3 ms·

My list keeps changing, but I have three main "projects" these days. - I will complete the final level of a beginner's Sanskrit course this August. This has be

by Arun2009 7y ago

My list keeps changing, but I have three main "projects" these days. - I will complete the final level of a beginner's Sanskrit course this August. This has been an intermittently executed project for me. I can follow uncomplicated spoken and written Sanskrit now, and can mostly understand Sanskrit at the level of Gita or the Indian epics. My long term aim is to be able to read Indian philosophical works in their original. - I am teaching a few neighborhood kids Mathematics, Physics, and occasionally, Computer Science. This is immense fun! - I am trying to learn at a deeper level some of the topics that I learned during my undergraduate studies. On this front, right now I am working on understanding operating systems and compilers a bit better.

neuralk 7y ago
Besides the course you are taking (is it an in-person class, or online perhaps?), are there any resources for learning Sanskrit that you'd recommend? I have the same long term goal as you! I'm looking to self-study the language since there aren't local courses where I live.
- Arun2009 7y ago
  My course is the famous one by Samskritabharati (https://www.samskritabharati.in/ https://www.samskritabharati.in/). It's a correspondence program, but they do conduct introductory contact classes as well. They also deliver materials overseas. Samskritabharati also has online video lectures (http://www.samskritashikshanam.in/ http://www.samskritashikshanam.in/), but they are in Hindi. I have audited a few introductory courses from vyoma samskrita pathashala (https://sanskritfromhome.in https://sanskritfromhome.in). There's also the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in India (http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/ http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/) who have a two year introductory correspondence course. I believe they deliver overseas as well. I did the first year of their course with the help of a tutor I hired from urbanpro.com, but (as with all things GoI) I found the experience to be far less satisfactory than Samskritabharati's. If you can read Hindi, you can also look at the school textbooks by NCERT as well, which are available for free (http://ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm http://ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm) Two "Western"-style books that I would recommend are: * Devavanipravesika (An Introduction to the Sanskrit Language) by Robert Goldman * Samskrita-SubodhinI (A Sanskrit Primer) by Madhav Deshpande. One thing I want to do is to work through these books once I am done with Samskritabharati just to cement the things I have learnt. The nice thing about Samskritabharati's course is that it doesn't just teach the language, but it also introduces you in a gentle (but unapologetic!) way to the whole tradition that flourished through it's medium. They also publish books in Sanskrit, which may also help you in your education. Good luck!

neuralk 7y ago

Besides the course you are taking (is it an in-person class, or online perhaps?), are there any resources for learning Sanskrit that you'd recommend? I have the same long term goal as you! I'm looking to self-study the language since there aren't local courses where I live.

Arun2009 7y ago
My course is the famous one by Samskritabharati (https://www.samskritabharati.in/ https://www.samskritabharati.in/). It's a correspondence program, but they do conduct introductory contact classes as well. They also deliver materials overseas. Samskritabharati also has online video lectures (http://www.samskritashikshanam.in/ http://www.samskritashikshanam.in/), but they are in Hindi. I have audited a few introductory courses from vyoma samskrita pathashala (https://sanskritfromhome.in https://sanskritfromhome.in). There's also the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in India (http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/ http://www.sanskrit.nic.in/) who have a two year introductory correspondence course. I believe they deliver overseas as well. I did the first year of their course with the help of a tutor I hired from urbanpro.com, but (as with all things GoI) I found the experience to be far less satisfactory than Samskritabharati's. If you can read Hindi, you can also look at the school textbooks by NCERT as well, which are available for free (http://ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm http://ncert.nic.in/textbook/textbook.htm) Two "Western"-style books that I would recommend are: * Devavanipravesika (An Introduction to the Sanskrit Language) by Robert Goldman * Samskrita-SubodhinI (A Sanskrit Primer) by Madhav Deshpande. One thing I want to do is to work through these books once I am done with Samskritabharati just to cement the things I have learnt. The nice thing about Samskritabharati's course is that it doesn't just teach the language, but it also introduces you in a gentle (but unapologetic!) way to the whole tradition that flourished through it's medium. They also publish books in Sanskrit, which may also help you in your education. Good luck!