Customer Reviews

Scholastic Sanskrit: A Manual for Students (Treasury of the Indic Sciences)

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I had the good fortune to study Sanskrit for several years at an Ivy League University. Unfortunately, I was never able to take a class that involved a great deal of use of the commentaries that seem to accompany all major Sanskrit texts. I would just use them, when I could, to find word divisions, undo sandhi, etc.
Several years ago, I began to try to teach myself the commentatorial style. A former professor told me that the only works he knew of in Western languages on this style were a chapter in Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course (Teach Yourself Language Complete Courses) and a German work, Nominale Ausdrucksformen im wissenschaftlichen Sanskrit - written in - at least to me - an impenetrable style of German, though I am told it is an essential text.
Then I ordered "Scholastic Sanskrit". I can not overemphasize how valuable it has become to me in the few short weeks I have owned it. It serves both as a reference text, and a teaching tool. It explains with example after example all the formulaic expressions that occurr in Sanskrit commentaries, such as ityarthah, -adi, etena...iti, and on and on and on!
The style is completely lucid and seems geared towards those, like myself, who are trying to learn this style without the benefit of a teacher. I have read only about the first 50 pages or so, but, with this text in hand, I am now able to see nuances and meaning in commentaries, where before I had just found frustrating confusion.
The authors recommend using the text in conjuction with the Anubandhas of Panini (Publications of the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit), which I have also found quite helpful.
I am using "Scholastic Sanskrit" along with Panditaraja Jagannatha's Gangalahari: With the commentary by Sri Sadasiva & English translation. This text provides a Sanskrit commentary on the poem with a literal - and thoughtful - English translation. I cannot reccommend either of the books too highly for those trying to learn how to read Sanskrit commentaries without a guru. (I can also thoroughly reccommend the Ramopakhyana - The Story of Rama in the Mahabharata: A Sanskrit Independent-Study Reader )
My only negative comment on the book is that the indexes in the back sometimes provide references that are off by 2-4 pages. A minor point.
Many thanks to the authors for providing such a work!

I actually know people who were waiting many years for this book to come out!

This book covers some basic approaches for reading Sanskrit commentaries. The examples are taken from poetical and philosophical commentaries, but it is stated in the intro that it is beneficial for all commentaries readings.

I found this book incredibly useful - particularly with the "small stuff" -- specific terms and conventions, some Panini rules etc. Although I am far from exhausting this book, I feel it did me an important service in familiarizing myself with commentarial texts.

A paperback cover would be more appropiate for this kind of manual in my view.

While this book contains a lot of great material for those of us studying shastric literature, it is also a endlessly frustrating book. WHy? because the geniuses at Colombia University didn't actually check the pagination against their index. the result is this: reading Nyaayamañjurii, one comes across the term 'ity uktvaa'. One looks it up in Scholastic Sanskrit's index, which notes the term to be treated on page 214. One turns to 214 and finds no mention of 'ity uktvaa'

After paying for this book, I feel like writing professor Tubbs (a wonderful scholar) and aither asking for my money back or asking for a new index.

I expect better from these Ivy League scholars and I expect better for the money.