Hari Aum.
Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages on Earth. The yoga scriptures describe it as a divine language, 'the language of God (and the demi-gods)'. All mantras of yoga philosophy are in Sanskrit.
Sanskrit is regarded as a very precise language. The vowels and consonants are arranged in a logical manner and the rules of pronunciation are very clear (unlike say, English where two words appear similar but the pronunciation is completely different e.g. the 'u' sound in 'put' versus 'cut').
I made an attempt to study Sanskrit in school many years ago in India but gave up as the teacher was a very scary lady (who had an unpleasant habit of slapping children on the face- glad this is increasingly going out of fashion in Indian schools). Then, about four years ago, I signed up to the online Sanskrit course by the Chinmaya Mission and found this useful up to a point- it gave me an overview of Sanskrit but there was so much information and little application that I found I did not really retain very much.
In recent weeks, I discovered a ten week 'beginners Sanskrit' course being run by a local organisation that promotes Indian arts and culture. I signed up to it and have really enjoyed it so far. The teacher has an excellent style of teaching- he gets us to speak Sanskrit rather than simply bombarding us with a lot of information. In this way, in five weeks, he has managed to introduce us to a surprisingly large number of nouns, verbs and concepts and enabled us to make simple sentences. I feel that by the end of the course, I will have a reasonably good foundation on which to build my further studies of Sanskrit.
The purpose of learning Sanskrit for me, like for many others, is of course to be able to appreciate the ancient literature of yoga in the original e.g. the Gita, the Upanishads and so on. I can currently read these in the original but with some effort (the script of Sanskrit, known as 'Devanagari' is very similar to some spoken Indian languages such as Hindi).
I would highly recommend learning basic Sanskrit to anyone interested in yoga philosophy. There is something special about reading a book in the original. When one translates a book or a poem, the meaning may be preserved to an extent but the feeling behind the words is often lost (Imagine reading a Hindi translation of Shakespeare- it's just not the same. Or for that matter, an English translation of Mirabai's poems). It is worth trying to read the yoga scriptures in the original, at least to some extent.
There are lots of online resources to learn Sanskrit (including some excellent YouTube videos) for anyone who cannot attend a class locally. It is worth attending a class if possible I feel, as this is more fun, interactive and one tends to learn faster with the support of a teacher.
Hari Aum Tat Sat
Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages on Earth. The yoga scriptures describe it as a divine language, 'the language of God (and the demi-gods)'. All mantras of yoga philosophy are in Sanskrit.
Sanskrit is regarded as a very precise language. The vowels and consonants are arranged in a logical manner and the rules of pronunciation are very clear (unlike say, English where two words appear similar but the pronunciation is completely different e.g. the 'u' sound in 'put' versus 'cut').
I made an attempt to study Sanskrit in school many years ago in India but gave up as the teacher was a very scary lady (who had an unpleasant habit of slapping children on the face- glad this is increasingly going out of fashion in Indian schools). Then, about four years ago, I signed up to the online Sanskrit course by the Chinmaya Mission and found this useful up to a point- it gave me an overview of Sanskrit but there was so much information and little application that I found I did not really retain very much.
In recent weeks, I discovered a ten week 'beginners Sanskrit' course being run by a local organisation that promotes Indian arts and culture. I signed up to it and have really enjoyed it so far. The teacher has an excellent style of teaching- he gets us to speak Sanskrit rather than simply bombarding us with a lot of information. In this way, in five weeks, he has managed to introduce us to a surprisingly large number of nouns, verbs and concepts and enabled us to make simple sentences. I feel that by the end of the course, I will have a reasonably good foundation on which to build my further studies of Sanskrit.
The purpose of learning Sanskrit for me, like for many others, is of course to be able to appreciate the ancient literature of yoga in the original e.g. the Gita, the Upanishads and so on. I can currently read these in the original but with some effort (the script of Sanskrit, known as 'Devanagari' is very similar to some spoken Indian languages such as Hindi).
I would highly recommend learning basic Sanskrit to anyone interested in yoga philosophy. There is something special about reading a book in the original. When one translates a book or a poem, the meaning may be preserved to an extent but the feeling behind the words is often lost (Imagine reading a Hindi translation of Shakespeare- it's just not the same. Or for that matter, an English translation of Mirabai's poems). It is worth trying to read the yoga scriptures in the original, at least to some extent.
There are lots of online resources to learn Sanskrit (including some excellent YouTube videos) for anyone who cannot attend a class locally. It is worth attending a class if possible I feel, as this is more fun, interactive and one tends to learn faster with the support of a teacher.
Hari Aum Tat Sat
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