omitted. Grammar was not an empiric study with Panini and the other ancient grammarians of India. Those great sages observed carefully the facts of their language and endeavoured always to connect them together by a law or rule and to bring these laws again under still more general laws. Sanskrit Grammar has thus become a science at their hands, and its study possesses an educational value of the same kind as that of Euclid and not much inferior to it in degree.
