The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit

Very useful book for me as an Iyengar yoga teacher. It is easy to follow and I feel privileged to be able to learn the sacred language.

I am a Sanskrit teacher who teaches, reads, writes and speaks (yes speak!) Sanskrit on a daily basis. Even though I already knew 99% of the stuff covered in this book, I decided to order it because it looked like a good book. And it is indeed a very good book. The printing and page quality is good. This book is very comprehensive. It covers all the major topics of Sanskrit grammar. I applaud the author for not shying away from technical details. Author has struck a good balance between explaining the concept and technical details without getting too academic. But those very technical details also make this book not a casual read. This book is for serious students only who are willing to put in dedicated effort. This book markets itself as ideal for self-study. I have my doubts about that. Going from getting introduced to Devanagari to being able read and understand Bhagvad Geeta is a tall order for a beginner and though this book provides all the tools necessary to do so, I think a complete novice is going to find it extremely challenging to work through this book. This would be a great book to follow along with a teacher. The author herself provides online classes for that. Anybody who can work through this book is going to be very handsomely rewarded by being able to read and understand classical Sanskrit texts. But I believe that will take couple of years of dedicated effort. This book would be a lot easier to tackle if one has already done Thomas Egenes' book. It is possible to start from this book alone (just be prepared to be challenged). One other important detail about this book is that most of the examples are from proper Sanskrit texts. This is good and bad. Good because ultimately understanding those texts is most people's goal. Bad because when you are learning a new concept, it is best to start with simple examples and those are not very many in this book. That adds a whole another level of challenge for a novice. If your goal is to be able to read and understand classical Sanskrit works then this is a good book. If your goal is to be able to read, write and speak conversational Sanskrit then this not the right book as it is written solely with the goal of making reader understand texts like Bhagvad Geeta which have complex verb forms. I did find a few typos here and there (all in Sanskrit text) - one big one being that some declensions of त्रि (three, masculine) are incorrect. Overall it's an excellent book. A book like this one has been much needed for a while. All other good Sanskrit grammar books (in English) are at least half a century old.

It's a wonderful first book. I've been using it all summer with a mix of teenagers and grownups. The best thing about this book is that it's easy to read. Most Sanskrit manuals written by westerners have a slightly academic/professorial air about them. My previous favorite in this genre, Coulson, is not entirely free of a donnish air. This one's, by and large, pleasantly free of it. So I think this book can also be used by people who learn Sanskrit for non-academic reasons. This book covers more or less the same ground as Coulson except it's newer, friendlier and has some more arrows in its quiver. Besides, it seems the author is experienced in teaching youngsters i.e., school kids, too.Some typical initial obstacles to learning Sanskrit i.e., sandhi (combination of sounds), nominal compounds, the noun and the verb systems are rather well presented. The author is committed to a policy of minimizing rote memorization so the chapters on sandhi appeal to reason and internal logic. But they are written well, going by my experience with some 12 year olds. The treatment of the noun system is exhaustive. As far as nominal compounds are concerned, the discussion includes several quick tips to recognize the type of compound. This is something which even many manuals written in Hindi lack.The verb system is well-written with full cognizance of the type of head scratching verb systems cause in people who know or speak only English or modern Indian languages. It's also written with a view to creating a path of least resistance. Here I think the author's teaching experience is in full view.The strongest parts of this book are the chapters on the verb system. It's systematically presented with a step-wise progression in terms of conjugation type, voice and tense. The review, conjugation and translation exercises at the end of each chapter are quite well selected. Somewhat more advanced topics like aorist, participles of various kinds and handling of numerals are also covered.For me the greatest value of this book is in the illustrations and tables (in grey) peppered throughout the book and occasional remarks on points which cause confusion in the mind of the student or aspects of the language which sound more complicated than they are. There are other useful bits of information like how to use a dictionary too. Readers interested in Sanskrit may be happy to know that this book uses plenty of examples from the first two chapters of Gita to illustrate usage and grammar. In summary, I think the book can be used by a teacher and a committed student alike.Also, the icing on the cake is the supplementary resources available on-line.If I have one regret about my purchase, it's that I didn't go for the hardcover edition.