simplified Sanskrit literature for children

[vishal jaiswal]

This has always been the foremost question on my mind.

Though, the efforts of many people to revive Sanskrit are laudable - why
is there an utter dearth of simple literature for children in the form
of short stories, etc.

Surely, our scholars in Sanskrit must have thought of this by now.

Yes, there is Chandamama, but the level is a bit higher than complete
beginning.
And it is not enough.

If I read 500 books by Enid Blyton in English when I was in school, why
cant I expect the same in Sanskrit.

I am aware very few such stories exist, but I am comparing 50 such tales
with 500 or 1000 or more.

Or is it that Sanskrit doesnt lend itself to the style of fiction or
prose that is the norm today ? (I am of course a beginner, so such
questions come to my mind)

Why should I mug up grammar, word endings, and word lists ?
Wouldn't it be nicer to learn all this in the context of stories ?
Why should I jump directly, and struggle with appreciating fine poetry
or philosophical subhashitas or etc ?

It's my personal opinion that this vacuum needs to be filled, at the
very least, for children, if not for other age groups too.

I hope to hear some answers.
~Vishal

[Ajit Krishnan]

namaste,

If we look back, we see extended families and a culture of story-telling. This is "devii-vaak" ... the women of the family, who often couldn't read or write, would none the less regale the children of the family. Just the Ramayana and Mahabharata alone provide enough material for an entire childhood. These stories are timeless. By virtue of being Rishi-vachanam, they have a special shakti within them. For parents, it should be possible to use the panchatantra (excluding subhashitas), ramayana and mahabharata as the basis of a childhood syllabus. ie. it starts with children listening, and slowly moves towards their active reading. If the parents have a basic amount of Sanskrit fluency, they can make do with this.

As far as simple prose literature goes, this is a very laudable goal. Samskrita Bharati has been publishing the Sambhasha Sandesha magazine for many, many years. All of this is modern prose. They have certainly published more than 1000 simple short stories for children and young adults. I suspect that the real number is much higher. Certainly more than enough material to bridge the gap to the panchatantra and ramayana.

It would certainly be nice if the vacuum you perceive in Sanskrit literature can be filled. But, this does not require scholars. Stories for children are not written by English scholars ... but by normal people. So, learn Sanskrit the current way, pick up your pen, and make it easier for those who follow you :-)

sasneham,

    ajit

 

   ajit

 

 

~Vishal

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[Venetia Kotamraju]

There was a seminar on Sanskrit for children just a few days ago: http://sanskritaprasruti.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/a-national-seminar-on-sanskrit-for-children-at-puduchcherry-13-14-april-2013/

I wonder if anybody attended it and has comments to pass on? 

A friend and I also felt there weren't enough high quality children's books in Sanskrit and we are trying to translate some of the more popular Pratham Books into Sanskrit - Pratham Books licences some of their books under Creative Commons and are very open to people translating them into other languages: http://prathambooks.org/.

On Sat, Apr 13, 2013 at 10:37 AM, Subhash <subh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>why is there an utter dearth of simple literature for children in the form of short stories, etc.

Please check the Samskrita Bharati bookstore.
Some are also available online like http://sanskritdocuments.org/atul/kathaa/

Among other pdfs on this link, I see that there are Jataka Stories   https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/jrblack/web/BU/PDF/

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Venetia Kotamraju

+91 997230 5440

www.rasalabooks.com

www.venetiaansell.wordpress.com

[Phani Kumar]

This is an initiative of Dr. Sampadananda Mishraji of SAFIC , Pondicherry. He has been doing amazing work in this field almost single handed.I havent attended the seminar myself. I have received proceedings of the seminar which I am attaching to this mail.

Dr. Phani Kumar

32,Prasasan Nagar,

Road-72,

Jubilee Hills,

Hyderabad 500033

Andhra Pradesh.

[vishal jaiswal]

First of all, thank you very much to all of you who have replied in this
thread.

Let me clarify that when I said vacuum, I was thinking of the area
between absolute beginner and the Chandamama stories.

