पृष्ठम्:Laghu paniniyam vol1.djvu/९

PREFACE.
classical Sanskrit literature. My experience as a Sans-
krit teacher and examiner has convinced me that neither
the traditional curriculum for the non-grammarian, nor
the modern scheme of graduated readers, furnishes this
equipment. Further, a knowledge of Sanskrit, that is
independent of an understanding of one of the most
characteristic forms of Sanskrit literary and scientific
expression and of the system of "notation" adopted in
the Sutra style, is, in my humble view, apt to give a very
inadequate idea of the power, range and genius of the
language. It is true that Panini who remains now, as
in the ancient times, without a peer, as a grammarian,
by the very perfection of his aphorisms and their com-
prehensiveness, created difficulties for their understand-
ing by any one not blessed with the requisite leisure and
ascetic inclinations to engage on the arduous study of
his eight chapters (Ashtadhyayi), and that the great
commentators, like Patanjali, the Vartika-kara and the
author of the Kasika, have added to the difficulties of the
study by clouding the meaning of Panini, in a very mist
of words. Nevertheless, it has always struck me, that,
if it were possible to prepare an elementary grammar,
in Sanskrit itself, on the basis of Panini's unmatched
aphorisms, simplifying his principles and interpreting
them in accordance with modern tendencies, so as to
form an introduction to Panini, and to the ordinary clas-
sical literature generally, the attempt would be worth
making. Strengthened by this conviction, which kept
growing on me since 1895 when I was Principal of His
Highness the Maharaja's Sanskrit College, Trivandram,
I published a very elementary treatise on these lines,