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Böhtlingk & Roth, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (PWG)

Otto Böhtlingk and Rudolph Roth's Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg in seven volumes (1855–1875), is the foundational scholarly Sanskrit lexicon — the "Großes Petersburger Wörterbuch" (the "great" Petersburg dictionary, hence the code PWG). Monier-Williams and Apte both built on it; for depth of attestation and citation it is still unmatched. Glosses are in German.

At a glance​

CodePWG (GitHub repo PWG)
Full titleSanskrit-Wörterbuch (Großes Petersburger Wörterbuch)
AuthorsOtto Böhtlingk & Rudolph Roth
Year / size1855–1875 · 7 volumes
DirectionSanskrit → German
AccentsYes (accents are marked, e.g. {#a/kzata#})
Sourcecsl-orig/v02/pwg/
OpenBasic · List · Advanced · Mobile
DataDownloads · Scans
csl-docpwg.rst (front matter / preface)

When to use it​

Reach for PWG when you want the deepest scholarly treatment and the fullest citations — it records senses and attestations in detail no later dictionary repeats. Complements within CDSL:

  • Böhtlingk shorter (PW) — the same lexicographer's later one-volume-per-letter abridgement; start there if PWG's apparatus is more than you need.
  • Monier-Williams (MW) — for English glosses with comparable classical breadth.
  • Grassmann (GRA) — for the Ṛg-Veda specifically.
  • Reading German is essentially required to use PWG fully.

Looking up a word​

  1. Open the Basic display, choose your input transliteration (see Encoding & Transliteration) and an output script.
  2. Type the headword — e.g. agni (fire):
PWG Basic display: the German entry for agni with its citations

The List display browses neighbouring headwords; Advanced searches inside entry text. See Search & Display.

Reading an entry​

PWG entries pack senses into nested <div> subdivisions, with Sanskrit set in {#…#}, German glosses in {%…%}, and literary sources in <ls>. A fragment of the pronoun a (csl-orig/v02/pwg/pwg.txt):

<L>2<pc>1-0001<k1>a<k2>a<h>2
2. {#a#}¦ Pronominalstamm:
<div n="2"> a) der 1sten Person, enthalten in {#aha/m, AvA/m, …#} …
<div n="2">— b) der 3ten Person; <lex>f.</lex> {#A#} … <ls>ṚV.</ls> <ls>P. 6,1,116.</ls> …
<LEND>
In the sourceMeaning
<pc>1-0001volume-page reference in the print (vol. 1, p. 1)
{#…#}Sanskrit, stored in SLP1
{%…%}German gloss
<div n="…">a numbered/lettered sense subdivision
<ls>ṚV.</ls>, <ls>P. 6,1,116.</ls> literary-source citations (Ṛg-Veda, Pāṇini), the link targets

See Data Formats for the full markup reference.

What makes it distinctive​

  • The reference of record. Its citations and sense distinctions are the substrate later Sanskrit–English dictionaries condensed.
  • Citation density. The heavy use of <ls> source references is exactly what the project's "Dictionary to Book" link-target work makes clickable — see Issue Taxonomy.
  • German scholarship. Definitions, grammatical notes, and discussion are in German.

See also​