Author: Arthur Anthony Macdonnel
Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass
Year: 2007
Language: multilingual
Pages: 382
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8120820002
Description
This Dictionary includes the vocabulary of Post-Vedic literature with emphasis on Philosophical, grammatical and rhetorical terms. Further, this is the only handy dictionary of its kind, which breaks a word into its component parts and refers to the roots deducible from Sanskrit derivatives alone by way of comparative philological analysis. The work is, therefore, highly useful for the etymological analysis and linguistic training.
The aim of the present work is to satisfy, within the compass of a comparatively handy volume. All the practical wants not only of learners of Sanskrit, but also of scholars for purposes of ordinary reading. Its distinctive features ought perhaps to be indicated here. It is, in the first place, much more copious than other lexicons for Sanskrit students. Excluding all words and meanings that occur in native lexicographers, but are not to be found in actual literature, this lexicon contains nearly double as much material as other Sanskrit works of the same character.
This book is, moreover, the only one of its kind that is transliterated. It can thus be used, for example, by comparative philologists not knowing a single letter of the Devanagari alphabet. This is, further, the only similar Sanskrit Dictionary that is etymological in any sense, for its gives a derivative analysis of all the words it contains. This feature increases both its usefulness form a linguistic point of view and its practical value to the student, who will always better remember the meaning of a word, the derivation of which it made clear to him.