1. Learning Sanskrit
From an Eastern and Western Perspective
Sabarigirish Somanathan
UCSB, Religious Studies
Summer-Fall 2016
SOMANATHAN !1

2. Learning Sanskrit
From an Eastern and Western Perspective
A research study on the oral and visual traditions of Sanskrit
With a body of literature dating several thousands of years old, a linguistic
construction allowing for highly sophisticated description and philosophical
discussion, and a group of humans highly dedicated to the task of preserving its
originality, Sanskrit is one of the most robust languages of both ancient and
modern times.
Sanskrit, saṃskṛtam, or saṃskṛta, as it is known in the language itself
to mean “refined speech”, was the lingua franca of Ancient India, serving as the
primary religious dictionary of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, and
extensively used in philosophical discussion by the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh
communities. With a rough formation period dating back to the second millennia
BCE where it was known as Vedic Sanskrit, Sanskrit has always had the
esteemed role as the language of the Vedas — the primary religious Canon of the
Sanatana Dharma (SD), or what is known in the West as Hinduism (4).
As a result, many if not all of the rituals of the various sects constituting
Hinduism are conducted in Sanskrit. However, in learning to become a skilled
priest knowing of these rites, very little visual teaching is used, as the majority of
Vedic instruction is done orally, teacher to student. This is a stark difference from
how many languages of the West are taught, which involve the heavy usage of
reading, grammar pattern recognition, and self driven study. Even Latin and
Hebrew, which are held as very similar to Sanskrit in utility, do not use oral
traditions to teach, instead focusing heavily on the importance of written scripture.
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3. As a student raised by Hindu parents in California, having learnt English
from childhood while studying Sanskrit and Physics in 2016, I couldn’t help but
think why Sanskrit today in India is still taught like it was 2000 years ago. So I
decided to engage on some personal and academic research by taking a trip and
stay overseas at the Sringeri Shankaracharya Monastery in Sringeri,
Karnataka, India, a highly revered and ancient center of Sanskrit and Sanatana
Dharma learning. I left California in the end of August, stayed in Sringeri for 20
days by myself, and returned to Santa Barbara following my research.
In Sringeri, I sought to answer my research query by visiting and auditing
classes at the Veda Patashala — the school where Vedas are taught — as much
as possible, discussing with the monks, gurus, and priests of the area, and through
other academic sources such as professors, universities, and libraries in the area.
Over the time of my stay I was able to accomplish these tasks and gain a real
insight into the matter of oral versus visual traditions, while also greatly expanding
my understanding and depth of both Sanskrit and the Sanatana Dharma. This
paper will serve as the culmination of my findings, whereby I will compare and
contrast learning Sanskrit from an Eastern and Western perspective.
On the topic of learning Sanskrit from a Western perspective, at the time of
my departure I had completed one year of formal Sanskrit education, under
Professor Dr. Gregory Hillis of the Religious Studies Department at the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Our class had used Devavanipravesika: An
Introduction to the Sanskrit Language, by Goldman and Goldman, and it
was a fairly extensive text covering all the basics of Sanskrit from phonology and
the Devanagari script to highly advanced grammatical features such as the aorist
and subjunctive. Our class consisted mainly of translating the readings by chapter,
learning verb and noun declensions through memorization and application, and
lectures involving breakdowns of the grammar topics covered in the week’s reading.
The course was very similar to how I have learned other languages in the
past, which includes four years of French through my middle and high schools, as
well as seven years of Tamil through the California Tamil Academy.
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4. However, the existence of several declensions, the free flowing syntax, and
the verb root derivation system, all make Sanskrit very unique, the language acting
more like a math system when it comes to ensuring all the verbs, nouns, and
modifiers agree on case, number, and gender in forming a coherent sentence.
