INDIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS’ Linguistic Series— i LINGUISTIC INTRODUCTION TO SANSKRIT BY BATAKRISHNA GHOSH Dr. Phil. (Munich), D. Lat. (Paris), Membre de la Socitit Asiatique de Parte, Lecturer, University of Caloutta, PUBLISHED BY SATIS CHANDRA SEAL, M.A., B.L. Hony. General Secretary THE INDIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE 170, MANIKTALA STREET CALCUTTA 1937 Indian Price Rs. 5-1 [ Foreign Price Sh, §/-PREFACE In the following little book I have tried to present as clearly as possible what! think our University students can and should know of Vedic Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, and in this venture | have been largely guided by my teach- ing experience at the Universities of Dacca and Calcutta. At present in India the mediaeval commentaries are taught in the name of the Vedas and hardly any attention is paid to the texts themselves. The students leaving the Univer- sity therefore usually go away with the idea that the Vedic Rsis were either ignorant of grammar or did not care to follow its rules, | have tried to show in this book how much more complex than Panini’s was the grammar followed by the Rsis, and how much we have to depend ‘on the evidence of other cognate languages for an ade- quate comprehension of the forms and structure of the Vedic language. Students of Comparative Philology will find in this book, | hope, a dependable guide to the science through the medium of the Sanskrit language. If the twentieth century has brought any new idea to the science of linguistics, it is, | believe, that language is not ‘a mere vocal substitute for ink and paper to communicate to others our thoughts and sensations. Language, we are beginning to realise, is above all a picture of the mind, and its ways are determined more by phonetic /imitations than by phonetic Jaws. Within the boundaries set by these limitations the mind acts asa free agent, and language is