Sanskrit for Seekers: A Look at a New Book from Dennis Waite

My friend Dennis Waite is one of the most prolific and reliable teachers in the field of Advaita. This is his second edition, which is both improved and expanded, of his book on Sanskrit, a language which is an integral part of traditional Advaita.

Sanskrit also shows up through Indian traditions, and is sometimes called “The Language of God”. It doesn’t take much in the way of study to find out why. They have a word for every step and nuance of the spiritual path. I confess that I know precious little Sanskrit, but I do have both editions of Dennis’ book, and I have developed a great respect for both the language, and its presenter here. Dennis is also the founder and editor of Advaita Vision, one of the oldest and busiest sites on the Web for traditional Advaita. ~FD

Introduction

So, why would you want to learn Sanskrit? Unless you are one of those fortunate few who have a genetic disposition for language learning or unless you are unfortunate enough to have a masochistic streak, why on earth would you want to tackle such an apparently formidable language? It shares with Latin the characteristic of having to change the ending of words depending upon the role of a noun or upon who is the subject of a verb and its tense. In fact, it is even worse than Latin. In Latin there is only singular and plural number, whereas Sanskrit has singular, two, and more than two!

It really must be almost impossible to learn this language unless you begin at school. I only wish that I had had the opportunity and studied it instead of Latin! Unfortunately, I didn’t and it’s certainly too late to start now; I often have difficulty remembering what I read yesterday!

Before continuing, I may as well confirm the implied and appalling admission above: I know very little Sanskrit! I cannot construct sentences or even decline nouns or conjugate verbs. I can just about read the script. I can sometimes split words into their parts or put them together – but would almost always have to refer to other sources for assistance in this. I could write the script, very clumsily, if I had to, providing I could refer to a list of the characters or to this book. But, let’s face it, why would I want to? You need not just any italic pen, but one with a sloping nib, for goodness’ sake! With free software on the Internet to convert transliterated Roman characters into the Sanskrit script, there is not really any need. What then, you may justifiably ask, gives me the credentials (or temerity) to write a book about Sanskrit? Well, I hope that by the time you finish reading this short introduction, you will know and accept the answer. Basically, I was – and to a degree still am – in the same position that you are.

Sanskrit is a very beautiful language. You only need to look at the flowing, cursive, perfectly proportioned script to see this, even if you cannot yet even determine where one word ends and another begins. And, when you learn about some of its other peculiarities, you will appreciate this even more. For example, once you learn how to pronounce a particular letter, you will know how to pronounce it in every word you will ever encounter. There are not many languages which could make that claim!

Perhaps the most amazing aspect is the almost mathematical precision with which letters and syllables combine. One name that you will find invariably associated with the language is Panini – he constructed a complex set of rules, which may be memorized through short ‘sutras’. These enable one to work out how to assemble words and syllables into sentences. So impressive and logical is this set of rules that NASA have apparently proposed it as the basis for a new computer language (see http://post.jagran.com/NASA-to-use-Sanskrit-as-computer-language-1332758613).

But none of this addresses the original question. What prompted you to pick up this book (and me to write it)? If it really is the case that you want actually to learn the language, then please put this book back on the shelf. There is an excellent two-volume work for learning the language written by Thomas Egenes (Ref. 6). What is more, Part 1  is available for free at http://www.scribd.com/doc/32874508/Introduction-to-Sanskrit-by-Thomas-Egenes so that you can try it out before committing.)

I suggest (hope) that your interest in this book comes from the fact that your actual interest is in Hindu scriptures such as the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and maybe even the works of Shankara and other writers on non-duality. The fact is that, up until a few hundred years ago, all books and academic texts in India were written in Sanskrit. In this respect, it is similar to Latin in the West, except that Sanskrit is much more tenacious.

Whereas Latin really could be said to be dead now, Sanskrit is still very much alive in the field of spiritual study. Although it is not really spoken any longer (apart from the odd commune-style efforts), it is still written. Even today, books are being published which are entirely in Sanskrit!

The point is that traditional teaching (certainly in the philosophy of Advaita, which is my own specialization) always refers back to the original scriptural texts for its authority. This is because those scriptures are the actual source of knowledge for key truths regarding the nature of reality and of ourselves. This knowledge is simply not accessible by any other means. We cannot see God or infer that the visible universe is not in itself real but depends upon something more fundamental. These things have to be told to us, by someone in whom we can trust, until such time as we can realize those truths for ourselves.

Scriptures have an inherent problem – their brevity. For several thousand years, some of the oldest texts – the Upanishads and the Vedas of which they form a part – were passed on orally; there were no written versions. Accordingly, they had to be relatively short and memorable. They were chanted aloud repeatedly to ensure that they were passed down the generations without distortion or loss. Even today, traditional teachers and their disciples chant the mantras before the guru translates and explains their meaning.