The experience was quite effective, however there was a much larger focus
on being able to translate written works as opposed to speaking the language, which
is very reasonable given Sanskrit’s near non-existent status as a modern spoken
language. Further, I was able to see the complexity of the Sanskrit dictionary due
to its reliance on a verb root derivation system, allowing almost any idea to be
freely expressed as long as the description could be created from the many
thousand verb roots.
As to my prior learning of Sanskrit from an Eastern Perspective, I had my
Upanayanam completed by my father when I was twelve in India, a rite of passage
all Brahmin boys go through signifying their readiness to learn the Vedas from a
skilled guru. As a part of this process I was taught many mantras — vedic hymns
— including the coveted Gayatri Mantra, ingraining Sanskrit in the form of
verses and slokas in my childhood memory. These verses were complete with
proper tone, meter, and tempo, as my father was being instructed at the spot by a
very high ranking priest.
Following this procedure, I did Sandhyavandanam for a while, a daily
practice undertaken for life by Brahmin boys following their Upanayanam, where
special mantras and actions are said and done three times a day, at dawn, midday,
and dusk. This further built a kind of systematic tongue for chanting Sanskrit and
developed in me the basic systems of Brahmanical worship and ritual.
For a few years following my Upanayanam I ceased performing
Sandhyavandanam daily due to the added difficulties and time restraints of high
school and extracurriculars. However I restarted the process three months before
my departure to Sringeri, performing the rituals with my father, seeking to immerse
myself in my study and possibly help improve my Sanskrit absorption.
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5. After all my preparations and arranging for my trip, I left for Sringeri on
August 28, 2016 via a flight from San Francisco to Bangalore with a return ticket
booked for September 20, 2016. Arriving in Bangalore, I was assisted by my uncle
in all the setup and travel to Sringeri. We both travelled to Sringeri, arriving on
September 1st, around 6 AM via a 6 hour bus.
Following, my uncle and I resided in the Monastery’s guest house for visiting
pilgrims for the day. We visited the Temple, known as the Sringeri Sharada
Peetham — the Seat of Sharada at Sringeri, once it opened at 9 AM, and
completed our Darshan — our Witness — of the Gods seated in the Temple by
10:30 AM. We were instructed by the local priests after discussing my research
goals to visit the Shankaracharyas of the Monastery, who would present
themselves to the public at the Guru Nivas — the Gurus’ residence — at 11 AM.
They being the highest gurus not only in the Temple area but in the majority of
South India, I was more than excited to share my aspirations with them.
We arrived at the Nivas at 10:45 AM, and were instructed by the guards and
priests to remove our shirts before entering the premises, a long held custom
emphasizing humility before the Guru. Many individuals and families were
gathered in the main hall performing sevas — special offering pujas — with
various pundits of the temple premises. Those seeking the darshan of the Gurus,
including me, were to wait in a line wrapping the perimeter of the building. Within
15-20 minutes I arrived in front of the gurus, whom I told to my research request
regarding the Vedas. The junior Shankaracharya instructed me to see a Mr.
Krishna Bhatt to learn the Sama Veda, the Veda of my family lineage.
Having found Mr. Bhatt, who was busy performing Sevas for some families,
having heard my request, asked me to come to the same place, same time,
tomorrow, to meet with the main Sama Veda Guru who was in Bangalore at the
time. Contented, I returned to the lodge with my uncle.
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6. The next day, I met Mr. Bhatt outside the Nivas a little bit before the time
specified, and he arranged for me to meet Mr. Ramamoorthy Shastri, the main
Sama Veda Guru. I met Mr. Ramamoorthy near the Adi Shankara Sannidhi —
Shrine — and told him of my research request. He responded back telling me that
all the Veda Patashalas would be closed for the next four days due to local holidays,
and gave me several other resources to check out. He told me of the Rajiv
Gandhi Vidhya Peetham Sanskrit College, a college dedicated to teaching
and preserving Sanskrit within a few miles of the Temple, and of the renowned
local Sanskrit professor, Mr. Mahesh Kakathkar.
