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About Sanskrit Dictionary

An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles
Introduction:

The project for the compilation of An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles was conceived and planned by Professor S. M. Katre, former Professor of Indo-European Philology and Director of the Institute in 1948. The well-established Sanskrit Dictionary Project now forms a part of the Department of Sanskrit and Lexicography, Deccan College, Post Graduate Research Institute, Pune. The first general editor Dr. A.M. Ghatage successfully carried out the task and the first volume of the dictionary was published in 1978. As late Professor A.L. Basham has rightly stated in his book ‘The Wonder That Was India’, this dictionary, when completed, will be the greatest work of Sanskrit Lexicography the world has ever seen. It is one of the few Historical Dictionaries of the world and the only one for the ancient and rich language of Sanskrit.


Building Blocks of the Dictionary

Dictionary is based on primary Corpus of 1469 Sanskrit treatises covering the range of time span right from the Vedas (approx. 1400 BCE) up to Hāsyarṇava (1850 CE). This corpus serves as the main source for the vocables. In addition to it, secondary sources such as other Subject-specific dictionaries, word indices, concordances etc. are also consulted for updating the data. The corpus of the Dictionary expands to 62 branches of ancient knowledge. These can be broadly classified as:

  • Major disciplines such as Veda, Darśana, Epics, Dharmaśāstra etc.
  • Other branches such as Vedāṅga, Vyākaraṇa, Tantras.
  • Ancient Lexicons such as Amarakośa, Medinīkośa etc.
  • Literature, Poetics, Dramaturgy, Prosody, Anthologies etc.
  • Scientific subjects such as Mathematics, Architecture, Alchemy, Agriculture, Medicine, Veterinary Sciences etc.
  • Other branches such as Music, In-door Games, Inscriptions, Warfare, Arthaśāstra etc.

Heart of the Sanskrit Dictionary: The Scriptorium

The Scriptorium, which houses the ten million slips, is the heart of the Sanskrit Dictionary. During 1948 to 1973, many eminent scholars and traditional Panḍita contributed to the extraction of the data that enabled the project to build up the Scriptorium which houses over one crore slips. Ten million vocables from the corpus are recorded in these slips. Each slip records the exact vocable, grammatical category, citation to attest the vocable, Śāstrī gloss or commentary if any, abbreviation of the book, exact reference or page-line, date of the text and names of persons who have compiled and checked the slips.
This Scriptorium is a permanent asset to Sanskrit studies and serves the needs of Sanskrit scholars for specific information about the use of words in different periods and in different branches.


Encyclopaedic Nature

This Sanskrit dictionary based on Historical chronology/chronology provides information regarding the exact form of the vocables as a guide. The following data recorded under each vocable makes the dictionary Encyclopaedic in nature: Vocable along with transliteration, its grammatical status and further information regarding its syntactic features, accent, etymology, the recording of important and irregular bases and forms, traditional information from Sanskrit itself; detailed analysis of meaning, peculiarities of usage and idiomatic expressions. Additionally, it also records cultural, historical, archaeological, epigraphic, mythological, geographical, statistical and other relevant information, if called for. It also treats the cases of homonymy, synonymy, polysemy and hyponymy among words. To give a precise idea of a Dictionary of such a nature it seems best to deal with each one of these aspects in detail, note the problems which are involved therein and arrive at some practical decisions.


Salient features of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary
  • The Encyclopaedia traces the linguistic development of Sanskrit words from the ancient text of Ṛgveda (approx. 1400 BCE) to the latest work of Hāsyārṇava (1850 CE).
  • It provides the detailed linguistic changes that have occurred in various words and their derivations.
  • Also, the Encyclopaedia traces the semantic development of various words. It provides the entire range of meanings prevalent in the Vedas and other texts.
  • The compound words, which are characteristic of Sanskrit, are given here their due place.
  • The meanings are logically analysed and various nuances and shades are interlinked.
  • The Encyclopaedia also records the underpinning socio-cultural and other such connotations that are reflected through the vocables.

Inner Layout of the Dictionary:
A typical article on a vocable in a historical dictionary of Sanskrit will have the following form with variations in individual cases,
  • Vocable – Entry word in its base form (prātipadika/dhātu)
  • Transliteration – Entry word in a Roman script
  • Grammatical Status – Parts of speech to which the entry word belongs i.e. adj. for adjective and others.
  • Grammatical Note – Additional grammatical explanation.
  • Etymology – Derivation of a word based on etymological dictionaries.
  • Conspectus – Summary of meanings.
  • English Meaning – Meanings are arranged chronologically. Meaning numbers are assigned as per the change of nuances.
  • Citation – The appropriate citations containing the entry word. Citations are also arranged chronologically.
  • Reference Book – The name of book, where the citation occurs, in the form of abbreviation.
  • Reference Mode – Exact address of the citation.
  • Comment – Additional information provided by commentary.
  • Cf. – Cross reference of an entry word.
  • Other Lexical Meanings – the meaning or gloss of a vocable from various Lexicons.

Significance
  • It is an extremely important and the only tool for tracing the development of Sanskrit language through ages which makes it Encyclopaedic in nature.
  • It is vital resource for Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the field of Sanskrit, Indology and Oriental Studies. It assists the needs of Higher Research.
  • Since it covers the entire gamut of Sanskrit literature spread across 62 disciplines, it is an Encyclopaedia for all these disciplines too.
  • It is the only tool for establishing inter-relation between these various disciplines with respect to word and concepts and their development.
  • It also notes the references from rarest texts and glosses that are being extinct in due course of time.
  • The magnitude of data makes it an important tool for various fields such as history, culture, linguistics, philology, computational linguistics, patents etc.
  • This dictionary will also serve as a compact encyclopaedia of Indian civilisation and scientific thought during the ancient and medieval ages.

Stages of the Dictionary
  • Stage I : This comprised of collection of vocables from around 1500 corpus texts. texts.
  • Stage II: Classification of these 10 million reference slips subject-wise and arrangement of the collection alphabetically leading to building up of the Scriptorium.
  • The first two stages took 25 painstaking years of scholars from 1948 to 1973.
  • Stage III: Editing and publication of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary which began in 1973

Publication

From 1973, editing of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary began and in 1976, the first Part of the Dictionary was published. In all, thirty-five volumes have been published till date consisting of 6056 pages alphabetically.