became necessary, partly because in no grammar had the different paradigms of this class been correctly given, partly because it was impossible to bring out clearly the principle on which the peculiarities and apparent irregularities of these nouns are based without entering fully into the systematic arrangement of native grammarians. Of portions like this I will not say indeed, μωμήσεταί τις μᾶλλον ἢ μιμήσεται, but I feel that I may say, यत्ने कृते यदि न सिध्यति कोऽत्र दोषः; and I know that those who will take the trouble to examine the same mass of evidence which I have weighed and examined, will be the most lenient in their judgment, if hereafter they should succeed better than I have done, in unravelling the intricate argumentations of native scholars[1].
But while acknowledging my obligations to the great grammarians of India, it would be ungrateful were I not to acknowledge as fully the assistance which I have derived from the works of European scholars. My first acquaintance with the elements of Sanskrit was gained from Bopp's grammar. Those only who know the works of his predecessors, of Colebrooke, Carey, Wilkins, and Forster, can appreciate the advance made by Bopp in explaining the difficulties, and in lighting up, if I may say so, the dark lanes and alleys of the Sanskrit language. I doubt whether Sanskrit scholarship would have flourished as it has, if students had been obliged to learn their grammar from Forster or Colebrooke, and I believe that to Bopp's little grammar is due a great portion of that success which has attended the study of Sanskrit literature in Germany. Colebrooke, Carey, Wilkins, and Forster worked independently of each other. Each derived his information from native teachers and from native grammars. Among these four scholars, Wilkins seems to have been the first to compose a Sanskrit grammar, for he informs us that the first printed sheet of his work was destroyed by fire in 1795. The
- ↑ To those who have the same faith in the accurate and never swerving argumentations of Sanskrit commentators, it may be a saving of time to be informed that in the new and very useful edition of the Siddhânta-Kaumudî by Śrî Târânâtha-tarkavâ-chaspati there are two misprints which hopelessly disturb the order of the rules on the proper declension of nouns in î and û. On page 136, l.7, read श्रीवत् instead of स्त्रीवात्; this is corrected in the Corrigenda, and the right reading is found in the old edition. On the same page, l. 13, insert न after विना, or join विनास्त्रीबोधकत्वं.
