A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language: With Exercises, Reading Selections, and a Glossary (Asian Studies) [Paperback]

Jan Gonda (Author)

Book Description

Series: Asian Studies | Publication Date: August 1997

A standard course book for students of linguistics.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This corrected reprint of Gonda's Grammar marks the welcome return of a venerable guide for beginners in the study of Sanskrit, and a useful reference work for continuing students, written by a past master of the subject.”-- Sheldon Pollock, George V. Bobrinskoy Distinguished Service Professor of Sanskrit and Indic Studies, University of Chicago

 

“Professor Gonda’s work is undoubtedly among the best for linguists who wish to acquire knowledge of Sanskrit grammar as rapidly as possible.”-- Linguistics: An International Review

 

“It is to be welcomed that this book, now perhaps the most widely used in introductory courses, has been made accessible to students in the United States and Canada.”-- Indo-Iranian Journal

 

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9004007342
• ISBN-13: 978-9004007345
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,568,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic initial Sanskrit grammar, August 3, 2000

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language (Paperback)

The classic Sanskrit grammar is, of course, Whitney. It, however, includes Vedic Sanskrit and very rare forms. Jan Gonda provides a basic, understandable grammar that covers everything a first year student needs to know. His straight-forward style also makes this volume useful for Indo-European historical linguistics classes where the intent is to understand the basic structures of the "Indo" branch. In short, I recommend this highly as a starting point.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful - but not for self-study, May 11, 2006

By 

Professor - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language (Paperback)

The book is exactly what the title indicates, concise and elementary. It is a great book to use in a class, with a teacher who can explain what it all means. It is not at all suitable for self-study. If you want to learn Sanskrit on your own, try Coulson's Teach Yourself Sanskrit.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible, January 26, 2003

By 

Ljubomir Prskalovic (Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Concise Elementary Grammar of the Sanskrit Language (Paperback)

First the good points: First few pages, dealing with the script, are rather good and clear in presentation. Those pages, that can be seen scanned on the site, attracted me to buy this book.

Now, the bad points: All the rest of the book. Instead of clear explanations and tabular presentation of noun declensions and verb conjugations, that I somehow expected to get, all there are are pages after pages of obscure paragraphs more meant to confuse than to explain.

Let us look at Page 43, Conjugation, § 57. Preliminary remarks, II, which is supposed to explain Sanskrit moods and tenses:
"The moods are: indicative, optative, imperative; only the present has three moods, the remaining tenses only the indicative; the infrequent precative is, however, a kind of aorist optative. The tenses are: present and imperfect, which form the present system with opt. and pres.imp., future, the rare conditional, aorist, perfect."

Precative? aorist optative? pres.imp.? And it gets worse and worse.

I really cannot recommend this book. I wasted my money and time on it. Instead I recommend "Introduction to Sanskrit" by Thomas Egenes. It is a very user-friendly book that can actually teach you something about Sanskrit.