A Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners

by F. Max Müller

Müller's Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners is a classic text which offers the English-speaking reader a simple introduction to this most important of Indo-European languages. This edition contains a chapter on syntax and an appendix on classical Sanskrit metres. As Sir William Jones remarked way back in 1786, 'The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung form some common source.' Sir Friedrich Max Müller was the first Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford.

212 pages, Paperback

Published May 19, 2008

About the author

Friedrich Max Müller, K.M. (Ph.D., Philology, Leipzig University, 1843)—generally known as Max Müller or F. Max Müller—was the first Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford University, and an Orientalist who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology and the Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations, was prepared under his direction.

Müller became a naturalized British citizen in 1855. In 1869, he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres as a foreign correspondent. He was awarded the Pour le Mérite (civil class) in 1874, and the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art the following year. In 1888, he was appointed Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, delivering the first in what has proved to be an ongoing, annual series of lectures at several Scottish universities to the present day. He was appointed a member of the Privy Council in 1896.

His wife, Georgina Adelaide Müller was also an author. After Max's death, she deposited his papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Reviews

[ꦧꦺꦴꦝ꧀ꦱꦸꦂꦪ · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as quality of the lessons, this is a five star book. Sadly it reads less like a book titled "Sanskrit Grammar for Beginners" and more like "Sanskrit Grammar for People who Speak Sanskrit." The book is often difficult to understand and if you really want to learn Sanskrit grammar there is probably better books. This book's great use is actually as a record and reference to a student of Sanskrit since it has almost all the grammar would need.