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Learning Sanskrit

Sanskrit can be called as a "language of consciousness", may be because it opens the door to India's rich spiritual literature. Sanskrit is not restricted to spirituality & religion, however, but also encompasses a vast literature of many genres; and for us to understand the beauty behind those copious beautiful texts, learning the Sanskrit language is a must.

Sanskrit, which was a primary language of communication in ancient India, lives on in modern India, though not in its full form: it survives in bits and pieces, in one way or another, in the various Indian languages that have descended from it. For natives of India, therefore, it is a matter of recapitulation of a language, which is present in them and merely seeking a proper channel.

Unlike English and other modern European languages, Sanskrit seems somewhat difficult to understand for most Westerners. This is true not only because of its script (devanagari), which is quite foreign to Western & European countries, but also because of its grammatically complex structure and highly inflected forms, which can be more richly inflected even than Greek or Latin, particularly the verbal conjugations.

The links below present an introduction to the Sanskrit language and a little motivation to joyously pursue it to one's own capacity.


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Sanskrit dictionary

  • Online Sanskrit Dictionaries
    The online Sanskrit dictionary is intended to build a repository of Sanskrit words/meanings in a simple, easy-to-extend format. We hope you find it useful and also contribute in adding more words to the collection -
  • The complete text of the dictionary is available in -
  • AkhyAntachandrikA is a thesaurus for verbs in Sanskrit compiled on the same line of amarakosha for nouns. It is arranged into semantic classes arranged in a certain order. There are some others like dhAturatnAvalI, dhAturatnapradIpaH or maitreyarakShita although they are focussed on their conjugation in groups. A scanned copy of AkhyAntachandrikA are at link no.1 AkhyAntachandrikA (4shared), link no.2 AkhyAntachandrikA (mediafire)

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Tutorials & documentation:

  • Sanskrit Tutorial - Charles Wikner -  

    Read Charles Wikner's reply on the purpose of the document here. His FTP url is ftp.nac.ac.za/wikner/. He advises - "Beware: there is a very thin piece of wire to South Africa, and it is stretched rather taut, so the best time to ftp would be Sunday morning local time (GMT+2:00)".

  • Sanskrit Tutorial translated in French by Yann Leglise - Please read notes about this translation. Email: Yann.Leglise at wanadoo.fr for more information.

  • Excellent "Introduction to Sanskrit series" at Sringeri Vidya Bharati Foundation (SVBF) : Units 1 through 16. They are recast in a newer site format and are available at http://svbf.org/svbf_journal.php. Unfortunately some links are broken. All the tutorials from the site are compiled at one place by Ramakrishna Upadrasta at Introduction to Sanskrit by Shri (Dr.) M.R. Dwarakanath.

  • The Learn Sanskrit Series is developed by Mr. Vasudeva Bhat on ourkarnataka site. There are 45 lessons (Jan 2010) whic h are also translated in Kannada. For Kannadigas, this is an excellent site.

  • Samskritapriyah - and the Samskrit Education in Chennai, India. Information relating to Sanskrit and set of basic lessons to learn the language through self study. Devanagari Script via browser (without having to install any Fonts) , This site has a useful multilingual editor developed by Indian Institute of Technology Madras, at Chennai, and is available at http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/iitmsoft.php It may be used in a number of ways to prepare documents in Sanskrit and all the Indian languages. Inline images for the tutorial are generated from special text files prepared using the Multilingual Software. Contact Professor Kalyana Krishnan for additional information.

    Mandar Joglekar has converted these lessons in ASP based files for easy browsing.

  • Learn Sanskrit using Marathi from sanskritdeepika.org as one of the major activities of Dnyanadeep foundation, in Sangli, Maharashtra. .

  • Kalidasa Samskrita Kendram in Chennai presents "Teaching Sanskrit Through Web" series of lessons. The center offers diploma courses in Sanskrit. The founder V.C. Govindarajan vcgrajan at yahoo.com has also initiated a Kalidasa group on yahoo where the lessons are first posted and discussed. The Kendram site also holds "Articles on History of Sanskrit Literature." ALso see Sanskrit lessons.