Accordingly, some interpretation is almost invariably required by the seeker before he or she can grasp what is being said. And, as you may know, there are not merely different emphases in meaning by different teachers but totally different schools of philosophy claiming to be supported by the same scriptural texts. It follows that one is certain to encounter different translations of the same text. An obvious example is that the Bhagavad Gita is regarded as the ‘bible’ of the Hare Krishna movement, which is essentially dualistic (dvaita). Yet this same text has an authoritative commentary by Shankara and is revered by Advaitins.

Ideally, of course, one would only study Advaita, or any other philosophy/teaching methodology, under the guidance of a competent teacher who fully understands the scriptures and how to ‘unfold’ them (and is also fluent in Sanskrit!). Practically speaking, however, few seekers in the West have access to a qualified teacher and so are obliged to read such material themselves. Without any knowledge at all of Sanskrit, one simply has to hope that one has selected an ‘appropriate’ translation, and will not be misled by the choice of words. Unfortunately, this can be dangerous!

It would be possible, and maybe both interesting and instructive, to take a single verse from an Upanishad and examine the translations given by a selection of different authors. But it would also take quite a lot of space (and time and effort) to do this in detail. Suffice to say that, for example, the commentaries of a teacher from the lineage of Swami Chinmayananda will almost certainly differ in some key areas from those written by a teacher in the Ramakrishna/Vivekananda lineage. This is because the latter has incorporated elements from outside of Shankara’s Advaita school. For example, they will maintain that profound meditation (samAdhi) can lead to enlightenment, whereas Shankara would insist that meditation is an action, which is not opposed to ignorance, and that only Self-knowledge can bring enlightenment.

Consequently, if one is reading a particular translation and commentary, and one encounters a statement which seems not to be in accord with one’s prior understanding, it often becomes necessary to check the meaning of key words and see if the particular translation given has been biased. In order to be able to do this, a certain minimum level of understanding is needed.

This book provides that ‘minimum level’ (and no more!). You will not be able to read, write or understand Sanskrit sentences after reading this book. But you will, with a little effort, be able to read and understand Sanskrit words. And that, hopefully, will allow you to read commentaries on scriptures and look up the meaning of words with which you are unfamiliar. With this ability, you will hopefully move forward more quickly on your chosen spiritual path.

And even if you only read the postings of discussion groups on the Internet, or articles or blogs at my own website for example, you will find that some writers invariably take it for granted that you will be familiar with certain Sanskrit terms and they will use them gratuitously without providing any translation. If you have the patience and really want to follow such writing, you will have to look up the words that you don’t know. Mostly, the Sanskrit in such cases will be transliterated so you just have to be familiar with ITRANS or the use of diacritical marks on letters (all explained within). But sometimes, a writer will expect you to know the Devanagari script itself and not even bother to provide transliteration, let alone translation. Probably you will give up at that point and simply feel sorry for (or irritated by) the author’s superior attitude but, if you really want to proceed, this book should provide the help you need to persevere.

As an example, what would you make of the following two words if you encountered them?

mae]

invaR[

Presumably not a lot. Yet, if you are a ‘spiritual seeker’, such words will be central to your life – the very goal of your existence. In addition, most of the original source material about them will have been written in Sanskrit. The first of these words usually appears as ‘moksha’ in English books on the subject. It literally means ‘release from worldly existence’, liberation from the ignorance that binds us to the illusions of our lives. In the context of Advaita, a better translation is simply ‘freedom from Self-ignorance’ or even ‘gaining of Self-knowledge’. But how do you pronounce it? Probably, as I once did, you will say ‘mocksha’, with the ‘o’ sounding as in the word ‘clock’. In fact, one should sound it like the ‘oa’ in ‘cloak’. The second word is the goal of Buddhists, usually written ‘nirvana’. It means ‘absolute extinction of individual existence or of all desires and passions’. Probably your pronunciation of this is not too bad – you may have come across the 1970s pop group of this name. The accent is on the second syllable, which is a long ‘a’, as in ‘bar’, while the final ‘a’ is short as in ‘cat’. If you are British as opposed to American, however, the ‘v’ may well be pronounced as ‘w’.

Ideally, you would like to know all of these things but without actually having to learn the language. Up to a point, this is possible and it is the purpose of this book to provide the necessary background. This claim is possible because these were precisely the requirements that I had and which I have achieved to my own satisfaction.