Outside the Math as the Monastery is known in Sanskrit, I asked around for
Mr. Mahesh, and luckily found a man who guided me to his old house. There I was
able to get his mobile number, which I called to let Mr. Mahesh know of my
request for an interview. He responded that he would be at the temple around 6:30
PM and we could meet then.
Accordingly I met him then in the sheltered hall of the Temple premises at
that time, and told him the details of my research request, after which we began
our interview. The interview lasted around 1.5 hours, during which Mr. Mahesh
covered aspects of how Sanskrit is taught in India, the literary aspects of Sanskrit,
and his personal research into poetics and figures of speech in Sanskrit.
Our primary topic of discussion was how the Vedas and Sanskrit have been
transmitted from generation to generation. The oral tradition of the Vedas is
known as Śrauta, meaning “that which belongs to Śruti — that which is heard,”
incorporates several means of memorization and recitation, known as Pathas, to
ensure little to no loss of information of scripture. Eleven main Pathas are used,
named: Samhita, Pada, Krama, Jata, Maalaa, Sikha, Rekha, Dhwaja,
Danda, Rathaa, Ghana. Each Patha describes a different way and order of
reciting the words, so being able to master each Patha greatly improves the fidelity
and memorization of the verses.
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7. Mr. Mahesh then described to me in summary the essential characteristics of
each Patha. Samhita Patha is the most fundamental Patha, and involves simply
chanting the Verses as they are written with Sandhi — euphonic coalescence.
Pada Patha regards recitation without euphonic coalescence, so each individual
word is followed by a pause, allowing for the full word to be expressed. Krama
Patha utilizes a combination of Samhita and Pada Pathas, whereby words are
recited with euphonic coalescence, but two at a time (3). The chanting sequence is
the 1st word plus the second word, second word plus the third word, 3 + 4, 4 +5,
and so on.
Jata Patha involves chanting the first two words in sequential order
followed by chanting them in reverse, such that the chanting sequence is 1+2, 2+1,
1+2; then 2+3, 3+2, 2+3 and so on. Ghana Patha is held as the most difficult,
and involves reciting the words in a verse back and forth in a bell-shape like order,
signifying the highest level of Veda mastery. For example, the chanting sequence is
1+2, 2+1, 1+2+3, 3+2+1, 1+2+3, similarly for 2 + 3.. and so on. Maalaa,
Sikha, Rekha, Dhwaja, Danda, Rathaa, like the Jata and Ghana Pathas are
much more advanced Pathas, developing after the Buddhism period unlike the
much older aforementioned Samhita, Pada, and Krama Pathas. As the discussion
regarding the several Pathas stated in detail took much time, we were unable to
delve much deeper into the others.
Mr. Mahesh described the efficacy of these Pathas in ensuring the utmost
accuracy and precision of Vedic preservation, as any impropriety in practicing of
the Pathas is easily noticed by both the teacher and student due to the symmetric
and sonorous nature of the verses. He stated that the meaning and effectiveness of
the Vedas is nothing without the proper swara — pitch, spacing, and meter, and
thus great emphasis has been placed on ensuring the sound remains unchanged.
Following our discussion of the Pathas we discussed the various systems of
philosophy in Hinduism, known as darśanas — world views — which are
comprised of six main teachings: Yoga, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika,
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8. Mimamsa and Vedanta, These philosophies all describe reality along a different
set of assumed axioms, and means of liberation for each system.
Mr. Mahesh described the effectiveness of Sanskrit in expanding these
philosophies due to its rich capacity for description stemming from the dhatu —
verb roots — and ability to juxtapose many complex ideas without confusion due to
the sophisticated nature of declensions and syntax. He stated that much more
literature has been written along these lines as opposed to the oral, Śrauta tradition
of the Vedas, with the body of texts known as Smriti —that which is
remembered, the written tradition of the Sanatana Dharma.
