[Advaita-l] Modern Grammarian - An Online Course Taught by Sri Mani Dravid Sastrigal

[Ravisankar Mayavaram]

Referred to attachment is @ http://ambaa.org/sanskrit/ModernGrammarian/


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Rajaram Venkataramani* <rajaramvenk at gmail.com 
<mailto:rajaramvenk at gmail.com>>
Date: Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 6:09 PM
Subject: Course Structure
To: पाणिनि <panini-grammar-course at googlegroups.com 
<mailto:panini-grammar-course at googlegroups.com>>


Dear All,

Hari: Om! Welcome again! This 18 month course will lead us to a 
traditional title "Modern Grammarian" or "अभिनववैयाकरण:". It will give us 
an expert level understanding of Sanskrit Grammar that eludes post 
graduates and for that matter many professors in Sanskrit at Harvard, 
Oxford or even Indian Universities. However, such an expertise does not 
come without intense hard work. If we are not committed to give at least 
600 hours for this, we cannot achieve the title. This commitment is also 
the best guru dakshina we can give to*Sri Mani Dravid Sastrigal, who has 
volunteered his time in spite of his busy schedule to teach us*. In the 
past, students spent years learning kavyas and vyakarana in gurukula 
before proceeding to study Nyaya and Mimamsa. The course has been 
simplified significantly to suit modern audience using modern 
technologies but the outcome will be the same. At the end of 18 months, 
each one of us would have memorised 4000 sutras of Panini, 2000 dhatus 
from which all words are derived, hundreds of word forms and be able to 
confidently read, write, speak and listen . We will be able to use 
Paninian sutras to grammatically analyse any complex Sanskrit text.

The first module is to familiarise us with Sanskrit. If Sanskrit is the 
only language, we will learn it like children learn their mother tongue 
by associating sounds with objects and actions. The first module is 
designed to teach Sanskrit as a mother tongue. However, this module will 
not be delivered for this batch for two reasons. One, there is a lot of 
content available from Samskruta Bharathi and other organisations to 
give language familiarity. Second, we as a group have enough knowledge 
to understand Sanskrit lectures and should help each other. We will 
straight away start with Module 2.

The second module is 9 lectures in simple Sanskrit for 2 hours each by 
sastrigal. He will explain nine topics - Letters and Euphonic 
Permutations, Verbs, Nouns, Declensions, Indeclinables, Cardinals, 
Compounds, Conjugations and Tenses -  along with important sutras. The 
students will have to help each other to understand these lectures. 
There will be a 2 hour interview in Sanskrit by Sastrigal to check if we 
have memorised the sutras taught and understood the concepts correctly. 
The lectures themselves will have questions that will be posed during 
the interview. We considered doing short lectures for 5 - 10 minutes but 
decided against it as we want students to learn to concentrate for a few 
hours at a time by immersing in the lectures. This module is expected to 
take 3 months to complete.

The third module is Ashtadhyayi Moola Parayanam in addition to self and 
group study of different Sahasranamams, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayanam, 
Bhagavatam and texts of personal interest. The students *may *be 
requested to assemble in one location in India for 18 days to do 
parayanam of Ashtadhyayi, Sahasranamams, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayanam and 
Bhagavatam. In preparation for that every one should have practised 
well. This module is expected to take 3 month to complete.

The fourth module is made of 8 lectures of 4 hours each. Each lecture 
will cover one adhyaya and explain the sutras in that Adhyaya with 
examples from different texts. In addition to the listening to the 
lectures, the students should also study Mahabhashyam and one of the 
texts of their choice - Bhagavad Gita, Ramayanam or Bhagavatam. There 
will be a 2 hour interview to check that the students have memorised the 
Paninian Sutras and understood the key concepts. This module is expected 
to take 3 months to complete. To achieve this, the students should have 
been listening to Ashtadhyayi daily from the start of the course and 
also been reading their text of choice for the thesis.

The fifth and the last module is the thesis. Here a group of 4 students 
is expected to write a 100 page grammatical analysis of the text of 
their choice. The students have to defend their thesis in front of other 
students and sastrigal for 2 hours. This is expected to take 6 months to 
complete and should demonstrate proficiency in Sanskrit.

The lectures for Module 2 will be posted on a private You Tube channel 
for this group. Please invite as many serious students as possible to 
take up the study of Ashtadhyayi. In general, the discussions on this 
forum should be in Sanskrit but leniency will be shown initially.

The purpose of teaching Ashtadhyayi is that language should be used 
accurately and it is very auspicious to do so. It will prepare students 
to learn nyaya and mimamsa as well as defend our sanatana dharma from 
hostile attacks. There is no age limit but please encourage youngsters 
to join. As training many students cannot be done by Sastrigal alone, 
each one us here should also aim to teach others in addition cultivating 
our own knowledge. Please go through the attached presentation and let 
me know if there are questions. Until the course starts, read and 
discuss in Sanskrit as much as you can.


Best Regards
Rajaram Venkataramani

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