Win Corduan's Sanskrit Welcome!

Welcome! Now available through chapter 4!

I would like to dedicate this site to William Carey, first missionary to India, whose faith in the power of the true Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ was secure enough for him to translate the Ramayana for his Bengali neighbors. The picture is a decoration on the fence surrounding the campus of Serampore College

The purpose of this course is, at a minimum, to give you, the student, a sufficient introduction to Sanskrit to be able to verify the English translations of various Indian scriptures.

As your knowledge of the language increases, this skill will grow to the level of being able to read and provide direct translations of selected classic passages.

Our textbook will be E. D. Perry's, A Sanskrit Primer, a classic, but still popular, text going back to the nineteenth century

Much of my job will be to to help you make sense of Perry's instructions.

BASIC PROCEDURE

1. You will read and study a chapter in Perry, using my notes to help you.

2. You send me the translations at the end of each chapter.

3. I will read and correct your translations and make comments if you're missing a fundamental point.

THE TOOLS YOU WILL NEED OR WANT

1) the textbook by Perry,

2) a computer font for the Devanagari script, such as Sanskrit 99 or one of its variations, unless you prefer to work on paper, in which case we need to make some adjustments to the process.

3) (highly recommended) Whitney's Sanskrit Grammar,

4) (highly recommended) access to a good dictionary.

These items are available as new books, used books, and legitimate free online texts. For more on them, click here please.

Go on to the next page for more preliminary details.

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Please free to e-mail me with any questions.

Believe it or not, the squiggles below will start to make sense to you as soon as you study the first lesson!