This is not what I expected or to be very frank, wanted. I had no background in studying Sanskrit, in fact, I studied Hindi till only the 8th grade. Very clearly Sanskrit was not my choice or my forte, nevertheless, I thought of plunging into it, seeing what all it could offer.
In my first week, I was concerned and waiting for a change in my course but that hadn’t happened. So I decided to make the most of it. I got acquainted with the faculty which was a very well knit one. Everyone understood my background and reached out a helping hand if I ever needed extra assistance learning the course.
Sanskrit Grammar
Under learning Sanskrit, we are allowed to write our answers, explanations and assignments in English, Hindi or Sanskrit. This was one of the biggest reliefs I had. We weren’t expected to write sentences in Sanskrit or at all through the course for that matter. We needed to learn the content and answer questions accordingly in languages we were comfortable in.
This rule had the exception of all the grammar-related subjects that we had to do, and to my dismay, we had Sanskrit grammar in our first semester. I had suddenly become apprehensive and anxious as to how I’ll be able to learn considering Sanskrit has a very complex verbal system that uses different forms of words at every turn. It is very hard to grasp for someone who hasn’t had a base in Sanskrit at all.
During the first lesson, we were taught the different forms words took according to their place in the sentence like subject, object, verb, etc. which are called cases. I have always been interested and intrigued by linguistics in a way that I like drawing parallels and similarities between different languages.
This is the common practice I did when I spent my high school years learning Spanish. I would always draw comparisons between the grammatical structure of English, Hindi and Spanish. Here I could see my old habit coming back while I drew comparisons between Sanskrit and Hindi, English and Spanish. This very exercise and a sense of curiosity kept me going to learn and form simple sentences in Sanskrit.
Yet it has been quite difficult, Sanskrit as a language is very specifically and carefully put together. The goal of the language is to accurately describe and inform situations down to very minute details. These details are often the moods or little shifts in moods, the passing of time, the type and amount of people the information is being conveyed to, etc. Because of this, there are over 4000 formulas of Grammar compiled by the most popular Sanskrit Grammarian, Panini, many of which haven’t even been deciphered to this date.
Even though were just learning the basics, getting used to the variations of the same words and just the overwhelming amount of vocabulary had been difficult to catch up with. One thing that helped was the constant grammar exercises given to us by our professor. Our Professor was very passionate about Sanskrit grammar and linguistics. With her zeal and grasp of the concepts, we were always aided with the right guidance when it came to learning basic Sanskrit.
Other disciplines
Apart from these, we had Sashtric literature, ancient history and the society/polity of Vedic India. These were very interesting courses to go through. I learned about the everyday life of ancient India which debunked a lot of stereotypes and myths I had , like women weren’t empowered in ancient India, when in fact during the Indus Valley civilization and Rigvedic period, women enjoyed full freedom and equality in all (i.e social, political and economical) aspects of life.
I was also introduced to reading and understanding Sanskrit epics i.e. Mahabharata and Ramayana which I had been extremely excited about. All my life I had been intrigued by Hindu Mythology, and this gave me the chance to fully delve into it, out of which I have grown fond of the Bhagavad Gita. Each verse from it is thought-provoking, to say the least.
Every teaching from Lord Krishna can be applied to the self going through any rigorous situation, these teachings are extremely specific but left vague enough to interpret it freely.
Conclusions
During the whole process, I was exposed to a whole new world I hadn’t yet discovered. From scientific vedic discoveries to interesting Sashtric literature, I have developed an avid interest in subjects and disciplines of ancient context. I am so grateful because this allowed me to grow and think of human civilisation in whole different light.
Even though now I’ve left Sanskrit, I still like to read about different stories of The Mahabharat in detail or make short Sanskrit sentences silently in my head.
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