Introduction to Sanskrit, Part 1

'Introduction to Sanskrit' provides a pedagogically sound introduction to Sanskrit. It is nicely slow-paced and thorough, and there are many exercises. The way it handles the introduction of sandhi (which tends to stick painfully in learners' throats) is particularly user-friendly: sentences are given both with and without sandhi applied until all rules of sandhi have been taught.

My complaints are that the binding is flimsy and falls apart quickly; typos are frequent; and the prose is functional but simplistic and dull.

Don't look any further. There are two alternatives: the book by Coulson Teach Yourself Sanskrit Complete Course (Teach Yourself) (it is uncompromising towards beginners, just look at the reviews) and the one by Deshpande that I don't know much about Samskrta-Subodhini: A Sanskrit Primer (Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia). The book by Egenes is really the best you can get. It presents a very gentle way of learning the principles of a difficult language.

The first problematic thing about Sanskrit is that is uses a script that, although beautiful if you have an eye for it, is fiendishly complex. An ordinary person could be up and going into Greek after spending an afternoon on the Greek script. Learning Sanskrit is different. You need at least a week or more. Egenes solves this by starting with Latin script and gradually introducing the Devanagari script. After seven lessons you have mastered the script and learned a lot of Sanskrit along the way.

The second problem is sandhi. In Sanskrit the pronunciation of words in a sentence is different from the pronunciation of the words standing on their own. This is regulated in the sandhi rules. The sandhi rules tell you how to pronounce all the combinations of all the possible word endings with all the possible word beginnings. The problem is that all these sandhis have to be written out. After working through the next eleven chapters you know these rules and how to apply them and you feel confident enough to start reading (for instance) a well annotated edition of the Bhagavad Gita (like Winthrop Sargeants' one, The Bhagavad Gita (Suny Series in Cultural Perspectives)).

After this you can go on to book two or maybe to Coulson.

I fully agree with those reviewers that say this is the book to start with. Sanskrit can be a complicated language to learn because it has many parts to it - verb endings, tenses, moods, etc. and noun endings, word order, and of course, the devanagari script. However, Thomas Egenes in his two books has put together an introduction to this wonderful language that takes the student in small steps and without overwhelming them with the material or complexity. Each lesson is kept simple in its presentation of the material. The student will have success from the first lesson on, and will be translating with ease. All languages should be taught this way! If you have ever wanted to learn something about sanskrit but have put it off because it looks too complicated, wait no longer - anyone can learn sanskrit using Egenes' books. Even if you have floundered in another foreign language, you can do this!

I am the author of this book. I did not agree for Pilgrim's Publishing to sell the book, and I would like it removed from Amazon. Thomas Egenes

If you're interested in the Sanskrit language, whether for linguistic or philosophical reasons, this is the book you should start with.

It introduces the script and the grammar in slow, gentle steps. After about 7 lessons, you ease into the different kinds of external sandhi (sound changes and assimilations from one word to another). By the end of the first volume, you've learned a suprising amount: most of the major declensions, and been introduced to the verb, and the principles of compound formation.
Every lesson has plenty of exercises, both English to Sanskrit and vice versa, to test your comprehension and to give you practice. The answers to the exercises are given in the back of the book.

Just a great, great introduction to the language. After finishing Book I, you can continue with his Book II, or pick up, with confidence, any of the standard academic introductions - Maurer, Goldman and Sutherland, Deshpande, even (gasp!) Coulson.

I wish every ancient language had an introductory book like this.