One of my biggest regrets till date has been the fact that I did not learn Sanskrit in School or at home growing up. This has not usually been an issue when reading various Indian philosophical treatises like the popular Upanishads or the Gita. There are excellent English Translations for these and I am grateful for that. However, of late I have had an urge to learn Sanskrit and read these books in the original Sanskrit. Firstly, a translation always loses something of the beauty and meaning of the original. Secondly, many translators imbue their translations with all their biases and prejudices. I felt this most keenly when I obtained a copy of The Upanishads translated by Max Mueller. I already had a copy of some translations/ commentaries of the Upanishads by Shankaracharya and the difference in meaning and interpretation of some of the more important slokas were eye opening for me.
I am not sure who is closer to the original - Shankaracharya or Max Mueller - although I suspect it is Shankaracharya. Max Mueller, great Indologist though he was, was also very susceptible to the prevailing Euro Centric view of the world; the view that the colonised races could not have written or thought about philosophy on the scale and breadth of the Europeans; the view that the religions of the colonised peoples could not have been much more than savage superstitions.
Accordingly, I am going to embark on a journey of learning Sanskrit. I have the "Sanskrit Self Teacher" series authored by Dr. Pandit S.D. Satwalekar. There are also excellent Sanskrit primers on the net. One that I am currently using is http://learnsanskrit.org/. It's not going to be easy by any means. I haven't learnt a new language in the last 20 years and given the pressures of family and work I am not sure how much time I will get to spend on this new hobby.
I hope to provide updates on my progress in learning Sanskrit regularly.
I am not sure who is closer to the original - Shankaracharya or Max Mueller - although I suspect it is Shankaracharya. Max Mueller, great Indologist though he was, was also very susceptible to the prevailing Euro Centric view of the world; the view that the colonised races could not have written or thought about philosophy on the scale and breadth of the Europeans; the view that the religions of the colonised peoples could not have been much more than savage superstitions.
Accordingly, I am going to embark on a journey of learning Sanskrit. I have the "Sanskrit Self Teacher" series authored by Dr. Pandit S.D. Satwalekar. There are also excellent Sanskrit primers on the net. One that I am currently using is http://learnsanskrit.org/. It's not going to be easy by any means. I haven't learnt a new language in the last 20 years and given the pressures of family and work I am not sure how much time I will get to spend on this new hobby.
I hope to provide updates on my progress in learning Sanskrit regularly.
