Week 6 Queries

[VarunKhanna]

Dear All,

Please post all queries related to Week 6 of the Sanskrit Webinar here!

I'm posting this a little early so that we don't get extra topic headings for Week 6 like we did for Week 5. All posts should come under this topic heading for Week 6. If you have a query that doesn't fit into this heading, you can create a new topic, but otherwise please keep your thoughts here.

I will also later post the link to this week's webinar lesson on this thread.

Thanks,

Varun

[1vidhya]

Dear Varun ji,

I am not clear on the rationale behind the selection of the Yaṇ, Ñay and Śal pratyaharas for giving specific names. Could you please clarify?

Thanks!

[sivam]

Dr Varun will make the great revelation soon. I know we have been waiting for the reasons for the 14 Mahesvra sutra which by now we can rap or chant in praise of Lord Shiva. But Dr Varun will reveal the grand grammatical rules linked to the shortcuts....n we will be wowed i am sure.
Lesson 5 still remains hard after 3 viewings....
Hope 6 will be a DREAM....

[arjunpradhan]

this website has millions of books on every possible subject. please download books for sanskrit webinar.

for Dhatupatha of Panini - website https://archive.org/search.php?query=dhatupatha.
download the book from - https://ia600208.us.archive.org/29/items/TheDhatupathaOfPanini_428/TheDhatupathaOfPanini.pdf


for Ashtadhyayi of Panini - https://archive.org/search.php?query=ashtadhyayi
download the book from -
https://ia601504.us.archive.org/19/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.496388/2015.496388.ashtadhyayi-sutrapatha.pdf
for Ashtadhyayi of Panini with english translation -
https://ia601509.us.archive.org/12/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.485592/2015.485592.Ashtadhyayi-of.pdf

[vinodhrs]

Dear Varun ji,

Hari Om!
Sanskrit language was intimidating to me, so I ended up not opting for that in my school. By listening to your classes, I am getting a new interest. Thank you!

I would like to know if the donation link is up and running. Thank you again for your service to all. You are the best!

With love,
Vinodh

[arjunpradhan]

why isn't there lṛ in the Māheśwara sūtrāṇi?

[VivekJi]

why isn't there lṛ in the Māheśwara sūtrāṇi?

Hari Om Arjun,

Actually there is, check out the second line, second letter.

१. अ इ उ ण्।
२. ऋ ऌ क्।

Vivek

[viduram]

Hari Ohm Varunji,
Can you please post the youtube link of week 6 as I couldn't attend it.
Thanks
Vidya

[Usha05]

I hope by now the website issue is resolved, i checked announcement tab for week 6, files and any Pdf files, also youtube Info to listen again week6 lesson, but no sign of that, no email either.
could you pls reply or post these things on Announcement tab also update Discussion Forum, so we can follow the lesson.
Thanks and regards
usha

[banibha]

Varunji,
I am sorry we were bothering you about the books.
I saw the post of the book, it is really hard -- I am not ready for this yet.

Is there any other book where I can see the topics you were discussing in the class?
Thanks
Bani Bhattacharyya

[ianr]

I have studied the notes to this lesson but haven't found the link to the youtube of the lesson itself. It doesn't seem to have been posted, does it?

I was thinking about all the terms that have been introduced - quite over my head and demeaning really. Surely, it would make sense now to use the sutras (or rules) to explain how they were/are created. Understanding how they are constructed will make remembering them far, far easier in my opinion. That said, exemplifying the 'game' and discovering the rules that make up the building blocks would seem to be the natural way of presenting all this. Otherwise, we are obliged to accept all this as an act of faith, fitting some might argue for small children, perhaps, but not for grown adults. Actually, I tend to think both generations might be happier beginning from the building blocks themselves and getting to grip with the language. Please, regard this as 'constructive' criticism. I can see something of the baby in the bath water, despite the description of the bath room:-)

In sum, all I am saying is that it would be helpful to build this up from basics rather than abstract descriptive terms that depend on the basics that haven't been introduced. This shouldn't be a chicken or egg situation. There is supposed to be a logical 'natural' way forward. That said, perhaps we can discover it.

