Efforts in learning sanskrit - HH Bharati Teertha Mahaswamigal

[K.N.RAMESH]

https://youtu.be/My3XxA2jKHo

Although *Sringeri Sr Shankaracharya, Sri Bharathi Teertha,* is sending out this message in Kannada, it can be easily understood even by the layman, even by the non-Kannada people. Because it is in Sanskritized Kannada. Also, there are English subtitles to help us understand his message.

      

     But, in this milieu, we should not forget, we should not overlook, the passion, the anxiety, the fervour, the urge, embedded in his voice, when he ASKS US ALL TO TAKE UP THE STUDY OF SANSKRIT LANGUAGE in right earnest. He does not discount the fact that it may be difficult. So what ?? Learning Veda Mantras, Music, Violin, or for that matter anything NEW, anything to the UNINITIATED, *Will be difficult.* We can overcome the difficulty with *our Effort, our Prayatna प्रयत्न*. Nay, not a One-Time Prayatna. *But a Nirantara Prayatna, निरन्तर प्रयत्न.*

          He also trashes the other frequently offered objection to learning Sanskrit. He says "Age can never ever be a barrier, if we have a Strong Will to Learn, and the Effort, the Prayatna to Learn.

      In the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna says, one of the most difficult thing in life, is *Control of our Mind - मनो निग्रहः* Arjuna says in the 6th Chapter, Shlokas 34 & 35 :

*चञ्चलं हि मनः कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् ।*तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ।।*

Hey Krishna, how do I control this Mind, that is always vacillating, strong and intractable. I consider the Control of Mind as even very much more difficult than controlling Wind Force such as Hurricane, Cyclone or a Tornado.

*श्रीभगवानुवाच*

*असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् ।*

*अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ।।*

Sri Krishna says,

    Undoubtedly Arjuna, I agree that Control of Mind is very difficult. (But, it is not something Impossible.) It is certainly possible through *PRACTICE,* and also a sense of *DETACHMENT.*

          If the Difficult Mind itself can be controlled with Practice, then why can't we learn Sanskrit with Practice.

            Without Prayatna nothing is Possible. With Prayatna nothing is Impossible.

       As the American poet, *H.W. Longfellow* says in his *A Psalm of Life,*

*Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !*

*Let the dead Past bury it's dead !*

*Act, – act in the living Present !*

*Heart within, and God o'erhead !*

*Let us, then, be up and doing,*

*With a heart for any fate;*

*Still achieving, still pursuing,*

*Learn to labour and to wait.*

[vishal jaiswal]

With the wrong approach (vyakarana), this fails for 95-99% of learners- which is why Sanskrit stays where it is today. 

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[T.K Gopalan]

Th ats all very well. 

The western scholars mastered Sanskrit and  its grammar and could translate Sanskrit classics with ease. How could they attain such mastery?

Here I am, with a fair amount of Sanskrit background from school and college, with reasonable familiarity with Astadhyayi, with a wide reading of several classics, feel hopeless to ever understand a Sanskrit passage without help. 

How did the western scholars do it?

Please take this question seriously.

Regards

T K Gopalan

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[vishal jaiswal]

Knowing about Sanskrit can certainly lead to translation, dissection, decoding and so on, and yet imho it's not the same as knowing/understanding Sanskrit. 

And that's exactly why I wrote 95-99% not 100%. Trying to master a language by grammar is never practical except for the highly intellectual and motivated 1% .

[P S Ramachandran]

It is dedication. It is also with a goal, because they were working as a toolkit to understand and to condemn it, 

However, they did not learn it paramparically along with the sadangas. 

Moreover the translations were done by Sanskrit knowing professionals for a salary and they just usurped the credit and published as theirs. You may agree or not, if you do phd now, you ail do the research. And the prof publishes the same as his. 

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[Karthik]

@TKGopalan

> How did the western scholars do it?

The same way we English-speaking Indians do it, I guess. Kosha + contextual reading.

> with a wide reading of several classics, feel hopeless to ever understand a Sanskrit passage without help.

I am with Vishal on this one. I haven't done wide-reading of the classics or spent time with the Ashtadhyayi. But I do read lots and lots of simple Sanskrit stories without worrying about comprehension too much.

The grammar-first method is an incredible waste of time for most people. I wasted a couple of years on grammar before switching over to the use of Krashen's comprehensible input method. While I started study in mid 2022, and reasonably serious study in early 2024, I only switched over to Krashen's method around December 2024. And that helped me to start translating Chandamama and other stories into English. This, I have been doing for a few months now.

If you have not read a couple of thousand pages of Sanskrit material (doesn't matter what it is: stories, essays, plays, itihasas, puranas), I don't think grammar is going to be of any help. This is like a man sitting in a cave his entire life reading about the qualities of the Sun without experiencing it in person. kim prayojanam?!!

[T.K Gopalan]

Thanks. Where can I find Krashen’s input method for mastering Sanskrit?

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[Rakesh Bharadwaj]

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[Sandeep Maher]

The attached may help. AI-generated in line with suggestions in enclosed.

Regards,

Sandeep H. Maher

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[T.K Gopalan]

Thank you.

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