Within the Smriti is included the six Vedāngas — the auxiliary sciences in
the Vedas, the epics — the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana, the Dharmasūtras
and Dharmaśāstras (or Smritiśāstras), the Arthasaśāstras, the Purānas,
the Kāvya — poetical literature, extensive Bhasyas — reviews and commentaries
on Śhrutis and non-Śhruti texts, and numerous Nibandhas — digests, covering
politics, Nitisastras — ethics, culture, arts and society. These texts represent the
major body of accepted, authoritative literature within Hinduism, and great
emphasis has been placed in learning these texts along with the Vedas as a means
to further self realization.
Following our discussion on the darśanas, I concluded the interview. I then
retired to a very nearby lodge by myself, as my uncle returned to Bangalore having
helped me settle in to Sringeri.
Over the next several days many festivities took place in the Sringeri area as
it was Ganesh Chaturthi during the time, and hence the reason for the
Patashalas being closed. Grand clay sculptures of Ganesh, the God of Removing
Obstacles and first son of the major Vedic God, Shiva, were dipped in the adjacent
Tungha River, following grand celebrations involving prayers, singing and
dancing. Thus I was only able to resume my research the following Monday, when
the Patashalas resumed activity.
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9. Monday morning I readied myself quickly having had a leisure filled
weekend, and brought myself to the Veda Patashala. There I asked one of the
senior students about auditing the classes and he instructed me to sit in the
courtyard where some of the other senior students were practicing chanting the
Vedas themselves. I sat next to a student who appeared to be in his mid twenties,
deep in trance, chanting the hymns of the Vedas.
Observing him I noticed the meter/beat nature of Veda recitation, filled
with staccato, psst’s, melody and tempo variation. The Sanskrit carried a flow,
moving from one phrase to the next, almost like a modern hip-hop rap song. It was
evident that very little room for breathing is available with the proper
pronunciation of the Vedas, so great attention is taken to ensure breaths are taken
at the indicated points within the verses. Much noise is also produced with the
greater nasal area, leading to a sound resonating in an area corroborated with the
pineal gland or third-eye chakra in eastern philosophy. Having sat for an hour
listening, I headed out.
I was told by an individual at the Math that there is a library on site open
from 10AM-1 PM and 2-5 PM. Returning home after the interview, I headed to
Math at 2:15, had a free lunch at the Temple, and went to the Library at 3 PM. I
found many books regarding my research topic with the Librarian’s help, however
after inquiring into my study, he directed to me discuss with a skilled priest highly
competent in English residing in the library area by the name of Anand. Finding
Mr. Anand, I told him of my plans and reasons for stay at Sringeri, to which he
happily obliged my interview request.
With my first question, I asked: what is the importance of Sanskrit in
Vedanta and Hindu Culture overall? Mr. Anand replied, “Sanskrit is the language
that has been used in recording and transmitting the spiritual knowledge obtained
by Rishis through deep inquiry and meditation. Texts such as the Upanishads,
Gita, Ramayana, and the Vedas — which are mainly the Upanishads, were
originally observed in the minds of individuals through such inquiry, however we
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10. do not say they were man-made texts; meaning the Creator is no man, but rather
humans gained access through observations and inquiry. Thus, the language these
texts were first recognized in is the same language used today to preserve them.
I then asked Mr. Anand: how is oral transmission important to the
preservation of these texts? He replied, “These works had originally been passed
down to students from their gurus only through oral recitation and memorization.
Even today this is the main means of preservation. It is very important to not alter
or lose content so great emphasis is placed on recalling all of the texts by memory.”
Following, I asked: but why not switch to a written system of passing info? To
which he responded, “Today written copies of texts are used in aiding learning,
memorizing, and recalling, however almost every skilled Veda Guru will emphasize
verbal transmission first. Swara — intonation, breathing, and tempo, are all very
important to the meaning of these works and as such written copies fail to do a
great deal of teaching compared to a live, in-person Guru. In addition, writing was
only later developed, following the conception of these texts, and even then was
very costly due to the use of engraving in tree bark, stone, or clay, leaving little
room for textual clarity or expansiveness. Many schools today teach simpler forms
of these works to reach a broader audience, such as the Chinmaya Mission,
however authentic Veda Patashalas use written resources as a last resort.”
