Selected Bibliography with Annotations

Author(s): Eastern School
Publisher: Eastern School

Page 9

Sanskrit Language Study A Sanskrit Manual for High Schools, by R. Antoine. 2 vols. Calcutta: Xavier Publications, 1953, etc. Sanskrit: An Introduction to the Classical Language, by Michael Coulson. New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1976 (Teach Yourself Books: Hodder and Stoughton). Sanskrit Sandhi and Exercises, by M. B. Emeneau and B. A. van Nooten. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1952; 2nd rev. ed. 1968.
For several decades Sanskrit instruction in American universities meant the “Perry-Whitney-Lanman method,” i.e., A Sanskrit Primer, by Edward Delavan Perry (1885, 1913, 1936), Sanskrit Grammar, by William Dwight Whitney (see below), and A Sanskrit Reader, by Charles Rockwell Lanman (see below). The serious drawbacks of this system are well-known to all of us who experienced it, and are a major contributing factor to the appalling rate of attrition among first-year Sanskrit students. The Devavāņipraveśikā, written by University of California (Berkeley) teachers Robert Goldman and Sally Sutherland after extensive work in India, has now thankfully replaced Perry's Sanskrit Primer at most American universities. It is designed for the first two quarters of a three quarter school year. The Devavāṇīpraveśikā is written for today's students, so cannot and does not assume any previous foreign language study, as did the Perry-Whitney-Lanman method with its reliance on analogy to Greek and Latin. It utilizes the traditional Sanskrit grammatical terminology, because as stated by Goldman, “... there seems to me to be no reason whatever to abandon the precise and sophisticated terminology of the Indian grammarians for the poorly adapted and often simply misleading terminology of classical grammars." This also offers the advantage of facilitating interface with native grammars, etc. Besides utilizing traditional terminology, it also retains traditional grammatical classifications, such as the ten verb ganas used by Pāṇini, which Whitney had reduced to eight. Another feature is the citing of paradigms in the traditional Indian manner, in which they have been learned and recited for ages. The lessons clearly explain the inner workings of compounds, and their vigraha, or traditional analysis, is illustrated. The