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and then by Patañjali, the exponent of Kātyāyana who lived in the second century B. C. It was carried to perfection by the stalwart grammarian Bhartṛhari of the seventh century A. D. Later grammarians, prominent among whom were Jayāditya, Vāmana, Kaiyaṭa, Haradatta, Bhaṭṭojī, Koṇḍabhaṭṭa and Nāgeśa, developed by their substantial contributions, the work of Pāṇini as a science to such an extent that the number of smaller and greater works well nigh rose to eight hundred and that of the authors to four hundred. The grammar of Pāṇini, which is looked upon as the standard one at present gives about a hundred technical terms, more than two hundred suffixes, about two thousand primary roots and more than five thousand special words arranged in more than two hundred and fifty classes according to the special grammatical peculiarities shown by each class. The number of independent primary words, besides these five thousand special words, if roughly estimated, may exceed even twenty-five thousand. Besides these primary roots, primary nouns, affixes and technical terms in the different Shastras, there is a vast number of secondary roots and secondary nouns, which is rather impossible even to be approximately determined.
- Nature and Scope of this Dictionary
The preparation of a comprehensive dictionary of Sanskrit Grammar, a subject which has been developed fully by Sanskrit Grammarians for the last two thousand years, is certainly a stupendous work which can only be done by a band of grammarians who have got a sound footing in the subject. In the light of what has been said above, the present dictionary is only an honest and humble attempt in that direction made by the compiler who was inspired to undertake this rather arduous venture by his close study of the subject for more than sixty years according to the traditional method of the East, combined with the critical and comparative method of the West. As the work was done single-handed, and finished within a limited time with a view to making it available to students and scholars of Sanskrit at as early a date as possible, the number of books consulted was a limited one. The number of entries is more than four thousand out of which the important ones are in the form of short articles supplying very briefly the necessary information from the different sources with quotations from or references to the original works. All the standard works in grammar have been carefully consulted including the available Prātiśākhya works, the Mahābhāṣya, the Kāśikā, the Vākyapadīya, the Siddhānta-Kaumudi and others. The Kātantra, the Śākatāyana, the Jainendra, the Haima and other grammars, as also the different Paribhāṣa works have been consulted at important places. Minor works and commentaries are not consulted as the important words and topics occurring therein have been mostly included here on account of their occurrence in the major works. Attention is, of course, paid to grammatical importance and significance, and only such such words and such senses of them as have a grammatical significance, have been included in the present dictionary along with affixes, augments, substitutes and technical terms mostly given
