Dr. Venkatasubramanian P
Co-founder and COO, Vyoma Linguistic Labs Foundation
I teach grammar. I am aware of what that does to a room. So allow me to defend my subject with someone else’s work. Consider the Amarakośa. It is, strictly speaking, a dictionary. Thousands of words, arranged by meaning. Any sensible person would produce a reference volume and be done with it. Amarasiṃha wrote it in verse. Metre, rhythm, the whole thing composed so a child could sing it and carry it for the rest of their life. That tells you what this language assumed about itself. Not something studied silently at a desk. Something heard. Repeated. Sung in the kitchen, on the walk to the temple, on long journeys.
Somewhere along the way we turned it into a subject, and I have spent a good part of my life trying to undo that in my own classes.
Vyoma’s digitalsanskrit.com is our attempt to undo it properly.
The Amarakośa, sung as it was written to be sung. The Rāmacaritamānasa in gāyana. The Saptāha-Stotra-Saṅgraha for your mornings. The Gītā, complete, in audio, so it can play while the day goes on around it. And for the children, stories and subhāṣita-s, games, and the epics told rather than summarised.
There is already a good deal there you can listen to without paying anything at all. Start there. Put something on while the morning happens around you and see whether it belongs in your house.
To mark our anniversary and the month of Saṃskṛta, we have opened a great many titles for free this August, right through to Saṃskṛta Divas on the 28th. Stories, chants, things for the children. Look in often, as new ones keep appearing.
Your favourite teacher, Sowmya Bhagini, takes over next, and she has a wonderful story to tell.
Your Vyoma Sevavrathee.
Venkatasubramanian
If you are new here, Vyoma’s digitalsanskrit.com is a home for Sanskrit you can listen to, read and play with: chants, stories, the epics, the Gita, e-books, audiobooks, podcasts and learning games, gathered across collections like World of Chants, Stories and Subhashitas, Kids, Gita, Vedanta, Grammar, and Epics and Puranas. A good deal of it is free to begin with.
- First time reading one of these? Start with the first letter: How the Panchatantra Teaches Without Teaching
- Curious to see it for yourself? Visit digitalsanskrit.com
- Follow digitalsanskrit.com on WhatsApp: https://tinyurl.com/wa-ch-ds
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