Dr. Sunanda Y. Shastri is presently working as Associate Professor in Department of Sanskrit, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, India. She holds Master's degree in Sanskrit Grammar and Vedanta both. She has Doctorate Dharmashastra (Ancient Indian Law) from Gujarat University. She is first cl first with distinction in M.A. (Vyakarana) and recipient of three gold me She has more than eight books to her credit such as 'Sanskrit for B.;:giJml9' Naradasmriti- Historical, Sociological, Political and Legal Study', 'Teac Upanisads', 'kalividambanam', 'Mahatripurasundaristotrani' etc. she has than forty research articles published in national and international Journal and periodicals. She has contributed research article by invitation 'Ahimsa Unity of all things: A Hindu view of Non-Violence' to 'Subverting Hatred published by The Boston Research Centre for 21" Century, Cambridge, US She has also contributed 'Philosophy of Vallabhacharya and his followers' Systems of Vedanta, Vol. II, Center for Studies in civilizations, New Delhi. She also has contributed 'Women in medieval Sanskrit Literature to History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, Volume IX Part 2- Women in Ancient and Medieval India.
Dr. Sunanda Y. Shastri has beerl invited as Visiting Professor b); Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA to teach Sanskrit and Upanisads for four times.
Dr. Sunanda Y. Shastri has guided more than 20 M.Phil. students and presently 7 Ph.D. students are working under her for their Doctoral Dissertations.
This book is written for the beginners, Indian and especially for foreign students. This book gives orientation in Devanagari script and Sanskrit language structure. This book facilitates correct way of Sanskrit pronunciations. All necessary information about Sanskrit language, like alphabets, vowels, consonants, their places of articulation and method of pronunciations is given in introduction. Application of the same is there in the lessons.
Basic knowledge of grammar is necessary for student of any language. Therefore, basic information about grammatical structure of Sanskrit language is given in clear manner. Transliteration of the first eight lessons is given for easy adoption of script and pronunciation.
Appendices one and two give more information about compounds and basic rules about seven cases. Third appendix has beautiful Sanskrit songs which can be easily sung in rhythm. Lessons from ninth onwards are the selections from classical Sanskrit literature, such as Upanisads, Bhagavadgita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Paficatantra and Yogasiitra, which give glimpse of wide literature in Sanskrit and in Indian philosophical thought.
It is my experience, while teaching in USA (Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles and other places) that, after studying Sanskrit with the help of this book for a few weeks, students start reading Devanagari script in Sanskrit texts, constructing small sentences in Sanskrit and reciting verses from Bhagavadgita. This book in its third edition will definitely help beginners to gain success in Sanskrit language learning.
I felt extremely honoured, when I received Dr.Christopher Chapple's suggestion, that 'could I come to Loyola-Marymount University at Los Angeles and teach introductory course of San- skrit during' 94 summer, under the auspices of 'Kanchan Harilal Doshi 1994 Institute of Sanskrit study'. Dr. Chapple's suggestion elated my spirits, but not without an anxious feeling of responsibility. Teaching Sanskrit in India to an Indian student is much easier, compared to the students belonging to any other country. Indian student, belonging to any state in India and speaking any Indian language, can easily grasp Sanskrit, because Sanskrit is not only part of his culture, but any Indian language has inheritance of minimum 50-70% Sanskrit words and words derived from Sanskrit. Even many scripts are similar to Devanagari script. Main hurdles foreign students face in learning Sanskrit are script and pronunciation. Keeping this in mind, I started searching for right kind of material, which could enable me to teach Sanskrit to a group of students of altogether different lingual and cultural background. Many books I browsed through, but most of them were written for Indian students or were grammar oriented. After a lot of search I adopted a language through language approach. Of course, for Sanskrit or any other developed language- the grammar part - to certain extent is inevitable. Most interesting part of Sanskrit is it is a refined language - almost each word is well-shaped in context with other words and in itself. Once this fact is understood, then study of Sanskrit language becomes easy. Basic information about nouns, verbs, indeclinable, euphonic combinations and compounds are given in introduction itself. Al- phabets, Vowels and Consonants, their places of articulation etc. are given separately. Learning Devanagari script may take little time, so I have given transliteration of Sanskrit up to 8th lesson, which would help learning pronunciation. As far as possible, I have tried to cover basic and necessary information about grammar and language structure. Questions and translation-exercises would help to practice sentence making.
Lessons start from introduction to gender, number and cases. Verbal roots of 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th and 10th conjugations are intro- duced in lesson four, which are widely used and important. Other conjugations are introduced as they occur in other lessons. Popular nouns, Verbs, indeclinable are introduced in first eight lessons. Command over these eight lessons may help students to construct simple sentences and read. Nouns are given in three lessons. (6th,7th and 8th), which cover all necessary nouns along with their declensional forms and categorised as vowel-ending and consonant-ending nouns. Other lessons are selected from classical Sanskrit literature, Upanisads, Bhagavadgita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Pancatantra, and Yogasutra, which give glimpse of a wide literature in Sanskrit and Indian philosophy and thought. Other grammatical aspects like three past tenses, two futures, moods etc. are introduced along with the lessons.
Euphonic combination, a very important aspect of Sanskrit language, is discussed in detail separately. At the same time, they are explained with corresponding rules wherever they occur in the lessons. Compounds, though important, but rather complicated for beginners are discussed separately in appendix and not in les- sons.
**Contents and Sample Pages**
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