Perhaps, something similar to graded texts with deliberately simplified
stories with minimal set of grammatical concepts at each of these levels
would be good.

As some of you might know, Tulika books also publish story books which
fill the above-mentioned gap in several Indian languages. I emailed them
quite some time back asking why dont they come out with parallel books
for Sanskrit. They were just silent, & I presume that they wouldnt make
any money out of that ?

Anyway Tulika books are really expensive (I suppose, its justified by
the elaborate graphics in their books), but Pratham books are doing a
great job with modestly priced books. So I look forward to Venetia's
project seeing the light of day. I have not actually read Pratham's
books yet, but I hope that some of the books will fill this crucial
first gap that I keep referring to.

I also saw the pdf file for the seminar on Sanskrit for children.
And again, it seemed very vague and generic.
All the talks seem to refer to many poems, plays, stories, songs,
rhymes, picture-cards, games, etc which have yet to exist outside the
talks. The only concrete reference was to the graded Sanskrit primers
published by Samskritbharati, Chennai.

Let's hope someone will eventually bell the cat, instead of just talking
about various ways.
By the bell, I refer to actual beginner's literature targeting the 5-8
year age group !

And it is implicit that when I reach a decent level in Sanskrit, it
would be my duty to write
original stories !

As a side note, I am equally sad to see most of the Indian regional
languages slowly fading into a strange mixture with english, to simply
exist at the day-to-day functional usage.

I day dream sometimes about a rich ecosystem that could possibly
flourish with more than two dozen major Indian languages interacting
among themselves via translations.
If only we were a nation of readers as the Soviet Union was !
Apologies for the tiny digression.

~vishal

>>> https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/**jrblack/web/BU/PDF/<https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/jrblack/web/BU/PDF/>

[Vasuki Seshadri]

namaste,

As others have mentioned Samskrita Bharati has published a wide range of
children's books. Please take a look at the selection here:

http://bookstore.samskritabharatiusa.org/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=29

There are both storybooks and workbooks here for all ages and skill
levels at very affordable prices. If you need further assistance
selecting books, please let me know.

bhavadIyaH,
vAsuki.

[vishal jaiswal]

Let's list the wide range from the Samskrita Bharati website - here, I
refer to stories, not multimedia or grammar or for learning the
Devangari script.

That makes for a total of 14 books (10 single books and a set of 4 books).
Is that a wide range ?

śruṇvantu Kathām Ekām
śarabhabhrāmakam
Saṁskṛtabālādarśaḥ
śākhabhakṣakaḥ Biḍālaḥ
Raktavarṇīyaḥ Citrakaṭaḥ
Pañcatantrakathāḥ
Palāyitaḥ caṇakaḥ
Kūjakaḥ Cikroḍaḥ
Citrakathāḥ
Bodhakathāḥ
Bālebhyaḥ Mahābhāratanītikathāḥ

~Vishal

[Vasuki Seshadri]

It is certainly a good start. After that, there are hundreds if not
thousands of "bAlamodini" stories, three are published in each and every
monthly sambhAShaNa sandeshaH magazine edition:

http://bookstore.samskritabharatiusa.org/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=33&Itemid=26

I have had a subscription for several years myself.

vAsuki.

[Sunil Chhabada]

Namaste,

I was delighted to see link for kids - point raised by vishal is very valid.

Now my grief (until my ignorance is removed) is the link is to US Samskrita Bharati,

cost is in $$s.

Me, typical trend abiding, left US a few yrs back and have made Bharata Home.

Can someone please remove my ignorance and give me link to Indian book store.

I am getting my 6 yr old started on Samskritam , and hence need help from 

scholars. Me myself a beginner in Samskritam, so desperate for such books 

which will encourage more early and very early reading.

Regards,

Sunil

[Vasuki Seshadri]

नमस्ते,

Here is the link for the SB India bookstore:
http://samskritabharati.in/store

सादरम्,
वासुकिः।

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