An update on Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar: it's good, but it's 19th Century good, which means it's incredibly useful as a reference and not so hot as an introductory text. I would say that it appears to be on par with Smyth's Greek Grammar or Munro's Homeric Grammar, both of which are roughly contemporaneous with Whitney. So now I've gone and ordered up a two-volume set of what I hope will be a much more user-friendly first look at the Sanskrit language. In the meantime, I've also found a couple of nifty online resources as well. There's Acharya, the American Sanskrit Institute, and Samskrita Bharati, all of which seem to have fairly complete introductory lessons available via the web. I will make a more full report on each when time permits.