This book has the rare distinction of being both an introductory book and a new ground-breaking study. It is an introductory book because the reader gets an accurate overview of the language, and it is also a ground-breaking study because Filliozat's approach harmonizes two different and complementary stands that often have been at war: the Western historical and comparative approach and the indigenous pandita tradition. Sanskrit is described here from these two points of view: what the native speakers knew and felt about their language, and what the foreign scholars discovered in their historical and comparative quest.