  • Learn Sanskrit online presentation at http://www.learnsanskrit.org has grammar contents grouped as * Sounds * Fundamentals * Details * Making Words * References. The site has an online translieteration tool Sanscript to display Sanskrit script in different formats including Roman+diacritics or IAST.

  • Subscribe and read the monthly magazine, sanskR^ita bAlasamvAdaH, edited by Shri Madhav Bade of Kolthare, Dapoli, Dist Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. Some sample issues are given here
    03.12, 04.01, 04.02.

    Find Sanskrit Primer, Bhagvadgita, Vishnusahasranama applications (apps) for Hifi use on iPhone, iTunes, and Android on the http://sparshapps.com/. The Sanskrit primer app aims to not only provide a teach yourself type guide to basic Sanskrit but also server as a handy pocket reference. The utilities are built by Krishna Varma .

  • Master Sanskrit Easily written and presented by Dr. Narayan Kansara of Ahmedabad. This is an extensive 301 page tutorial and is well formatted for two sided booklet printing. The entire text is in Roman with Diacritics. Its details are summarized in the Preface text file. Get the PDF files as Title, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

  • A step by ste p lessons in Sanskrit are provided by Swamis from Chitrapur Math at http://www.chitrapurmath.net/. A registration (free) is needed to access all the lessons. These are excellent tutorials and one must study them as they are presented in lively manner. Many useful files as a compilation from the site are avaialble on scribd.com.

    Sanskrit Lessons by Bhikshuni Heng Hsien in 1972 with Chinese/English translation. The lessons are hosted by The Sage City of Ten Thousand Buddhas at cttbusa.org.

    There lessons to learn Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan at http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/en/lesson/fan/lesson_fan1.jsp.

  • SaMskRutaadhyayanam with Shri S. L. Abhyankar. Many lessons are provided under the title "Learning Sanskrit in distance learning mode" in addition to help on speaking Sanskrit. Shri Abhyankar participates and guides students of Sanskrit literature in the learnsanskrit.wordpress.com along with Prof. Himanshu Pota. See also http://slezall.blogspot.com/.

  • Arshavidya center in founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati conducts various classes related to Bhagvadgita, Vedanta, and Sanskrit. The website at sanskrit101 contains 
        Audio classes by Sri Vijay Kapoor
Sanskrit classes on web by Br. Shankara
Alphabets
Classification of Alphabets
Writing of Alphabets
Sanskrit Handbook
Grammar
Dhatukosha
Common verbal roots with preposition
Sanskrit Noun Generator
Sanskrit Verb Generator
Language Analyzers & Generators
Sanskrit Sahakarin by Kumud Singhal
Part1 Vyakarna (new) | Part 2 Katha (new)
Learn Samskratam
Part1:1-59 Part2:60-124 | Part3:125-182 | Part4:183-239 | Part5:242-307 | Part6:307-367

  • Spiritual Seeker's Essential Guide to Sanskrit prepared by Dennis Waite dennis.waite at virgin.net .

  • Dr. Sudhir Kaicker, Director, Computer Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, has coordinated development of a Sanskrit tutor called SanskritaPradipika for PC-Windows. It is available for download (after free registration) at http://www.sanskrit-lamp.org. The file size is over 20 Mb.

  • Gabriel Pradiipaka and Andres Muni have compiled a procedure to Learn Sanskrit Language Step by Step. The FAQ written by Gabriel may be inspiring for new students.

  • aravindAshrame sa.nskR^itam at http://sanskrit.sriaurobindoashram.org.in/ is a site for various online display and audio of Sanskrit tutorials, magazine from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. The publications can be ordered from SABDA, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry - 605 002, India. For Ordering Information http://www.sabda.in.

  • http://murthygss.tripod.com/ (murthygss at gmail.com) provides Sabdamanjushaa, dhaatumanjari and email based lesson(s) of a Sanskrit course for beginners.

  • Learn Sanskrit through pictures (from Nepal) using vyAvahArikaM Sanskrit parts 1, 2, 3 from http://www.pustakalaya.org. (Also linked from http://sanskritebooks.org, June 2010.) These books, prepared by Pramodavardhan Kaundinnyayan with guidance from Shivaraj Acharya Kaundinnyayan, have nicely drawn sketches explaining word meanings and sentences in Sanskrit. The series of three books are produced for Svadhyayashala, which is a long running Sanskrit Tradition in Nepal. It provides great classes on Sanskrit, Vedic Way of Life and many more on Vedic Sanatan Dharma. (Communicated by Ujjwol Lamichhane from Nepal.)

