Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on Paulinus' Sanskrit grammars — "Sidharùbam seu grammatica Samscrdamica" (Roma 1790) and "Vyàcarana seu locupletissima Samscrdamicae linguae institutio" (Roma 1804) —, their relationship with Hanxleden's "Grammatica Grandonica", and the reference texts used by these missionaries.

Paper long abstract:

In our times, the basic pedagogical manuals of Sanskrit grammar throughout India are the Sanskrit dictionary Amarakoṣa, and the grammatical work known as Siddhāntakaumudī, composed by the Marathi grammarian Bhaṭṭojidīkṣita in the 17th century. In addition, students from Kerala used to memorize a catalogue of simple inflected Sanskrit forms, which is called Siddharūpa. This paper casts light upon the traditional pedagogy of Sanskrit grammar in South-India through the works of European missionaries, who worked in Malabar during the 17th and 18th centuries and composed the first Western grammars of the Sanskrit language. These works bear evidence of the wide circulation throughout South India of a Pāṇinian grammar, which is no longer actively studied, even though it was arranged long before Siddhāntakaumudī. The present paper focuses on the decline of this local grammatical tradition, considering also that, on the other hand, Siddhāntakaumudī was the direct reference of the Englishmen of the Asiatic Society and had been attentively studied by William Jones himself.