Spoken Sanskrit resources

This post, at Elisa's suggestion, is about resources on spoken Sanskrit. Since in order to speak in Sanskrit you need at least an dialog partner if not a whole environment (friends, family) speaking this language, a surrogate would be just to listen (and trying to understand) other speaking. For this purpose there are several resources around the net.

On now famous sanskritdocuments.org website, one can find radio news in Sanskrit on an about two day basis. Another resource which I enjoyed very much is the 1983 movie Adi Shankaracharya by G.V. Iyer now available on google video. See bellow.

On Sri Aurobindo's ashram website are also available some audio and video files with spoken Sanskrit.



Ādi Śaṅkarācārya

Great Idea

Like so many other great ideas that seem obvious after someone states them, this is not an exception. In a discussion with Elisa Freschi about easy sanskrit texts for begginers, she suggested that it is easier to read texts that one is familiar with. This is how I come to remember that once I stumbled upon a Sanskrit translation of the Bible. For the westerner who, in most cases, was raised as Christian, this is indeed an easy and sometimes fun text to read. Here are the links:
Sanskrit Bible Vol 1 (5 books of Moses and the book of Joshua)
Sanskrit Bible Vol 2 (historical books from judges to Esther)
Sanskrit Bible Vol 3 (poetical and devotional books from Job to Canticles)
Sanskrit Bible Vol 4 (prophetical books)
New Testament in Sanskrit
Enjoy!

The wonder of Sanskrit

sāṃkhyam asmābhir jñāyate: alepako nirguṇaḥ kṣetrajñaḥ puruṣaḥ

can be translated in two ways:

1. I am conversant with Sankhya: The soul is stainless, without Qualities, and the Knower of the field of experiences.

2. I am conversant with Sankhya: This person uses no cosmetics, has no merits, he is a plowman.

The translation is taken from "The Quarter of Causeries" Translated by Csaba Dezső & Somadeva Vasudeva.