Then, I asked: why is Sanskrit still being used? Why not translate and/or
teach in more modern languages to convey meaning to more people? Mr. Anand
replied, “The Vedas have been translated into many languages, however just as it is
hard to find apt translations for English words such as ‘viscosity’, it is nearly
impossible to convey the full breath of the Vedas’ dictionary in other languages.
English is the language of modern physics and it would be equally daunting to
translate the accepted terms for ideas in Quantum and Einstein physics into other
languages.”
I followed up by asking: considering less people speak Sanskrit now than
before, do you see this is a limitation or benefit? To which Mr. Anand stated,
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11. “Neither. There is no real lack of preserving here works. Veda Patashalas are only
growing in number and Sanskrit is gaining more acceptance daily as a highly
comprehensive and descriptive language. The growth of the internet has increased
both the interest and accessibility of Sanskrit plus these texts, and is also allowing
digital teaching of these works. Sringeri here, an ancient monastery still thriving, is
a pristine example of the unbroken preservation efforts.”
As much time had passed, I began my last interview question: as you say,
there are many concepts in the Vedas conveyed in Sanskrit which cannot be aptly
translated into other languages; could Sanskrit thus be used to further describe
phenomena current languages are struggling to elucidate? Mr. Anand kindly
responded, “I am sure, however it will take the efforts of one one or many
individuals to reverse translate currently accepted phenomena from the lingua
francas of today into Sanskrit and then expand them. Most observations are done
in the mind using the Lingua Franca due to the nature of psychology, and this was
the same case with the ancient works we discussed and the sages who found them.
Even today many people are writing additional commentaries to reveal and
describe new, or previously unknown concepts hidden within such texts. The
philosophical and systematic nature of Sanskrit is one of its biggest merits —
allowing for very fluid and dense realizations of information contained in text.”
I then thanked Mr. Anand for his time, and he gave me a book by the name
of Purnavidya: A Vision of Hindu Dharma to check out, after which we both went
our ways.
The rest of the paper will now be used to describe the depths of my findings
on the topic I was able to look into over the remainder of my stay in Sringeri,
including resources from both the Sringeri and Rajiv Gandhi Vidhya Peetham
Sanskrit College libraries.
One of the main reasons for ensuring the highest accuracy of mantra
preservation, is the practice known as Mantra Yoga, and its corresponding
science, Mantra Śastra.
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12. According to Shankara Bharadwaj Khandavalli of Hindupedia, Mantra
Śastra is the study of sound, the effect of sound, and how each sound effects the
individual and cosmos. Mantra Yoga discusses how one can elevate one’s
consciousness using these sounds to enter a trance with the cosmic rhythm and find
unison between the individual and the greater self. Mantra Yoga discusses the
existence of an eternal, unchanging sound, only heard not produced, called
anahata; and contrasts it with the normal ephemeral sounds produced by contact,
vibration, and obstruction, called ahata. The process of Mantra Yoga involves
reciting a given mantra (ahata) aloud until one can find a deeper, inner rhythm
corresponding to anahata, after which one tries to minimize volume and movement
of lips, and finally does the process completely silently and inwardly where the
ahata and anahata are no longer distinct.
Further on the topic of the importance of the oral tradition, the Indian
subcontinent had many changes and developments in written language, making it
difficult to maintain one written Canon across various sects and traditions.
On the written aspect of Sanskrit, many scripts have been used throughout
time to capture the phonetics of the language. Sures Chandra Banerji writes in his
book, A Companion to Sanskrit Literature:
“Sanskrit has no native script of its own, and historical evidence suggests that
it has been written in various scripts on a variety of medium such as palm
leaves, cloth, paper, rock and metal sheets, at least by the time of arrival of
Alexander the Great in northwestern Indian subcontinent in 1st millennium
BCE.”