  • There is a list of Sanskrit grammar books prepared for a serious student of Sanskrit. The list is available in ambaa.org collection.

  • The Sanskrit-E-books site has presented several downloadable scanned books to learn Sanskrit. Among them, those by Kamalashankar Trivedi appear to be more "intuitive."

  • Vedic Accents:
    • Notes on Vedic accents by Charles Wikner. Postscript and PDF-Acrobat files. (July 1997).
    • ITX | PS | PDF | XDVNG | GIF - svaramaJNjarii or vaidikasvarapaddhati text + trans. on Vedic accents
      grammar rules related to accents (by Tryambak B. Abhyankar)

  • A slide presentation with audio clips on Question Making for Sanskrit learners. (password for read only part is 12345). Prepared by S K Mishra.

  • The Tâittirîya-Prâtiçâkhya and commentary tribhAShyaratna by William Dwight Whitney has an elaborate presentation on svara system, alphabets, use of anusvAra et cetera.
    Other pratishAkhya-s available at Digital Library of India, namely atharva-praatishaakhya, Riktantra Sama Veda, Shukla Yajurveda, Taittiriya, Vajasaneyin.

  • Multimedia format for Learning Sanskrit
    • Learn Sanskrit through self-study at http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/lessons.php.
    • Learn Sanskrit for Beginners (CD-Rom).
    • Bhashika: The Complete Course for Spoken Sanskrit (2 CDs) $12.95 .
    • A self-learning CD SanskritashikShikA produced by Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. Rs 260 or 12USD+shipping.
    • Correspondence course with Rashtriya SAnskrit Sansthan, New Delhi.
    • Prof. Madhav Deshpande's audio course: http://umich.edu/~iinet/media/csas/sanskrit/audio.html that supports learning through his book "Samskrta-Subhodini: A Sanskrit Primer."
    • http://samskrute.blogspot.com/, Dhananjay Vaidya's guidance for Sanskrit pronunciations.
    • Radio for learning Sanskrit via Hindi at http://shoutcast.com/radio/sanskrit.
    • An online portal (http://www.sanskritfromhome.in) for Sanskrit Learning has been launched by Ideas Software and Consulting Pvt Ltd (Bangalore) in association with Samskrti Foundation (Mysore). The portal, named vyoma-samskrta-pathashala, is intended to provide a collaborative platform for Sanskrit teachers and students. Currently it offers an interactive self-learning course for Beginners in Sanskrit. It also contains a course for school students (studying 10th standard in Karnataka), and a course for Grammar paper of MA exam conducted by Karnataka State Open University (KSOU). Several other courses are targeted at different groups of learners. Please send your suggestions and feedback through email at sanskritfromhome@isacweb.com
    • Listen to the weekly lessons/ discussions based on the excellent works of samskRita-bhAratI (esp: janArdhana heggaDe's bhAShApAka and shuddhi-kaumudI), led by shrI svarUp-dInabandhu. The recently started discussion list is found here: Google group bhaashaapaakavargah. These audio lessons are recorded and then automatically published as a podcast by the freeconferencecall.com system. (Prefers IE browser although works on Firefox selectively. Works on the podcast app on phone).

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Grammar

 

  • Some Simple Sanskrit stories -

  • Sanskrit learning/speaking camp experience notes -

  • Shri Radhikaranjan Das, a Sanskrit Teacher in Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, has written and published two books of short Sanskrit stories, adR^ishyam and kathAH vichitrAH in simple Sanskrit for all the ages. Read a short presentation of these books. Write to the author Shri Radhikaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, (Tamil Nadu), India 605002 Email : rr.kalidas at gmail.com or call at +91 7598494335 to place an order.

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Conversational Sanskrit (lessons and documents)

 Sanskrit Bharati, based in Bangalore, India (Bharat) has been instrumental in promoting conversational Sanskrit on world-wide basis. The program has been circulated through camps, publications, correspondence courses, studies through personal contacts, and by various means suitable to individual's needs. The following books are some of their publications.

 


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Software:

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