[ianr]

Dear Varun

I am happy - and grateful - to inform you that your improved additions to the notes have made this lesson much easier to assimilate. I speak of machine fonts over handwriting although I strive to get use to it. You also had added some Sanskrit notation that was unknown to me. I don't know whether you have time to make the same adjustments to lesson five that 'appears' more difficult than this one now.

I still haven't been able to access this lesson, so I don't know whether you clarified or reviewed points from lesson 5. With regard to 'effort' needed to make sounds, you included various terms regarding the position of the mouth, which need to be specified more clearly - perhaps by means of a diagram. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make out the words/labels to be able to look them up.

Otherwise, I think it would be interesting and useful to take some time to explain a little more about the way words are constructed. Surely, the key to Sanskrit is that compound words can be broken down into smaller parts. Hence, it would be helpful to work from the smaller parts and how they come together. The point is that I haven't learned Sanskrit yet, so using complex/compound terms in that language is expecting/demanding the near impossible. You seem to expect us to run before we learn how to walk. In sum, the labels you use might be appreciate more if explained linguistically in my humble opinion. Of course, it is highly likely that others can recognise these terms from their own languages:-)

Bye for now

Ian

[sivam]

dear varun-ji
i started as a total novice to sanskrit 6 weeks ago who squirmed at the curly-woolie script thinking i only wanted to study transliterated Sanskrit. But today thanks to your motivating and visionary lectures that demanded more of me each week, I am truly able to read sanskrit text even the Nama Ramayana, albeit very slowly.
So your system works for me brilliantly and challenges me to meet your expectations....to not just run but fly.....
I am now totally in love with sanskrit and its sheer logic.
Yes: "chacun a son gout" as they say in French.
Yes Chapter 5 was so technical but we got it after listening 3 times to you....
Thank you so much.
Jai Siya Ram.
ps...i live in Singapore and have had no problems at all with the system in terms of accessing the documents anytime.

[Vasishta]

I would like to second Ian's comments. The theory is fascinating but it should be amply illustrated with examples. Otherwise it is impossible to absorb all that knowledge.

Dear Varun

I am happy - and grateful - to inform you that your improved additions to the notes have made this lesson much easier to assimilate. I speak of machine fonts over handwriting although I strive to get use to it. You also had added some Sanskrit notation that was unknown to me. I don't know whether you have time to make the same adjustments to lesson five that 'appears' more difficult than this one now.

I still haven't been able to access this lesson, so I don't know whether you clarified or reviewed points from lesson 5. With regard to 'effort' needed to make sounds, you included various terms regarding the position of the mouth, which need to be specified more clearly - perhaps by means of a diagram. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make out the words/labels to be able to look them up.

Otherwise, I think it would be interesting and useful to take some time to explain a little more about the way words are constructed. Surely, the key to Sanskrit is that compound words can be broken down into smaller parts. Hence, it would be helpful to work from the smaller parts and how they come together. The point is that I haven't learned Sanskrit yet, so using complex/compound terms in that language is expecting/demanding the near impossible. You seem to expect us to run before we learn how to walk. In sum, the labels you use might be appreciate more if explained linguistically in my humble opinion. Of course, it is highly likely that others can recognise these terms from their own languages:-)

Bye for now

Ian

[VarunKhanna]

Dear All,

I hope you were able to find the link to the new lesson in the email I sent out to everyone earlier this week. However, in case you still haven't found it, then you can view the lesson here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDHIZNXTDQ

My sincere apologies for not posting this earlier; this week has been exceptionally demanding from the university side of things, and I was unable to get back to the discussion forum until today. In any case, regarding the comments from those of you asking me not to ask you to run before you can walk, as I mentioned several times during the week 5 lesson, don't worry about that class for now, because it is a 'dictionary' class, with terms that will become useful later but that have to be mentioned now. You only have to worry about it later, and by that time, you will understand it fluently. But for now, it was a necessary hurdle that we had to get through in 1 hour during one of the weeks, so I chose to do it in week 5. The good news is that we won't be doing something crazy like that again anytime soon.

