The Laghusiddhantakaumudi : Text with English Translation

From the preface: "The grammatical compendium of which this is a translation is current among the Pandits of the north-west provinces, and of most of the other provinces of India. The translation is one of a, series of attempts to encourage and facilitate the interchange of ideas between the Pandits and the senior English students of the government colleges. How different the arrangement of a Sanskrit treatise on grammar is from that of an English treatise of the subject, may be inferred from the facts stated in the subjoined extract from the preface to the Hindi version of the same compendium.

The groundwork of the grammatical literature of the Sanskrit is comprised in Panini's eight lectures, entitled "The Astadhyayi". Each of the lectures is divided into four sections, and each section into a number of sutras, or succinct aphorisms. On these Mr. Colebrooke remarks:--"The studied brevity of the Paniniya sutras renders them in the highest degree obscure; even with "the knowledge of the key to their interpretation, the student finds them ambiguous. In the application of them when understood, he discovers many seeming contradictions; and with every "exertion of practised memory, he must experience the utmost difficulty in combining rules dispersed in apparent confusion through different portions of Panini's eight lectures....."