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The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are composed in a form of Sanskrit that differs from the Paninian norm. Though closely akin to Paninian Sanskrit with which it shares a huge amount of forms and syntactical constructions this is a language of a different type. It does contain frequent violations of the usual Sanskrit rules, affecting phonology, morphology and syntax. These epic peculiarities, however, are not simply a large set of individual cases. By far the greater part of them can be categorized as belonging to one or another of a small number of types, making them amenable to systematic study. The book at hand tries to give such a comprehensive and systematically organized description of the peculiarities of the Epic language and the features that distinguish it from Vedic and standard Paninian Sanskrit. Every form and construction cited in the grammar was located in the Critical Editions of the Epics and is discussed in detail, giving also references to secondary literature. The book consists of a detailed introduction and thirteen chapters, the last two of which contain an extensive bibliography, indices, and concordances.