Sometimes, offering something a little beyond what you can grasp immediately helps to know that there is more to know. As you would have seen in the lesson from week 6, we have again turned the dial down so that it is a slow burn rather than a forest fire.

All the best,

Varun

[dwija23]

Dear Dr.Varun,

You had said in the video that when you have bhu and tip, you get bhavati. My question is, how do you know that you get bhavati? You could get bhutip, bhutap, etc. How do you know it is bhavati? Thank you very much.

Dwija Ramesh

[VarunKhanna]

You had said in the video that when you have bhu and tip, you get bhavati. My question is, how do you know that you get bhavati? You could get bhutip, bhutap, etc. How do you know it is bhavati?

Dear Dwija ji,

Hari Om!

Great question. The whole process of how bhū + tip becomes bhavati is exactly what we will be studying through this webinar. That is what the study of vyākaraṇa is all about. The rules by which these transformations happen are exactly the content of the Aṣṭādhyāyī. I'll give you an example here, so that you can see it in action, but we'll be covering this in detail (and how to visualize rules for an entire language!) during our webinar.

So we have bhū + tip.
After it-saṁjñā, which we started learning in week 07, we are left with bhū + ti.
Then because of the rule "kartari śap", we get a vikaraṇa (another type of affix) in between bhū and ti called śap.
So, bhū + śap + ti.
After we perform it-saṁjñā on śap, we are left with only a.
Now we have bhū + a + ti.
Now because of the rule "sārvadhātukārdhadhātukayoḥ", we get a transformation on the ū of bhū called guṇa.
The guṇa of ū is o.
So we have bho + a + ti.
Then due to the sandhi rule "eco'yavāyāvaḥ", o is transformed into av.
Now we have bhav + a + ti.
No more rules apply, so we have our final form, bhavati.

Even if you don't understand it, at least you can see the process here. This is the "how". We'll get to both the "how" and the "why" as the webinar progresses!

All the best,

Varun

[ianr]

Hi Varun

Just to say that I don't seem to be on your email list. Perhaps, you can add me.

Ian

Dear All,

I hope you were able to find the link to the new lesson in the email I sent out to everyone earlier this week. However, in case you still haven't found it, then you can view the lesson here:



Varun

[ianr]

Hi Varun

Yes, it is about the chanting. As you said, they can be spoken or chanted. My question is how do you know 'how' to chant them? Are they simply passed on from word to mouth or is there a way of determining the 'music'? Is this signalled/encoded in some way?

Otherwise, I still haven't really been able to do the opening and closing ones you use, but I did manage the sutra defining a sutra, which you explained clearly apart from the word 'ca'. However, since the word order can be changed with no loss of meaning, why isn't it made to rhyme by making the last word 'sutram'? That would make it easier to remember, wouldn't it?

Really hope you can help me with the chanting - as I found some other interesting verses that I'd like to learn to chant.

Thanks

Ian

P.S. Some other questions:

Re: word order, if this doesn't change the meaning, how can reading verse in reverse change the meaning or are the words themselves read backwards?

Re: the text you wrote about Why Sanskrit. That was very helpful and interesting. And so you say the idea was to make the word match the vibrations of the object. You gave the example of aasanda to mean chair. Great. So how then can a single verb/word have what appears to be two distinct meanings such as 'carry' and 'lead'? (Sorry if this question is in the wrong place but the text doesn't appear within a particular lesson.)

Dr Varun will make the great revelation soon. I know we have been waiting for the reasons for the 14 Mahesvra sutra which by now we can rap or chant in praise of Lord Shiva.

Hope 6 will be a DREAM....

[DYECYMNKEK]

My son and I are headed to Port OConner tomorrow for our hunt this week on Matagorda Island. Anyone else from the gs going?