A Higher Sanskrit Grammar (AHSG)
Part 0: A classic book by M.R. Kale
I have taken it upon myself to read this quite challenging book that aims to teach Sanskrit grammar. It is written in the older style (it was first published in 1894) of organising each chapter exclusively in points. All in all, there are 972 points across 15 chapters. The edition I have was printed in 2011. Its chapters are:
- The Alphabet
- Rules of Sandhi
- Subanta or Declension of nouns, substantive and adjective
- Pronouns and their Declension
- Numerals and their Declension
- Degrees of Comparison
- Compounds
- Formation of Feminine Bases
- Secondary Nominal Bases derived by the addition of the Taddhita or Secondary Affixes
- Gender
- Avpapas or Indeclinables
- Conjugation of Verbs
- Parasmaipada and Atmanepada
- Verbal Derivatives or Primary Nominal Bases
- Appendix 1: Prosody
- Appendix 2: Dhātukosha
My plan is to make notes summarising what I wish to remember in each point. The notes will contain Devanagari, IAST and IPA, depending on what I find will fit the context best.
What do I aim to do?
- Understand and memorise the grammar of Sanskrit as presented in this book.
- Read Sanskrit texts with some basic proficiency, i.e. follow along with the main argument of a text.
- Write simple Sanskrit sentences.
Why am I doing this?
- I like Sanskrit. I studied it at school at a time when I wasn’t interested and so dropped out of the advanced Sanskrit program. Years later, I began to develop an interest in Sanskrit as I learnt more about its phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax.
- I like learning about ancient Indian history and philosophy. A lot of it is based on Sanskrit or similar languages, so I should be able to understand more of the original source material.
- I like writing in different languages. Sanskrit’s terse structure appeals to me in this regard and so I want to learn well enough to be able to make simple statements.
Why this book?
- It goes in depth and bases its pedagogy on the traditional system, specifically the Indian grammarian Pāṇini’s Aṣhtadhyāyi, which I am interested to learn about.
- I feel I can use this book as a central grammar reference while taking each new concept it teaches as a springboard to explore Sanskrit learning with other resources.
- I bought it and now I have it. Classic sunk cost fallacy if I didn’t have the other reasons.
- It is recommended by many as one of the best resources for learning Sanskrit grammar, such as on learnsanskrit.org.
Expected time & effort:
- I’ve never done this for a book before so I really have no idea. Still, if I had to make an estimate: one chapter is about 536 / 14 = 38 pages approximately. These are very densely packed so one chapter should take me 2 weeks on average.
- 2 weeks x 14 main chapters would mean about 28 weeks. Add to that 4 more weeks as unplanned extra time, so that would make it 32 weeks — or about 8 months. It isn’t a lot. Why do I feel like I am underestimating this in a very big way?
- I plan to use spaced repetition. I’m not too familiar with using Anki but I’ll see if it gives good results.
Since this book mainly teaches grammar, I’ll need to acquire Sanskrit from other sources: those that teach the language as a tool of communication rather than as an object of study. Some that I’ve checked out and seem quite good are:
Changelog:
originally written on 26 October 2023
