Textbook
This site is intended to compliment study of the book "The Sanskrit Language" by Walter Harding Maurer. The book is available from Amazon with free delivery in Canada (Amazon.ca), USA (Amazon.com), and the UK (Amazon.co.uk), as well as from Flipkart with free delivery in India (Flipkart.com).
This website is divided into lessons corresponding to the lessons in the book. Each lesson on the website contains a summary of the lesson with additional notes and tips, as well as answers to the exercises in the book. The best way to use this website is the following:
This website is divided into lessons corresponding to the lessons in the book. Each lesson on the website contains a summary of the lesson with additional notes and tips, as well as answers to the exercises in the book. The best way to use this website is the following:
- Read the lesson in the book
- Read the lesson summary on the website
- Translate the exercise in the book using the supplemental notes and vocabulary help
- Compare your translation with the solution available for download from the website
Lesson Summaries
The lesson summaries on the website are intended to further explain and simplify the lessons in the book. The lessons in the book must be read first in order to understand the lesson summaries. Each lesson summary has the following features:
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Test Yourself
Click this button to access a quick quiz to assess your understanding of the topic under discussion. The quiz contains 3-5 multiple choice questions and will show you whether your choices are correct or not as soon as you submit them. |
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Note Pay special attention to these notes, as they are meant to remind you of important points that were either previously mentioned, or are less obvious implications of the topic under discussion. |
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Tip Tips are not grammatical topics or rules, but rather ideas that you might find useful in translating exercises. Correction Minor errors or discrepancies in the textbook. Hint
Help for translating exercises. |
Exercises
At the top of each lesson page there is a button you can press to download a PDF of solutions to the exercises for that lesson. It is always a good idea to attempt the exercise in the book first before looking at the solutions. When attempting the exercises it is essential to read all the supplemental notes referred to with superscript numbers in the exercise. Exercises in this book are not mere review of the lesson, but minor new topics are introduced in the exercises through the supplemental notes. The vocabulary list should also be consulted for any new words that occur in the exercise.
PLEASE NOTE: The exercise solutions are currently being reformatted. The older format is described below. The newer format is explained by footnotes within the PDF.
The PDF of solutions for each exercise contain two parts: first the main translation of Sanskrit to English, and then the shorter English to Sanskrit translation. The Sanskrit to English solution contains helpful annotations identifying grammatical properties of words. Grammatical properties of nouns, adjectives, participles, and indeclinable words are indicated in red. Grammatical properties of verb forms are indicated in green. All sandhis are broken in the solutions, and compounds are broken into their components with hyphens. In the case of a complex compound, numbers below the hyphens indicate the order of compound formation. The type of compound is identified with the following convention:
The English to Sanskrit translation is meant only as a guide, since there are many possible ways to translate a given English sentence into Sanskrit. The English to Sanskrit translation contains all formed sandhis, and no hyphens in compounds.
An audio recording of the exercise is available for streaming at the top of each lesson page. These recordings are intended to help with pronunciation and understanding through hearing. It is suggested that the recordings be used after the exercise has been correctly translated.
If any errors are found in the translations or audio, please contact the author.
PLEASE NOTE: The exercise solutions are currently being reformatted. The older format is described below. The newer format is explained by footnotes within the PDF.
The PDF of solutions for each exercise contain two parts: first the main translation of Sanskrit to English, and then the shorter English to Sanskrit translation. The Sanskrit to English solution contains helpful annotations identifying grammatical properties of words. Grammatical properties of nouns, adjectives, participles, and indeclinable words are indicated in red. Grammatical properties of verb forms are indicated in green. All sandhis are broken in the solutions, and compounds are broken into their components with hyphens. In the case of a complex compound, numbers below the hyphens indicate the order of compound formation. The type of compound is identified with the following convention:
- Tatpuruṣa: a curved arrow pointing to the second word in the compound with a number indicating the case of the first word (the symbol ' = ' indicates a karmadhāraya compound)
- Bahuvrīhi: an arrow pointing up with a number indicating the case of the connection to the noun to which the compound refers
- Dvandva: the symbol ' & '
The English to Sanskrit translation is meant only as a guide, since there are many possible ways to translate a given English sentence into Sanskrit. The English to Sanskrit translation contains all formed sandhis, and no hyphens in compounds.
An audio recording of the exercise is available for streaming at the top of each lesson page. These recordings are intended to help with pronunciation and understanding through hearing. It is suggested that the recordings be used after the exercise has been correctly translated.
If any errors are found in the translations or audio, please contact the author.