He goes on further to describe the history of development of Sanskrit and
how various Brahmic scripts started being used to codify literature, beginning with
rock inscriptions in the Brahmi script, an ancient writing system dating back to the
3rd century BCE, originally being used to write Prakrit and Dravidian languages
such as Tamil.
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13. Later on as individual areas such as East, South, North, and West India
developed their own cultures and languages, Sanskrit became further diverged into
newly evolving scripts such as the Gupta Script between the 4th and 8th centuries
CE. The Gupta Script being used throughout much of North and West India
became evolved to the Sharada Script around the 8th century CE, and it too
underwent an evolution into classical Devanagari around 12th century CE.
In the south, native Dravidian language scripts such as Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada, Malayalam, and Grantha became used following the decay of Brahmi.
In the East, the Bengali alphabet, and later the Odia script became used.
In terms of learning Sanskrit writing, much of my western learning took
place in classical Devanagari and Romanized Sanskrit — a form of transliterating
Sanskrit into the Latin/English alphabet.
We began learning the Devanagari script at the beginning of our Sanskrit
year at UCSB, starting with the alphabet, moving to word formation and sandhi,
and finally to sentence creation and complex paragraphs. In parallel we learned the
Romanized version of Devanagari, providing me an easier grasp on the linguistics
and writing of the language as I was able to visualize each Devanagari letter as its
English counterpart. Further, my background of having learned Tamil made it
easy for me to learn the phonetic pronunciations as well as recognize patterns and
similarities between the Tamil and Devanagari scripts.
As we moved on to learning about the various declensions and verb forms
used in Sanskrit, our class became accustomed to the unique patterns of how
letters combine within and across words. This system is also used in Tamil, so I was
able to clearly relate how each declension in Sanskrit applied as a word in a
sentence.
By the end of our class we were reading entire pages of Sanskrit text, our
textbook readings encompassing an abridged version of the Valmiki Ramayana.
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14. During my time in India, very little writing was used by me as I was focusing
solely more on the oral tradition of Sanskrit. However I did get to read into how
the Vedas are transcribed, and how it has been disseminated across India textually.
Burjor Avari writes in her book, A History of the Indian Sub-continent from
C. 7000 BC to AD 1200, that “the Vedas were first probably written down around
500 BCE.” She goes on to further describe that before the usage of classical
Sanskrit, its ancestor, Vedic Sanskrit was the primary language both spoken and
written.
Classical Sanskrit did not become a marked language until the writing of
Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī (meaning "eight chapters”). Devapriya Roy writes on scroll.in,
that “ [Aṣṭādhyāyī] compiling a formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit
morphology, syntax and semantics, is the foundational text of the grammatical
branch of the Vedanga, the auxiliary scholarly disciplines of the historical Vedic
religion… He [Pāṇini] can be considered as the father of linguistics.”
Vedic Sanskrit has many notable differences from Classical Sanskrit, in sum:
1. Vedic Sanskrit had a voiceless bilabial fricative (/ɸ/, called upadhmānīya) and a voiceless velar
fricative (/x/, called jihvāmūlīya), which used to occur when the breath visarga (अः) appeared before
voiceless labial and velar consonants respectively. Both of them were lost in Classical Sanskrit to give
way to the simple visarga.
2. Vedic Sanskrit had a retroflex lateral approximant (/ɭ/) (ळ) as well as its aspirated counterpart /ɭʰ/
(ळ्ह्), which was lost in Classical Sanskrit.
3. The vowels e (ए) and o (ओ) were actually realized in Vedic as diphthongs /ai/ and /au/, but they
became pure monophthongs /eː/ and /oː/ in Classical Sanskrit.
