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Sanskrit Tidbits-21:How Sanskrit is a two-way flow

What does the word भवति mean? Be careful.  I did not say भवती.  What a question to ask!  Everyone knows what भवति means.  It means to become, exist, be, is – in the 3rd person singular.  स: भवति - he is. सा भवति - she is.  And so on.  The root is भू, to be. In the 3rd person singular, the stem is ति.  भू + ति = भवति.  This is quite different from a verb like दति.  Why does भवति have this strange form?  Sanskrit is a bit like mathematics.  In school, unfortunately, we learn quite a bit of mathematics without understanding it.  We just mug it up.  (a+b)3 = a3+3a2b+3ab2+b3.  We learn that by heart and remember it, years after school.  However, if you know how that expression is derived, you don’t need to learn anything by heart.  Even if you forget the formula, you can derive it.  When we encounter something like भवति, we also tend to learn it by heart.  It’s one of those strange verbs. We have to mug it up.  That’s not true of course.  Much after we have mugged up भवति, we learn the sandhi rules.  And then we realize why भू + ति becomes भवति.  We then begin to learn the sandhi rules by heart.  Take another familiar word like स्वागतम्, meaning welcome.  We never stop to think that this is actually सु + आगतम्, following exactly the same rule of sandhi.  The word thus means well + come and the meaning is obvious.  If I ask you what पावक means, you will say fire. That’s true.  However, the word पू means to purify or clean. The word अक means unhappiness or sin.  Following the same rule of sandhi, पू + अक = पावक and पावक is not just fire, but anything that is clean, shining and pure.  If we know a simple rule of sandhi, it becomes easier to understand things.  The more we understand the logic and the patterns, the less we have to memorize.  One of the impediments towards learning Sanskrit is the perception that there is a lot of mugging up to do.

Jiva Goswami (1513-1598 ACE) was a famous scholar, philosopher, saint from the Gaudiya Vaishnava Vedanta school.  He was the nephew of Rupa Goswami and Sanatana Goswami and he also set up several temples in Vrindavana.  He was so famous that even Akbar visited him. Jiva Goswami wrote a lot.  There are around 25 literary works that are attributed to him and his works amount to around 400,000 shlokas.  This is 4 times the size of the Mahabharata and the total size of the 18 major Puranas taken together.  One of these books is called Hari-namamrita-vyakarana-sutra.  You will find it here, But notice the use of the word sutra.  It will be difficult to understand the meaning with a commentary or explanation. The idea is simple.  This particular one is on grammar, as the word vyakarana indicates.  Students have to be taught Sanskrit grammar and this involves memorization.  Is there any way to make the mugging up easier?  Hari is Krishna/Vishnu.  Namamrita can loosely be translated as the immortal nectar of his name.  Is there any way to link the grammar rules to Krishna/Vishnu’s names, so that the rules become easier to remember?  In the process, students will also become attracted to religion and spirituality.  A very simple pedagogical technique.

This isn’t only about sandhi.  But let me illustrate how this works, using sandhi.

परमात्मा = परम् + आत्मा

Suppose I get the student to keep chanting परमात्मा.  Here are some sandhi rules.

अ+अ=आ, अ+आ=आ, आ+अ=आ, आ+आ+आ, with similar rules for इ and उ.  If I can get the student to remember परमात्मा, he probably doesn’t have to remember any of these rules and learn them by heart.  Similarly, if I can get the student to chant परमेश्वर, he need not mug up that अ+इ=ए. Thus it goes on.  My intention is not to try and teach you sandhi through tidbits.  But as you can see, this can be quite a useful idea.

Religion and interest in religion is a useful way to teach a language.  Often, when we learn Sanskrit, the lessons are designed to teach us to read Sanskrit texts. They are not meant to teach us conversational Sanskrit. Hence, I am often asked a question – how does one learn conversational Sanskrit?  I personally think the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan courses and NCERT textbooks are very good for this.  But that’s not the point I want to make right now.

आख्यामि मे को भबान …न हि प्रजानामि. “Tell me who you are.”..”I do not understand.”  These sentences could have come from a conversation I am having with you.  They actually come from BG, 11.31.  Check it out.  किम् अकुर्बत“What did they do?”  That’s BG, 1.1.   वयं कथं सुखिनः स्याम. “How can we be happy?”  That’s BG, 1.36.    कथम् एतद विजानीयाम्.  “How will I understand this”, BG 4.4.  तेषां निष्ठा का.  “What is their state?”, BG, 17.1.  These are just a few examples and I can give you many more.  Contrary to what you think, reading BG is also a good way to pick up conversational Sanskrit.  Therefore, Jiva Goswami had a point and as far as I know, this method is still used by ISKCON to teach Sanskrit.  If these techniques help you to learn the language faster and reduce or avoid the mugging up, why not use them?  The objective is to learn Sanskrit. Knowledge of Sanskrit makes access to religious texts easier.  But knowledge of religious texts can also make access to Sanskrit easier.  It is a two-way flow.

Sanskrit Tidbits

Bibek Debroy
Chapters
Sanskrit Tidbits-43:Exploring Sanskrit Bharati’s Sanskrit Wikipedia Sanskrit Tidbits-41:Vedic Sanskrit and wisdom of Upanishadas Sanskrit Tidbits-40:The brilliance of Sanskrit poet Magha Sanskrit Tidbits-39:Kalidasa anecdotes Sanskrit Tidbits-37:Valmiki’s Poetry Sanskrit Tidbits-36:First Shloka of Valmiki Ramayana Sanskrit Tidbits-35: Durga Saptashati famous hymn sung by Gods for Goddess Durga made easy Sanskrit Tidbits-34:An introduction to Maarkandeya Purana Sanskrit Tidbits-33:Shivaashtakam made easy Sanskrit Tidbits-32:A shloka by Vivekananda in honour of Paramahansa Sanskrit Tidbits-31:Spiritual aspect of Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-30:Manusmriti on crimes,punishments,penances and intercourse Sanskrit Tidbits-29:More on different Varnas-Brahman,Shudra as per ManuSmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-28:Manusmriti and Position of Women Sanskrit Tidbits-27:18 Types of cases dealt by kings as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-26:Duties of a king as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-25:Strictures on different kinds of food as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-24:Brahmin and Sanatan Dharma as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-23:Different types of Marriages as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-22:An introduction to Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-21:How Sanskrit is a two-way flow Sanskrit Tidbits-20:More about the sanskrit thesaurus Amarkosha Sanskrit Tidbits-19:An introduction to Amarkosha,the Sanskrit Thesaurus Sanskrit Tidbits-18:Jayadeva’s Geet Govind and erotic undertones in Radha-Krishna’s love Sanskrit Tidbits-17:Exploring Jayadeva’s Geet Govind Sanskrit Tidbits-16:Metres in Sanskrit,Fibonacci Series,Pascal’s Triangle and Binomial Theorem Sanskrit Tidbits-15:Poetry,Kalidasa,Jaideva and Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-14: Deeper Nuances of Sanskrit Poetry Sanskrit Tidbits-13:An introduction to Vedangas Sanskrit Tidbits-11:Rules, Formulae and Aphorisms Sanskrit Tidbits-10: Fun with riddles in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-9:Sanskrit alphabets,phonemes and mathematics Sanskrit Tidbits-8: Myth behind different names of Lotus in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-7: Myth behind most commonly used words in hymns Sanskrit Tidbits-6:How innovative is Sanskrit! Sanskrit Tidbits-5: The Importance of Pronounciation in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-4:Can you detect anything wrong in this picture? Sanskrit Tidbits-3 Sanskrit Tidbits-2 Sanskrit Tidbits-1