Immediately after finishing his Kurzgefaβtes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen (KEWA), M. Mayrhofer had the very commendable courage to start work on an Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (EWA), of which the first 11 fascicles now (Autumn 1992) lie before us. It is not, as the author rightly insists,‘a new (and improved) edition’ of KEWA, but a renewed attempt in its own rights. It is an attempt to produce ‘an etymological dictionary of’ a big corpus language (i.e. of Sanskrit)’ in ‘a practicable and finishable form’, that is: an etymological dictionary such as could be brought to completion ‘by a single scholar within his life time’,—provided this scholar would have the industry and tenacious dedication of a Mayrhofer, we should like to add. Even in the close atmosphere of such a somewhat constraining qualification, Mayrhofer aims high: he thinks of –an etymological dictionary approaching the fulfilment of demands of an ideal order–. The differences between the former work and the one recently begun, already clearly recognizable, are many and conspicuous. The changes introduced are mostly—not always, as is only to be expected—distinct improvements. One of the most important changes is highly welcome: the conscientious- reference to the first occurrence of each word in Sanskrit literature. The attribute ‘kurzgefaβt’ does not appear in the title. Even the KEWA was not actually ‘conciseမ: it was so in comparison only with the planned Vergleichendes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen by W. Wüst