4. The vowels ai (ऐ) and au (औ) were actually realized in Vedic as hiatus /aːi/ (आइ) and /aːu/ (आउ), but
they became diphthongs /ai/ (अइ) and /au/ (अउ) in Classical.
5. The Prātishākhyas claim that the dental consonants were articulated from the root of the teeth
(dantamūlīya), but they became pure dentals later. This included the /r/, which later became
retroflex.
6. Vedic Sanskrit had a pitch accent, which could even change the meaning of the words, and was still
in use in Pāṇini's time, as can be inferred by his use of devices to indicate its position. Later, it was
replaced by a stress accent limited to the second to fourth syllables from the end.
7. Vedic Sanskrit often allowed two like vowels to come together without merger by sandhi.
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15. These differences allowed for the much freer ideological and phonetic
expression as certain unique word combinations are only possible in Vedic Sanskrit,
such as the many pitches that can be used.
The students I was able to observe during my audit of the Veda Patashalas
were reading from Veda verse books written in Vedic Sanskrit using Devanagari
script. As I expected, there were many accent marks, along with unique sandhi
combinations and staccatos along with breath marks in very few places, owing to
the difficult nature of chanting the verses with proper breathing.
In conclusion, Sanskrit is a very dynamic language that is ancient yet highly
sophisticated and rich with a massive volume of literature and spoken history.
Seeking to answer the question of why Sanskrit is taught orally versus textually, my
visit to India proved to be an infinitely deep well, with information I am still
comprehending into realizations and applications.
The oral tradition of Sanskrit has been of utmost importance to the fidelity
of both the Vedas and the Sanskrit language, ensuring that its linguistic and
phonetic patterns remain just as they were thousands of years ago when used to
encode such scriptures. This task has been no easy feat, with the memorization of
the Vedas of a boy’s lineage encompassing an approximate fifteen years of his life
following his Upananyanm. Not only is the task extremely long to accomplish, but the
means to learn the Vedas involve many pathas of recitation, along with a life long
dedication to the philosophy and lifestyle of the Sanatana Dharma.
Textually, Sanskrit has had a very unique history, having evolved out of no
script to be adopted into various scripts across the Indian subcontinent, until finally
being unified under the Devanagari script. Learning Sanskrit in UCSB versus in
India focused much more on the textual aspect of Sanskrit, putting greater
emphasis on the ability to translate ancient works. Such a distinction is likely due to
the limited scope of Sanskrit today, ranging from one being able to translate works
for academic reasons or perform Hindu rituals and be a Hindu priest.
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16. Works Cited
1. Avari, Burjor. A History of the Indian Sub-continent from C. 7000 BC to AD
1200. London: Routledge, 2007. Print.
2. Banerji, Sures Chandra. A Companion to Sanskrit Literature: Spanning a
Period of over Three Thousand Years, Containing Brief Accounts of Authors,
Works, Characters, Technical Terms, Geographical Names, Myths, Legends,
and Several Appendices. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989. Print.
3. Howard, Wayne. Veda Recitation in Varanasi. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1986. Print.
4. "Intangible Cultural Heritage." Tradition of Vedic Chanting - Intangible
Heritage - Culture Sector - UNESCO. UNESCO, n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2016.
5. Khandavalli, Shankara Bharadwaj. "Mantra Sastra." Mantra Sastra -
Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2016.
6. Maldhava, Edward B. Cowell, and Archibald Edward Gough. The Sarva-
darsÌana-samÌ£graha, Or, Review of the Different Systems of Hindu
Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
7. Roy, Divyapriya. "A Reminder: Panini Didn't Destroy Lingual Diversities with
His Sanskrit Grammar, He Unified Them." Scroll.in. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec.
2016.
8. S, Sreenivasarao. "Rishis of the Rig Veda and Oral Traditions of the Vedas |
Sulekha Creative." Sulekha Creative. N.p., 2007. Web. 09 Dec. 2016.
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