संस्कृत Documents


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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 is said to be a primary language of communication in ancient India; it 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 ingrained in their mother tongue and 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

  • Various Online Sanskrit Dictionaries are listed in https://sanskritdocuments.org/dict.

  • A simple repository of Sanskrit words/meanings in easy-to-extend format. PDF and Text format. Amarakosha, Sanskrit thesaurus.
  • 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)
  • The links to the 5 volumes of Dhaturatnakara (Jain version) By Muni Lavanyavijaya are (in serial order) http://www.jainlibrary.org/book.php?file=001920 to http://www.jainlibrary.org/book.php?file=001924 One can download them only after registering at the http://www.jainlibrary.org site.

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Tutorials & documentation:

  • Sanskrit Tutorial - Charles Wikner -
    • Browsable and Indexed GIF version
    • Postscript version. See .ps in formats and viewers. (File size is about 1.3Mb.
    • PDF1 and PDF2. PDF1(1Mb) is smaller and suitable for both PC and Mac. See .pdf in formats and viewers.
    • Link to sktfont-announce.txt Announcement
    • Link to sktintro-announce.txt Font Annoucement
    • Link to sktdoc.ps600 Another version of postscript (600dpi) document
    • Link to sktreadme.txt Sanskrit ReadMe File
    • Link to sktintro.ps600-letter-march97 Another version of postscript in Letter Size
    • Link to sktintro.ps600-a4paper-march97 Another version of postscript in A4 Size
    • Link to sktintps.zip A zipped postscript file
     

    Read Charles Wikner's reply on the purpose of the document here.

  • Sanskrit Tutorial translated in French by Yann Leglise - Updated April 2014 Sanskrit tutorial in French, PDF (794 Kb), version 2. Please read older notes about this translation. Email: Yann.Leglise at wanadoo.fr for more information. "English : This second version includes corrections about typo, style, translation, and also includes some missing parts. However, the main change in this version is the use of color in order to make the document easier to read, and a little less stern. French : Cette seconde édition contient des correction orthographiques, de style, de traduction et inclut également quelques parties manquantes. Cependant le changement le plus important réside dans l'utilisation de couleurs afin de rendre le document plus facile à lire et un peu moins austère"

  • 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 (the link to only www.ourkarnataka.com/ site is not working but sanskrit lessons work). There are 45 lessons (Jan 2010) which are also translated in Kannada. For Kannadigas, this is an excellent site.

  • Tutorials developed by members of the Samskritapriyah group - 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://www.acharya.gen.in:8080/olref.html 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 transliteration 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.

  • Girvanapratishtha, a step by step lessons in Sanskrit are provided by Swamis from Chitrapur Math at http://www.chitrapurmath.net/. These are excellent tutorials and one must study them as they are presented in lively manner.

  • 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 is 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
    Sanskrit grammar books are also available for download at http://arshaavinash.in/.

  • 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://www.sriaurobindoashram.com and go to Ashram/ Departments/ sanskrit 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:

  • 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 T?tir?-Pr??hya 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://www.acharya.gen.in:8080/sanskrit/tutor.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
    • From the same team at sanskritfromhome.in there is now a new venture vyomalabs.in to have online training course for CBSE X Sanskrit Students. Vyoma Labs is a non-profit organisation that brings together sanskrit and technology. They are probably the only private organisation in India working in the Sanskrit domain. The organisation is funded by a group of sanskrit enthusiasts. The CBSE 10th Standard gives students explanations at length regarding Sanskrit concepts - Reading in Sanskrit, Writing in Sanskrit, Concepts in Sanskrit Grammar, Sanskrit Prose and Sanskrit Poetry. Among other products are Flagship Product:- Samskruta Balamodini, Samskrit Sandhis for beginners, Ashtadhyayi, Shabda-Roopa-Sangrahah, ti~NantapakriyA, Laghu SiddhAnta Kaumdi, MA Sanskrit Courses, Vaiyakarana Siddhanta kaumudi, Praudhamanorama, and Shishugeetaani and more.
    • Online Sanskrit learning lessons and video tutorials for learning Sanskrit grammar are available at OpenPathshala.com with a fee. On demand classes for learning Sanskrit (be it conversation, grammar or literature and philosophy). Classes are conducted online through Skype. Contact Rahul Dolas rahuldolas123 at gmail.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).
    • An audio rendering of aShTAdhyAyI, the entire treatise on Sanskrit grammar (8 chapters of sUtras), called aShTaadhyaayii by maharshi paaNini. It is rendered by Achaarya Vinayaka Rajata Bhat, Vidwaan Ramakrishna Bhat K of Bangalore. The same audio clips are enhanved with display of corresponding text and is given in YouTube Au Chemie channel. It is work in progress, and more adhyAyas are being added with careful timing of text with video. (Alternative link 12).
    • In an effort to learn Ashtadhayi by heart, Sitaram Ramakoti, raamakoti [at] gmail.com prepared a set of PowerPoint presentations, paper flashcards, audio clips et cetera. Eventually he created the Anki Deck for learning Ashtadhyayi. It can be viewed (sample and summary) and downloaded from Anki Deck with Audio for learning Ashtadhyayi from ankiweb.net. Raama has given some details and tips at samskrita newgroup posting December 5, 2013, along with "AshTAdhyAyi Memorization.xlsx" MS Excel file.
    • Learn Prathamaavrutti siddhi sangraha aShTAdhyAyI with audios by Vyakaranacharya, Acharya Vedshrami,a resident priest at Atlanta Vedic temple. The audio files are also posted on YouTube as well as Google Plus without any visual pictures but only the Panini stamp. A few of his students have started preparing text from the audio, and the files are posted on Evernote.
    • Pandit Bramhadatta Jigyaasu ji presents an easier way to understand Ashtadhyayi through audio lectures are anubhuuta saralatama vidhI.
    • Indica Courses Indica Courses is a platform for lifelong learners for online courses across multiple disciplines of global indigenous knowledge systems. Examples are
      • Abhinavgupt-darshan-ek-parichay
      • Caturdasavidyasthanas An Introduction
      • Introduction to Mahabhashyam by Maharshi Patanjali
      • Introduction to Navya Nyaaya - Tarka Sangraha Textual Study
      • Introduction to Nitishatakam
      • Learn Sharada Lipi
      • Maharshi Patanjali's Yogasutras - Learn and Recite
      • Sanskrit for Beginners Basic Course
      • Sanskrit for Beginners-Intermediate Course
      • Shiksha - The Indic Shastra of Pronunciation
      • Siddhantakaumudī - An Integrated Approach To Vyakarana Shastra
      • Yoga 360 : An in-depth Immersion Into Philosophy, Practice and Application of Yoga
      • and many more indology, jyotish, Ayurveda related courses.

    • Individual attempts to teach/learn Sanskrit
      • Aditi Ashok Bhat and Aneesha Ashok Bhat are learning Sanskrit in a Laghu Gurukula after their school hours. Laghu Gurukula is named after the great Senior Pejawar Swamiji, as Sri Vishveshadhama Gurukula. Situated in Bangalore, is run by Sri Raghavendra Aithal Ji during evening hours. Under him, students are learning Amarakosha 1st and 2nd Kanda, Bhagavadgeeta 18 chapters, Raghuvamsha 1st and 2nd sarga, Kumara Sambhava 5th Sarga, Laghu Siddhanta Koumudi, Tarka Sangraha etc. Visit youtube channel of the Sri Vishveshadhama Gurukula.

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Grammar


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