About Sanskrit Dictionary
An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles
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.
About KoshaSHRI
KoshaSHRI software is developed under the project titled “Digital Preservation and Online Portal for Encyclopedic Sanskrit Dictionary” funded by Department of Science & Technology (DST) under Science and Heritage Research Initiative (SHRI).
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Pune has collaborated with The Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Pune for the domain knowledge and the 35 volumes of Encyclopedic Sanskrit Dictionary published since 1976.