attention member "sanskrit" - RESOURCES

[Kynetus Valesius]

I have broken this off into a new theme because we have drifted a bit from greeting you as a new member.

The other text I wished to refer you to would be RAmopAkhyAna - the Story of RAma in the MahABhArata - An Independenet -Study Reader in Sanskrit by Peter Scharf. The approach is multifaceted but centers on careful linguistic analysis of the selected text. For each shloka there is 1) a literal english translation 2) the text in devanagari 3) the text in transliteration 4) the text in transliteration with the sandhi broken and a coded grammatical parsing of each word 5) a vocabulary for each word that gives further grammatical insight.

Sanskrit is not something I am currently working on although it remains a cherished future project. When I was more actively engaged in these studies, I extensively researched the best learning resources. I have already shared what I consider to be the best published guides to developing reading knowledge after one has completed basic grammar. Now I will share with you several excellent and FREE online resources that I have discovered:

http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Sanskrit.html
FLASH CARDS

http://www.chitrapurmath.net/sanskrit/sanskrit.asp
Sanskrit lessons developed by a (I believe) swami in sankaryacharya's sampradaya; his math is a a place called chitra pur

http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/tutor.php
Excellent sanskrit lessons developed by university affiliated computer/language geeks - also fonts for all the indian languages if I recall well

http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Sanskrit.html
Sanskrit lessons and texts in transliteration from some chinese university - they have a bhuddist slant

What follows is the only non-FREE resource

http://samskrita-bharati.org/newsite/index.php
The web page of sanskrita bharati, an ngo dedicated the spread of vedic culture and even spoken sanskrit. Inexpensive couses and degrees are offered

[Sanskrit]

Thanks for your comments on these websites. I was enrolled in the classes from chitrapurmath.net three years ago. I did like the email support from the teachers, but after a while they stopped adding new lessons.

I am sorry I didn't see this thread earlier. I haven't visited textkit for three months!

[Agrippa]

Alright I have Sanskrit questions. First, when using the devanagari script, I know that when external Sandhi turns two vowels into one, you obviously need to write the two words as one, but where else? I sometimes see two words with a space and sometimes sans. Is there a rule for this?

Is it recommended that I memorize the Sandhi grids or should I do as the book says and refer to it when I need it? What about conjunct consonants?

The retroflex n shows up sometimes as three vertical lines (the first bent towards the right a bit) and sometimes different. This is in the same book. Is there a reason for this?

One translation was "Let us sit down" and they gave the answer as "Upavishamah," which is "we sit down." Is the hortative just implied, with no auxillary verb or mood change needed?

I'm using Coulson's "Teach Yourself Sanskrit," which I've heard is good but difficult. I'm loving it so far, but I wanted to know if anyone here has experience with it.

[Goals]

Is Sanskrit is studied more in India? If so, does anyone know if they are taught it in English?

[modus.irrealis]

Alright I have Sanskrit questions. First, when using the devanagari script, I know that when external Sandhi turns two vowels into one, you obviously need to write the two words as one, but where else? I sometimes see two words with a space and sometimes sans. Is there a rule for this?

I checked Whitney's grammar, and he says that traditional Indian practice was to put no words between spaces, but that Western practice is "to separate the words so far as this can be done without changing the mode of writing them." I'm not entirely sure what this means, but looking at some examples, if word A ends in a consonant and word B begins with a vowel, it seems to be always written AB, since splitting them would require adding a new vowel sign.

One translation was "Let us sit down" and they gave the answer as "Upavishamah," which is "we sit down." Is the hortative just implied, with no auxillary verb or mood change needed?

I can't answer your question here, but I can share your confusion. The two grammars I have say that the the 1st person imperative uses the endings of the subjunctive (which, if you're learning Classical Sanskrit, only survives, I think, in the 1st person imperative forms), and I can't find anything about the indicative being used this way, so I would have expected "upaviÅ›Ä￾ma" (hopefully I got everything right there?).

I'm not really in a position to even try and answer your other questions, but let me ask you about learning the devanagari script -- how are you going about it, because I've had a lot of trouble in the past when I tried to master it?

[Agrippa]

I got it down in less than two days and I'll tell you how I did it. I have one of these lovely moleskine notebooks and a pencil that go everywhere I go. When I see a sign I write it in devanagari. When I hear a name, devanagari. When I'm in the shower I cover the glass panes with devanagari. The trick is to keep forgetting it but to keep remembering it again. Every second I have to spare I try to visualize the letters in my head. If I can't remember one, I open it up and look it up.

You can also get some patterns down for the letters. The retroflex are all, except for da, curly, and it gets curlier as it gets more voiced and aspirated, which sounds stupid but works. Same for the labials. Pa and pha differ by little, as does bh from m. Ba is like va but with a line through it, and that's easy to remember because they're just naturally similar consonants, like hebrew beth and veth. Some you just use so much you can't help but to remember it, like ya, ta, sa, or ma. Basically, don't try to memorize all of it at once but take it step by step is how I did it.

[modus.irrealis]

Thanks for the tips - although oftentimes, the character I write down looks nothing like the character in my book.

The retroflex are all, except for da, curly, and it gets curlier as it gets more voiced and aspirated, which sounds stupid but works.

Stuff like that is effective for me in remembering stuff too.

[drkpp]

Alright I have Sanskrit questions. First, when using the devanagari script, I know that when external Sandhi turns two vowels into one, you obviously need to write the two words as one, but where else? I sometimes see two words with a space and sometimes sans. Is there a rule for this?

Is it recommended that I memorize the Sandhi grids or should I do as the book says and refer to it when I need it? What about conjunct consonants?

The retroflex n shows up sometimes as three vertical lines (the first bent towards the right a bit) and sometimes different. This is in the same book. Is there a reason for this?

One translation was "Let us sit down" and they gave the answer as "Upavishamah," which is "we sit down." Is the hortative just implied, with no auxillary verb or mood change needed?

I'm using Coulson's "Teach Yourself Sanskrit," which I've heard is good but difficult. I'm loving it so far, but I wanted to know if anyone here has experience with it.

The root verb is wish - विशà¥￾‌ belonging to 6th conjugation parasmaipada with the meaning of to enter. When the prefix up - उप is added to it, the meaning changes to sit down. It is to be declined as per the parasmaipada roots, imperative first person pleural of which is upawishaama - उपविशाम