This book effectively provides for three levels of attainment. First, it will teach you the two most commonly used ‘transliterated’ forms of the language. This word refers to an ‘Anglicized’, or more correctly ‘Romanized’, form of Sanskrit i.e. one that uses the alphabet with which we are already familiar. True Sanskrit is written in a script that bears no resemblance to English, has quite different letters, and requires rather more effort to learn. One of these transliterated forms – usually just called ‘Roman’ – is used in many books that utilize Sanskrit terms. This form has dashes and dots over or under letters to indicate how to pronounce them. They actually are different letters in the Sanskrit! As these are not available to the average typist, the second transliterated form, most frequently used on the Internet, is called ITRANS. (Unfortunately, quite a few books do not use any formal transliteration at all. These, instead, make crude attempts to reproduce Sanskrit words phonetically and often do not even bother to do this.)

With the knowledge of these two, it will be possible to look up words in any dictionary that does not use the actual Sanskrit script. The glossary of this book aims to provide explanations for many of the terms that you are likely to encounter in Western books on Eastern philosophy. You will also be able to use (or download) dictionary facilities on the Internet to look up words that are not provided here, and an explanation will be given as to how to go about this.

For those whose ambitions are a little higher, whose need is to be able to use a full Sanskrit–English dictionary to look up words, it is necessary to learn the Sanskrit alphabet, together with the original script that is used to reproduce it, and some basic rules for combining letters. This is the second level of attainment that will be addressed. While the first level may be achieved very easily, this higher level requires rather more effort. Suggestions are made as to how to achieve this, and pointers are given to free resources on the Internet that will prove helpful.

If the word that you wish to look up is actually in the dictionary, these first two steps will be adequate. Unfortunately, there are two main reasons why the word that you want to look up will not be in the dictionary:

1) The word in the text will have the ending appropriate to its part of speech or tense, whereas the dictionary only lists the forms before they have been declined or conjugated. (Unfortunately the scope of this book does not include the topics of declension or conjugation.)

2) Words in Sanskrit combine with adjacent words in many situations and the letters at the join frequently change. The consequence of this is that the separate words that make up a ‘word’ found in a book may not be immediately recognizable. In order to be able to separate out the book word into its constituent parts, a third level of attainment is required – to learn the rules for joining. The last part of this book will introduce you to some of the main rules of so-called ‘sandhi’.

The principal problem of course is the alien nature of the script. In order to be able actually to learn the alphabet in its original form, it is necessary to learn to recognize the form of each letter. Ideally, you would practice  writing these yourself in order to help commit the letters to memory. None of this is intrinsically difficult but it does all take time.

In order to achieve the ‘level 1’ ability to pronounce and look up Romanized words in a glossary, you can expect to have to spend just a few hours reading the relevant parts of this book a couple of times. In order to be able to achieve ‘level 2’ ability, reading the actual script and looking up words in a Sanskrit–English dictionary, you must expect to spend several hours per week for a few months, with serious practice most days. You need not see this as a chore, however. This book aims to introduce the letters very gradually and present words for practice at the earliest opportunity. If you choose to use writing as an aid to learning, the script has great beauty and giving one’s full attention in calligraphy is itself a useful practice for stilling the mind. If you wish to go further and learn all of the rules for joining words, this will require serious study, together with the assistance of someone who can provide the solution after you have given up! This book will only provide you with a good idea of what is involved – far more interesting and rewarding than crosswords or solving cryptograms!

Any genuine spiritual aspirant will want to make this effort. Your reward will be to be able to verify for yourself the correct pronunciation and meanings of words. You will no longer be at the mercy of the authors, translators or editors of the books you read. You will no longer be worried that you have misunderstood the meaning of a term used in an Internet email discussion group or heard from a teacher. You will be able to check the original source material for yourself and look up the meanings of key words.

This book will not address anything beyond these simple aims. It will not tell you how to decline nouns or conjugate verbs. These terms are not even defined, in case you do not know what they mean! You will not discover how to construct sentences or all of the rules for combining words. In other words, this book will not teach you the language in even its most basic form. Suggestions will be given, however, to those daring few whose ambitions do stretch that far.

Dennis Waite‘s new book, Sanskrit For Seekers, is available at Here. The following is from the web page:

The book is in three sections. First you learn the alphabet in its transliterated form. You are given both the ITRANS format that is commonly used on the Internet and the form with diacritical marks that is used in books. Next you go through the entire process again, learning the script form of the letters. Just to make things a bit more interesting, some of these letters change their form slightly when combined with other letters – these are called ‘conjunct’ characters. In the third section, there are some practical examples to prove to you that you can now actually translate some simple scriptural texts for yourself. Finally, there are a number of appendices containing such things as resources on the Internet for further learning, on-line dictionaries, Sanskrit documents etc, information about other transliteration schemes and letter forms, how to learn to write the script.