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Sanskrit Readers
followed by selections from the Black Yajurveda and various Brāhmanas, and a couple selections from the Grhya Sūtras. All selections are in devanāgari script. A glossary containing all words is included, with the entries in roman transliteration. Also included are extensive grammatical notes.
Gonda's Sanskrit Reader is long out-of-print, and perhaps never gained widespread use because its selections are all in roman transliteration rather than devanāgari. It also contains a complete glossary, but only two pages of grammatical notes. Nonetheless, its selections, thirteen from the Mahābhārata and four from the Purāņas, are of much interest, and would make excellent choices for "rapid reading" (see above).
While the Besant/Das ed. Bhagavad Gitā is not a Sanskrit reader per se, we have found no better text for a second-year reader. All agree that the Bhagavad Gitā is an excellent choice for second-year, but many teachers object to using an edition which includes English translation, and even word-by-word meanings. With the bulk of the student's time put into dictionary look-up, however, little is left for the all-important syntax. A student can end second-year Sanskrit with considerable skill in using the dictionary, which is useful, or with an understanding of how to construe a verse, which is more useful. In both cases they will have studied a vocabulary of some 3000 words. The word-by-word meanings by Bhagavan Das are very carefully done, giving the basic meaning of the word, not necessarily how it was taken in the translation. This saves time-consuming dictionary work. Sanskrit verb-forms, such as participles, are carefully translated by matching English verb-forms. This can help check whether one has understood the Sanskrit verb-form correctly, without spelling it out like in Winthrop Sargeant's edition (which, in any case, is not always accurate). Devanāgari script is used throughout. Full vigraha, or traditional delineation of compounds, is given. This is not found elsewhere, and few Western Sanskrit teachers can accurately generate it. Bhagavan Das was born and raised a Sanskrit pandit in Benares. The order of the words as they occur in the verses is left unchanged in the word-by-word meanings. A disciplined student, using the word meanings given, and with a knowledge of cases and tenses, can
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