During the course of some twenty-five years of lecturing on the Veda in the light of comparative grammar I have constantly impressed upon the students the desirability of mastering Sanakrit grammar through the study of Wackernagel's Altindische Grammatik and Macdonell's Vedic Grammar. Of the former work it is not perhape going too far to claim that, in its own particular line, it is a classic, a book of a kind without precedent, which is not likely to be followed by inferior hands, while the latter is the most succinct and reliable summary of all the preceding works on the subject. Unfortunately no good indices have hitherto been made available to these works. The present Dictionary fulfils this demand.

It is a Dictionary primarily of Sanskrit grammar; it records the grammatical tendencies or rules operating in Sanskrit, particularly Vedic, and-illustrates them through vocables cited and discussed by Wackernagel and Macdonell in their respective grammars. Thus, it is not a work of bare words and their derivatives and their meanings, it is a dictionary of grammar working through words that are alive and organic and have been listed here along with their derivatives and their meanings. I have undertaken here to set forth what now appear to me the most essential and best established facts, and what in my present judgment are the most probable views on such grammatical matters as I have thought wise to touch upon. Argumentary discussion is avoided, and references to the views of various scholars, whether those accepted or rejected, are generally omitted. Those can be found in detail, together with copious references to earlier sources, in the two works indexed here; and it is hoped that students will go for fuller discussions of the subject to the original sources including Benfey and Whitney.

Appropriate etymologies are given and necessary cognates are listed in order to make the grammatical point under reference historically clear and thus to stimulate in the minds of the students the spirit of inquiry, investigation and research; for I believe that the mere fact that a student is trying to go beneath the surface to investigate the roots and the foundations of words is in itself of great value for the proper study of the Veda. It is, indeed, such a word, with its intricacies and complex growth cleared up, that can serve as a bridge in the streamland of civilization, which can link up the past with the present and the present with the future-written words, the images and shadows of ideas which give them perpetual life. This task demands skilful engineering, for the banks which are to be connected are not on the same level; and its fulfilment is most essential, if we desire to build up a living, continuous and homogeneous Indian civilization. This bridge between the past and the present must be established; and this can only happen through the power of the holy word, so analyzed.