The following text includes some of the work in progress or pending items and topics, texts in the wishlist and software tools. Additional information is available from Sanskrit FAQ.
Whether through a newsgroup or personal studies, please keep your interest in Sanskrit and Indology-related activities growing, either by reading texts, compiling information and books, or working on projects. There is something for everyone here!
If you like to volunteer for any of these projects, please browse the volunteer_help.html file and familiarize with the available tools.
If you find this list useful, feel free to circulate it to your friends who can also contribute to your improvement in Sanskrit just/at least by associating with you :-).
Proposed Projects
The following items are not complete by any means. Lot more information is available on each and is not included to keep the file size short! The names in the parenthesis refer to those you should contact for more information. You could always write to sanskrit@cheerful.com with your inquiries. We welcome your ideas to improve and expand the list.
A stand alone file for each of the stories could be prepared. Someone who has books with Gita-s other than Bhagavadgita should come forward to supply information and proofread. Portions from Mahabharata can be extracted from encoded text for better understanding. Please see available Gita files.
Contents of the Mahabharata are given in mahalist.itx | mahalist.ps.
An email utility, developed by Atul Narkhede for creation of devanagari output and receiving to your account over email is also available, see email-interface readme file for more details and examples.
Thanks to Dr. Sunder Hattangadi for encoding most of them.
One can help encode the additional upanishads.
As the collection is grouped according to deities, someone could write a script to select the shloka-s interactively or by mail. With this utility people can prepare a religious handout remotely, and can use in there local temples or for religious meetings. A list with shloka number, deity, first line of shloka should be circulated for people to choose.
People will select numbers,
email it to central email address
with specified options(fonts,
columns, title, introduction, footnotes, additional shloka-s etc),
his script will catenate those number files to one file,
pass it on to ITRANS, and mail a formatted postscript output .
This will be an easy method compared to the handouts seen in
many places having mis-pronunciations, wrong letters,
distorted meanings, poor formatting etc.
The utility can be enhanced with on-line access and Java scripts.
Swami Vivekananda was fluent in Sanskrit. There are few of his letters poems which were written in Sanskrit. The complete works have some of them with translations. These letters could be encoded and circulated for everyone's use. Such correspondence between other Sanskrit scholars will be a valuable addition in this collection.
Other examples which could be added are stotra-s by Adi Shankaracharya, (a long list of his works is available in the encoding_wishlist) -
If at all possible -
Gita word dictionary is available as - Text bgwords.txt (~0.2Mb) | Text bgwords.itx (~0.4Mb) | PostScript bgwords2.ps (~0.8Mb) | Text bgwords3.itx (~0.85Mb) | PostScript bgwords3.ps(~0.7Mb).
Those interested in responding could reply addressing each question and more OR write an article on this subject. (Couple of responses are already in!)
Someone should collect all the responses, document and edit them for everyone's use. For now, send your comments to sanskrit@cheerful.com
We need to complete the grouping of the verses with English meaning which will help in learning Sanskrit.
The support will involve monitory contributions, donations of books and information, participation as volunteers, etc.
One can also influence the schools and institutions to continue teaching Sanskrit.
(Professors Ashok Aklujkar and Madhav Deshpande have contributed funds to provide as awards to students, their teachers and schools who excel academically in Sanskrit state-wide examination.
Contact
It appears (though this may not be right) that in India, non-hindi speaking states have emphasized Sanskrit more. This is a topic of discussion. For your information, all the central schools in India have Sanskrit as a compulsory language, along with English and Hindi.
A dhaatuukoshha is in preparation and will need some programming and encoding help. Please contact Himanshu Pota pota@adfa.oz.au for more details.
A list of common errors in transliteration and Sanskrit conjunts, and others should be prepared to assist the newcomers to transliterations and Sanskrit. The work has started with file name as commonerrors.txt.
A comprehensive list of devanagari conjuncts is available from James E. Agenbroad jage@loc.gov. Please contact Bijoy Misra (bmisra@husc.HARVARD.EDU) for further information.
