First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar and Reading
This text-book, First Lessons in Sanskrit Grammar and Reading,  is a revision and combination of several efforts to present the Sanskrit language in a simplified, yet  comprehensive form to students of the West.Quite a history can be told regarding the final set-up of this Sanskrit Grammar and Reading book.!  The  basic material and arrangement of the grammar and exercises are taken from James R. Ballantynes First  Lessons in Sanskrit printed in India in 1851.  The reading lessons : "An Introduction to the Hitopadesha" have been taken completely (with some corrections) from Ballantynes Seventh Edition of his work printed  in 1908 in London.In 1941 the Theosophical University Press at Point Loma, California, printed an edition of First Lessons in  Sanskrit Grammar based on this Ballantynes grammatical text (omitting the Hitopadesha section).  This  edition had been prepared with many changes and additions by L.A. Ware of Iowa State University and  myself.  I was at that time instructor in Sanskrit at the Theosophical University in Point Loma, where I had  been receiving training in Sanskrit from Dr. Gottfried de Purucker.  Geoffrey A. Barborka, chief linitype  operator at the Theosophical University Press designed a keyboard specially for the composition of  Sanskrit in the Devanagari (the written script) on the linotype, and this keyboard, with slight modifications was accepted by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.  The Devanagari type then made by them was used in the printing up of the sanskrit portions of the book.  This Devanagari was the first ever printed by  linotype.In 1944 another edition of this last book, still further revised by me, was printed by the Theosophical  University Press in Point Loma, California.Then in 1950 after returning from a 3-years scholarship in India, I was asked to be the Professor of  Sanskrit at the newly-founded American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco.  There being no  copies left of the last two editions of the Sanskrit Grammar, I prepared another arrangement of the book with still further additions based on actual teaching experience.  Included in this edition were Ballantynes very fine studies and and selections from the Hitopadesha, and hence the book was called First Lessons in  Sanskrit Grammar and Reading.  This newly prepared work was lithographed by the Litho-Print Press in  San Francisco in 1951.In 1953 I founded the East-West Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California, and have been teaching  Sanskrit along with many other cultural and religious and philosophical subjects of Eastern Civilization.   requests for a simplified Sanskrit text oriented to Sanskrit sacred scriptures has been progressively in  demand by Oriental bookstores and western centers interested in eastern culture.  However by 1960 the  1950-edition of the Sanskrit book was sold out.So in 1961 I set out to work again to prepare another even larger and more complete Sanskrit Grammar and  Reading book along with various quotations and passages from Sanskrit scriptures.  These included verses  from the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads.  These quoted lines appended to each lesson have been  arranged to suit the grammatical content of each chapter.The Mother, the spiritual head of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, South India, has kindly  arranged to have this edition printed at their Press.  Not only do I feel grateful for this, but also very honored.  This book is offered to all lovers of Sanskrit who wish to delve into the richness and spiritual profundity of the ancient scriptures of India, without being too lost in the grammatical difficulties of the  Language.  My God bless your studies as He has mine!(March 1962)