[Advaita-l] Beginners Sanskrit Classes Online

[Jaishankar Narayanan]

Namaste Jaldhar ji,

We were taught during our Gurukulavaasa with the book authored by Antoine.
So I still look it up for the topics. I am aware of Brni Michika Medha Ji's
books and will follow them. She is my Gurubehan. Thanks for your suggestion.

With love and prayers,
Jaishankar

On Mon, 5 Jan, 2026, 8:37 am , <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Jan 2026, Jaishankar Narayanan via Advaita-l wrote:
>
> > I am planning to follow the Samskrithasri Pathamala text books and the
> book
> > A Sanskrit Manual by R Antoine.
>
> This is a worthwhile endeavor and I wish you and the students well.
> But May I suggest you don't use the Antoine book?  Antoine was a Christian
> missionary.  While there is no explicit proselytization it is not rooted
> in our culture (e.g. generic references to God rather than specific
> devatas.)  Also it ia patterned on Western grammars originally designed
> for Latin or Greek not our own grammatical tradition.
>
> On the other hand going straight to Panini might be too overwhelming to
> novices unfamiliar with shastras.
>
> A happy medium in my opinion is the "Enjoyable Sanskrit Grammar" series in
> 4 volumes by Medhika Brahmacharini a shishya of Swami Dayananda.  It is
> designed for beginners but introduces concepts from vyakarana. The volumes
> are
> accompanied by exercise workbooks and answer keys.
>
> (See https://arshaavinash.in/index.php/books-on-sanskrit-grammar/)
>
>
> I have also heard good things about Bhashankura
> (https://sanskritseva.org/initiatives/bhashankura/) but that one isn't
> free.
>
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
>