A chart of bold Devanagari characters ( chart.itx | chart.ps | chart.gif ) their `baaraakhaDii' format (ka kaa ki kii .. etc upto GYaH) ( baaraa.itx | baaraa.ps) and a pronunciation table are available ( pronounce.html | pronounce.itx | pronounce.ps) | pronounce.gif).
These will also help children who are beginning to learn devanagari. (C.S.Raghavendra csr@wipinfo.soft.net)
Follow creative/innovative approaches to develop and maintain interest in learning of Sanskrit language. This can include crossword puzzles, riddles, poems, stories, word formatting etc. (Sid Harth bakula@earthlink.net)
(Himansu R. Pota - pota@adfa.oz.au). Sanskrit SambhaashhaaNa group has already prepared such books.
Examples are:
vasudhaiva kuTuMbakaM, durlabhe bhaarate janmaH, tat.h tvaM asi, ahaM brahmaasmi, praGYaanaM brahma, gataM na shochya, namaskaar, cha.ndramaa manaso jaataa, naati charaami (shloka during Vedic marriage ceremony), satyaM vada - dharamaM chara, svaadhyaanmaa pramadaH, aachaaryaaya priyaM, prajvaalito GYaanamayaH pradiipaH, dharmo rakshati rakshitaH, atiparichayaat.h avaGYaa, satyameva jayate, piNDe piNDe matirbhinnaH, na aatmaa balahiinena labhyaH (muNDaka upanishhad.h III.iii.4), na aatmaa pravachanena labhyaH (muNDaka upanishhad.h III.iii.3), tatoha.nsaH prachodayaat.h (Ramakrishna mission), ekaM sat.h vipraaH bahuDhaa vadanti, ahi.nsaa paramo dharamaH, tamaso maa jyotirgamaya, aa no bhadraaH kratavo yantu vishvataaH (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Journal) etc.
Many such terms are used in emblems of the institutions in India, resembling the Latin ones in the Western world. A reference to the institutions may be appropriate. These may resonate collection of subhaashhita but will give direct explanation of sayings commonly used in Philosophy encoded in the Sanskrit texts including Upanishhads. The writing could be for a page or two in the form of an essay or pravachana explaining the intricacies of sayings and sighting other texts. The first step is to collect such `revealing' messages, and then a few can start writing on them.
A following format is suggested: vaakya reference complete shloka word by word meaning overall meaning the context Essay which will include references of other shloka-s, specific comments, some insights, quotes, notes for implementations in daily practice. Additional references Anything else?
Many teachers have said that Sanskrit is not a difficult language. It however needs persistence, prolonged interest, and some motivation to read and understand scriptures such as Upanishhad, Veda, Gita etc. Count the number of years you have spent learning your mother tongue, and English a language for professional communication mainly through different subjects, and Hindi or so. In comparison, see how many hours you devoted in learning and maintaining touch with Sanskrit language. This should prompt one to devote more time, steady and on long term basis to absorb the language. Here are a few of the available sources to learn Sanskrit. Since we do not have luxury of learning directly from a teacher in person, we will have to resort to these means. (Please do not value the dollar amount to compare the contents. It is given only for reference. Most of these teachers are lovers of Sanskrit and have prepared the material to make it available to an `aspirant' at a nominal cost to cover the expenses.) Please look at
It is suggested , for encoding Sanskrit texts, to use one of the ITRANS , CSX (Classical Sanskrit), or Velthuis' TeX based systems. This will allow easy conversion to Devanagari (along with English) printout. If such a scheme is not followed, the manual conversion becomes a time consuming, more than a person would spend learning a scheme for typing the texts. Here is the ITRANS scheme, which is more intuitive pronunciation wise (but not from formal linguistic viewpoint??).
The ITRANS 4.0 transliteration scheme is
a aa(A) i ii(I) u uu(U)
R^i R^I
e ai o au aM aH
L^i L^I
k kh g gh N^
ch chh j jh JN
T Th D Dh N
t th d dh n
p ph b bh m
y r l v sh shh s h
L(Marathi)
ksh(x) GY(Hindi)
q K G z f .D .Dh
are the letters
k kh g j ph D Dh
with nuktaas for Urdu.
