A practical Vedic grammar has long been a desideratum. It is one of the chief aids to the study of the hymns of the Veda. Many years ago in the preface to his edition of the Rigveda Max Muller said, 'I doubt not that the time will come when no one in India will call himself a Sanskrit scholar who cannot construe the hymns of the ancient Rishis of his country.' It is mainly due to the lack of such a work that the study of Vedic literature, despite its great linguistic and religious importance, has never taken its pro-per place by the side of the study of Classical Sanskrit. Till the publica-tion of the author's Vedic Grammar in 1910, no single work comprehensively presented the early language by itself. That work is, however, too extensive and detailed for the needs of the student, being intended rather as a book of reference for the scholar. This work is to a great extent based on the author's large Vedic Grammar, it is however by no means simply an abridgement of that work. For besides being differently arranged so as to agree with the scheme of his another work Sanskrit Grammar it contains much matter excluded from the Vedic Grammar. It, for example, adds a full treatment of Vedic Syntax and an account of the Vedic Metres. Thus it constitutes a supplement as well as an abridgement of the Vedic Grammar.
The term 'Vedic' is here used to comprehend not only the metrical language of the hymns, but also the prose of Brahmanas and the Brahmana-like portions of the Atharvaveda and of various recensions of the Yajurveda. |
