The purpose, in writing this book, is to provide a self-contained primer, workbook and reader for teaching first year Sanskrit students with no previous linguistic training. The author has tried throughout the work to introduce, explain and illustrate the most significant features of the language and through verses, quotations, and readings.
To these ends the grammar has been, in several areas, simplified to prevent the beginner from being more hampered than is absolutely necessary by relatively insignificant paradigms, rules and exceptions.
Upon completion of this course, students should have a real working knowledge of the major outlines of Sanskrit sentences with some facility and read, with the help of dictionary, approximately five to ten verses of the Valmiki Ramayana or a similar text in an hour.