.n anusvaara
M anusvaara
.a avagraha
.h haLa.nta (leg break),
H visarga
dot . or a vertical line |
produce a da.nDa
\. backslash + dot produces dot (puurNaviraama).
a.c ardhachandra as in cat.
aa.c ardhachandra as in talk.
The vowels need to be added after each consonant
unless one wants joDaakshara.
No other letters (upper or lower cases) are allowed.
____________________________________________________
Enclose English text in two sets of ## signs (before and after the text.)
For other examples, see documents on anonymous ftp chandra.astro.indiana.edu
OR contact Avinash Chopde at avinash@acm.org .
The scheme has its origin with Velthuis' transliteration rules, and has departed to allow basis for pronunciation. Selection of Devanagari, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarathi fonts is an added feature.
There are quite a few schemes developed for various users (and uses), and there is no need to argue merits and demerits of them. One of the objectives will be to have the text printed in Devanagari, by standard affordable means, and still be able to circulate easily, preferably in ascii, or transform in different formats. ITRANS suits that purpose very well.
Please check it at https://sanskritdocuments.org/web-interface/
Please add new items such as saptapadi in marriage, dvaadasha jyotirli.nga, aagamaa, etc. The list will grow into a unique data base and many should contribute as soon as they encounter such a shloka or list.
Others with ancient relation, eiher through Latin or in some cross-culture origin are (territory of etymologists) mind to mana, man to manu, father to pitR^i, mother to maatR^i, brother to bhraatR^i, riti to ritual, ambrosia to amR^ita, three to tri, sept in september to sapta, oct to octa or ashhTa, dec in december deca to dasha, sugar to sharkaraa, medium ro madhyam, and so on.
See Sanskrit FAQ for details. Contact Prof. Brian Smith at brian.smith@ucr.edu for a latest list.
`The astronomy of the age of geometric altars,' by Subhash Kak is available at
ftp://gate.ee.lsu.edu/pub/kak/altar.ps?
Subhash Kak kak@ee.lsu.edu.
Sanskrit is chosen as one of the most flexible but still structured languages for machine language and Artificial Intelligence studies. Prof. Rajeev Sangal,Dept of Computer Sci & Engg, IIT Kanpur, sangal@iitk.ernet.in.
"Rajeev Sangal is still on the project and more active. He has brought out a book `Natural Language Processing A Paninian Approach' published by Prentice Hall. Functions for `sandhi viccheda' have been completed as part of an M.Tech project. Now they are on `samaasa vigraha'. Several Sanskrit post graduates are part of the Comp. Science & Engg. faculty. The project has expanded itself to the Comp. Science Dept. in Osmania University, Hydrabad, where it has been heard that better facilities exist for such projects."
(from posting by Sourav parit@iitk.ernet.in)
A discussion by the group (and details) on the topic of technology in ancient India will be very useful. A reference for example is a book called ``vAstu shAstra'' published in India by an Indian scholar(??);
(Dhruba Chakravarti dchakrav@cs.com
Need to add information files on Sanskrit (different from sanskrit FAQ), the concept of karma-yoga, varNaashrama, Vivekananda (work is initiated see
vivekananda.itx | vivekananda.ps)
Ayurveda basics, etc. The files should give a glimpse of biographies or the topics and references for further reading. Lectures on such topics will be useful if the speaker provides it in written format or if they are transcribed.
A pa.nchaa.nga program written by Prof. Yano is now converted from Turbo-Pascal format to standard C . Now, it can be run on various computer platform. Please install it and check the display and contents and provide suggestions. Thanks to Krishna Padmasola for this conversion. For more information and other details related to Astrology information contact
Please see Mahesh Velankar's unique approach dishaa for this feature.
A picturesque magazine Chandamaama printed in many languages was quite popular in India. Unfortunately it was discontinued due to lack of support from readers. Funding such projects can be a beneficial task in longer run. The publisher's address is
CHANDAMAAMA PUBLICATIONS, 188, N.S. K. SALAI, VADAPALANI, MADRAS - India 600 026
Subscribe to Sambhashana Sandesha, a monthly Sanskrit magazine available from Aksharam. It carries book reviews, current topics, short stores, Sanskrit vocabulary, studied articles, and many more entirely in Sanskrit.
