This book contains an elaborate account of all branches of Classical Sanskrit Literature on the basis of literary, epigraphical and numismatical sources. In 23 chapters, each chapter dealing with a particular topic arranged chronologically. The book is documented with a critical apparatus. Beside notes and references it has an illuminating Introduction and index of authors and works.

This paperback edition of the 1927 text supplies a complete account of classical sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India. After a brief history of sanskrit grammar and a chart of the Devanagari letters, Macdonell, former Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University provides chapters on alphabet, declension, conjugation, indeclinable words, nominal stem formation, and syntax.