The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit

As a Western student who has studied Sanskrit with both Western and Indian teachers, I cannot recommend this book AND its accompanying Yogic Studies course with the author enough (surprising affordable for university-level education). The book is very methodical and takes you on a steady journey to learning grammar and vocabulary. It’s difficult, but still very accessible if you stay consistent. I have learned more in the past 3 months than I have in the past 20 years—and am now actively reading/translating! The key here for me was committing to the accompanying course and taking this study seriously (i.e., showing up for live classes 2x week and doing the homework). This book + course is a total game-changer for the committed student and it’s also quite fun! NOTE: there is no answer key in the book, but I emailed the author as instructed and received those files within 24-hours. Actually convenient, as I can print as-needed and have them on my desk.

I've already own several Sanskrit books before I spotted this one. However, they are either too simple and lack of further explanation, or they have too much academic air in them and no answer keys. I am so glad I purchased this book and without knowing in advance that it would open a door of learning Sanskrit for me. As a self study student, I wrote to the author for the Key and I got something back more than the Key! Dr Ruppel was organizing an online course at that time and naturally she asked if I would be interested in joining the study group. I was thrilled and signed myself up right away. I have been following the course for six months now and let me tell you, this book is the gem in Sanskrit study and Dr Ruppel is a wonderful teacher with lots of compassion and she is a hard worker. This book is carefully designed/engineered in presenting and mapping out the materials--systematical and well organized as Dr Ruppel is an experienced and successful Sanskrit teacher .The more I study the book, the more I understand why and how the chapters are arranged in such order. In addition to many wonderful attributes people already mentioned in their comments above, I personally love the learning tips and technical comments she shares in the book which have helped me a lot. I also love the way she uses English as a comparative example to help us understand how Sanskrit works--same as English or different. Besides the exercises we get from the book, we also get a weekly email which has detailed instruction on how to approach this week's material and the links to her many online resources, such as videos and flash cards. And we also get a weekly test which I have tons of fun doing it. In a nutshell, from the most basic script learning to be able to read Bhagavad gita, this book will guide you step by step and lead you to reach that ultimate goal. I have no doubt about it.

हरिः ॐ As an autodidact, I've been studying Sanskrit for about 4.5 years now. I purchased this book because I want to start reviewing previous chapters with new vocabulary (in order to keep advancing), and because whenever I check for a grammar concept online (in order to expand it to fully internalize it), the excerpts that pop up contain very approachable explanations. I can only say that this course-book is the perfect compliment for my Sanskrit für Anfänger Course-book (by Heidelberg's Prof. Thomas Lehmann). As I've continued to study this wonderful language that is मम प्रियं संस्कृतम् through this marvelous book, I can only find its content very accessible and helpful. I've been looking for a book like this for four years now and I never found one. Other courses were simply not appealing: Many of the expensive course-books I checked back then only offered a few lessons per course-book with very limited/lacking explanations. Making money seemed more important than teaching. This course-book offers 40 chapters, which is around 3-4.5 years of study. It has a lot of exercises. If you're interested in India's ancient sacred teachings, and that's mainly why you're learning Sanskrit, you can read excerpts of the Bhagavad Gītā, the Mahābhārata, etc. right from the beginning (Chapter 2, page 23) which is an amazing treat for every Sanskrit student. A final note: You can't "learn Sanskrit fast". I know of Sanskrititians who have been learning Sanskrit for 15 years. Once you start learning Sanskrit, the more you learn, the more you'll realize how little you know. The more reverence and humility you will feel when approaching each lesson. Sanskrit's grammar is as vast as a shore; each grain of sand is a concept, an explanation, a declination. It takes time to pick them all. But the journey is totally worth it. Anyway. May Lord Gaṇeśa bestow one-pointed concentration on you. May Mātā Sarasvatī bless your studying endeavors. May you unite with The Absolute. ॐ नमः शिवाय ॐ

Devanagari を読める・学ぶ予定がある方に向けられたものです。 当面 alphabet 表記で済ませようと思っている自分には不向きでした。

Purchased this to accompany a course taught by the author. Reading first few chapters it looks like a great systematic teaching with lots of printable online resources and exercises in the book.

Great for beginner to intermediate students. I have worked through the book with quite good results. It has many positives, a few negatives. The greatest strength of the text is its insightful presentation of the grammatical structure of sanskrit, and the reasons behind this structure. It fills a gap in presenting grammar in a modern way. Though it gives a good concise understanding of the structure of sanskrit, sanskrit has really really complex grammar, and just reading it over is not enough to master it. For average students like me, Thomas Eugenes I is more digestible in the beginning and gives a better guide to writing devanagari, so this is a better choice for raw beginners. Eugenes II becomes a bit more pressured and unravels towards the end, so at this point Ruppel is probably a better choice. But occasional passages in Ruppel are difficult to digest, and there are a lack of simple examples. Despite claims for self teaching, Coulson, Eugenes, and Ruppel were all designed around university academic years, rather than around simple digestible learning steps. The exercises have two problems. Firstly there is an absence of drills, so there is no solid reinforcement. Secondly there are no answers to the exercises. The readings given are stimulating and fairly advanced, but she likes you to play a guessing game. This is stimulating but difficult and there aren't any translations. I understand that there are answers to the questions if you know where to look or if you seek the right connections online. Beyond this beginner-intermediate level the next step is to start reading original texts. For this there is a Ruppel reader. Again there are guessing games, but fortunately a full vocabulary for the reader can be found online via her websites, and the reader is truly great in helping the extremely difficult transition from text book to understanding texts.

This is the text we are using in our introductory Sanskrit class, so far it's been very good. It covers everything in a mostly accessible way, and has a lot of very useful tables in the back with various paradigms, summaries of sandhi, and consonant conjuncts which make a convenient reference. The majority of the grammar is explained very clearly even for people who have no background in ancient languages, and there are interesting and useful notes on stylistics which help prepare for translating. The only real criticisms are that in the actual main body of the text, the author sometimes seems a little reluctant to show things in a "visual" way using too many tables or diagrams, and instead tries to focus on explaining it through prose. Unfortunately some of these topics are just easier to see than to write about, and so some of the written explanations end up being quite long and unnecessarily confusing as a result! Additionally while there are a lot of short exercises and drills, but so far as we have been using it maybe not quite so much in the way of longer passages for translation. As a mainly language focused (as opposed to readings) introduction though, this is fine. You just may need to find some collection of readings to practice translations with separately (and I understand the author might be developing a readings book to go along with this one anyway!). Overall, I've liked using this book a lot, especially as a lot of the alternatives are quite old and are beginning to show it! This is a nicely laid out, modern textbook, and the layout and typesetting being clear and modern help keep the focus where it should be, the language and grammar! My only other complaint is that the hardback version costs so much - I use it constantly so my paperback cover is getting a little worn where I'm always holding it while flicking through!

Ça fait du bien d'apprendre avec se livre. La rigueur est de mise pour entrer dedans et c'est vraiment tout ce que j'aime. Un livre qui met la barre haute et qui demande au lecteur d'utiliser sa tête il n'y a rien de mieux pour s'occuper sainement ! Très complet. Je recommande !