Sanskrit

Devanāgarī, slowly

Vowels first. Sound before symbol. Twelve days.

Sandhi as music

How sounds meet, soften, transform.

Verbs that breathe

Conjugation as living pattern, not table.

Reading the Gītā

A guided line-by-line entry into chapter two.

Devanāgarī consonants

The five vargas — labial, palatal, retroflex, dental, velar. Organised by place of articulation, not alphabet.

The anusvāra and visarga

Two marks that govern how sounds meet breath. Essential for mantra pronunciation.

Nominal case — prathama

The nominative. Rāmaḥ comes, Sītā sits. How Sanskrit marks the actor.

The karma — dvitīyā

Accusative case. The object that receives the action. Rāmaḥ Rāvaṇaṃ hanti.

Tṛtīyā — the instrumental

Done by, with, through. The case of means and accompaniment. Rāmeṇa bāṇena.

Genitive — ṣaṣṭhī

Belonging, relation, possession. The most philosophical case — everything belongs to something.

Parasmaipada verbs

Active voice — the agent acts outward. Bhavati, gacchati, paśyati. The most common verb class.

Ātmanepada verbs

Reflexive voice — the action returns to the agent. Labhate, sevate. Often for verbs of inner experience.

Vowel sandhi — saṃdhi

When a ends and i begins, ai emerges. The grammar of encounter — how sounds transform at borders.

Consonant sandhi

Visarga becomes r, s becomes ḥ. The transformations that make Sanskrit text look impenetrable until unlocked.

Dhātus — verbal roots

Bhū, gam, dṛś. All Sanskrit words unfold from roots. Learning roots is learning the language's skeleton.

Taddhita — derived nouns

How suffixes build worlds of meaning from a single root. Dharma → dhārmika → dhārmikya.

Reading Gītā 2.20

Na jāyate mriyate vā. The ātman that is never born and never dies. Close grammatical analysis.

Reading Gītā 2.47

Karmaṇy evādhikāras te. Your right is to action, not to its fruits. Every word unpacked.

Reading Kenopaniṣad 1.1

Keneṣitaṃ patati preṣitaṃ manaḥ. By what is the mind directed? The opening question that drives the text.

Reading Īśopaniṣad 1

Īśāvāsyam idaṃ sarvam. All this is pervaded by the Lord. One verse, entire worldview.

Compound words — samāsa

Sanskrit packs meaning into compounds. Tatpuruṣa, bahuvrīhi, dvandva. How to unpack them.

Metre — chandas

Anuṣṭubh, triṣṭubh, gāyatrī. Every verse has a pulse. Learning metre is learning to hear the text breathe.

Svara — Vedic pitch accent

Udātta, anudātta, svarita. Three tones that distinguish meaning and preserve oral transmission.

Reading the Puruṣa Sūkta

Sahasraśīrṣā puruṣaḥ. A cosmogonic hymn. Grammar, cosmology, and philosophy in sixteen verses.

Reading Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1

Brahmavidāpnoti param. He who knows Brahman attains the highest. Parsing a pivotal verse.