Their address in India is ``Aksharam'', 8Th Cross, II phase, Girinagar, Bangalore -560085 Ph (80) 6613052 .
In US, send a cheque for ?/- as annual subscription payable to IDRF. Memo - "Sambhashana SandeshaH". Mail it to Shivaram Bhat, 20800 Homestead Road, #36H, Cupertino CA - 95014 India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) is a voluntary non-profit organization carrying out social service activities in India. IDRF is assisting Samskrita Bharathi for Sanskrit activities in US.
If you know any other publications in Sanskrit, please let us know.
You can also send them as gifts to relatives for nominal cost (much
less if they are in India.)
Also, there are more than two million Sanskrit manuscripts, unexplored and unpublished all over India. Collecting them and preparing a data base itself is an another project.
Any help regarding this project, monitory or computer hardware/software related, coordination of various institutes, donating time, providing recording equipments, volunteering etc, will be appreciated.
Sanskrita Bharati at Bangalore has taken few steps regarding these activities. As you would realize, a single institution cannot really perform this task efficiently without the help from others.
Please contact Prasanna G. Basavapatna (prasg@informix.com) for more details and for suggesting some ideas.
Dr. Ajay Jani of Jiva institute is organizing a large scale operation of obtaining and preserving old Sanskrit texts. Please contact him at info@jiva.ernet.in or reach him at Western Residential, Singleton Hospital, Sketty, Swan Sea, SA28QA, U.K., Tel: 1792-205-666/5484, FAX 1792-285-975/84.
Topics:
1 Agamas and Tantras 2 Art, Architecture and Archaeology 3 Buddhist Studies 4 Classical Sanskrit Literature 5 Dharma Shastra and Artha Shastra 6 Epics and Puranas 7 Hindu Studies 8 Jaina Studies 9 Manuscripts and Historical Resources 10 Modern Sanskrit Literature 11 Music and Performing Arts 12 Philosophies (Darshanas) 13 Poetics and Aesthetics 14 Sanskrit and Regional Languages 15 Sanskrit Scientific Literature 16 Sanskrit Medical Literature 17 Sanskrit and the Environment 18 Sanskrit and Computer 19 Veda and Vedangas 20 Vyakarana and Linguistics
It depends on what you can do to enhance your and others' knowledge about these subjects. Please get involved in whatever capacity you can.
These sites already have many Sanskrit/Devanagari documents. A more detailed and varied list is given on the Sanskrit Links page.
Only a list is given. Documents are available to only the contributors.
Learning Sanskrit to read scriptures is a noble thought, and any start towards this objective is a welcome effort.
It may take some time, but the following words may keep us moving..
_______________________________
shanaiH panthaa
shanaiH kanthaa
shanaiH parvata la.nghanam.h |
_______________________________
slowly the path is covered,
slowly the quilt is built and ..
slowly the mountain is crossed over.
_______________________________
Everyone has to cover the path, or climb the mountain by oneself with perhaps some help from others. The start is important! As it is often said, the first step is the most difficult part of the journey.
We would like to `keep our enthusiasm in reasonable manner' while dealing with other subjects and people. Perhaps most of us are amateurs trying to do something with our limited abilities to learn and advance Sanskrit. So far as we maintain the `objective' approach, we can include others in our journey, irrespective of national origin or other considerations.
`Sanskrit' may not be the world's greatest commodity, although it may sound like it by reading this compilation. It is dear to us and we would like to do whatever is within our capacity. The phrase `more you give more you get' - used for many worthy undertakings, applies to this subject also.
Those who are already involved in some form or other know, that whatever we do as far as projects are concerned, is insignificant (`just a drop in the ocean') compared to the momentous tasks people - ancient sages, thinkers, including some notable indologist - have undertaken in the past. We will do our portion of it in the manner suitable to us!
Please volunteer to take part in this effort. One drawback of this list is that there are only a few people who are persuing more than one project on their own. A little help from all of us will ease their efforts significantly.
We thank all the
various contributors
to these projects