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Luke Gibson, "Reading Sanskrit: A Complete Step-By-Step Introduction with Texts from the Buddhist Tradition" (Columbia UP, 2025)
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- [00:01]
Luke Gibson
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello and welcome back to the New Books and in your religion podcast, a podcast channel here on the New Books Network, I'm your host, Dr. Raj Balkara. And more importantly, I have the pleasure today of welcoming to the podcast Luke Gibson, who is author of a brand new Columbia University Press publication called Reading Sanskrit. A complete step by step introduction with texts from the Buddhist tradition. Luke, welcome to the podcast.
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Luke Gibson
Thank you for having me on.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Yeah, a pleasure. So let's, let's start first maybe a bit with your. Tell us a bit about your journey with Sanskrit. Like how did that. How did Sanskrit enter your life, you know?
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Luke Gibson
Okay.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Why are you so interested in it?
- [02:13]
Luke Gibson
Yeah, well, I mean, it depends on how far we want to go back.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Well, I think maybe just this incarnation, the previous ones will leave out.
- [02:20]
Luke Gibson
Okay. Okay. All right. There's a lot to talk about even in just this incarnation, but basically my interest has always been with languages. I have a double cultural background. I was brought up in France. I was educated in France, but my father is American. And so I always had this kind of double language in my household, and I had an interest in languages and especially Mandarin Chinese. Very early on I had this interest. And so eventually I made my way all the way to Taiwan, and there I continued studying Chinese and also had an interest in Buddhism. And it just happened that there's a lot of resources there for learning Buddhism. And I ended up in what was called at the time the Dharmadram Buddhist College. And I completed a master's degree in religious studies with a focus on Buddhism and Indian Buddhism. And so that's how I first encountered Sanskrit as part of my Buddhist studies, Sanskrit and Pali. So my original interest was with Buddhism, but through Buddhism, I encountered Sanskrit. And originally my interest for Sanskrit was purely for Buddhist texts, but I quickly realized that there was quite a bit more to Sanskrit, South Asian culture than purely Buddhism. And so that eventually, eventually it really broadened my interest to encompass not just Buddhist Sanskrit texts, but the whole South Asian tradition. Although obviously my focus has been mainly on Buddhist texts.
- [03:53]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Yeah, I was going to ask about this later in the podcast, but since you mentioned it at the outset, the focus on Buddhist tradition in particular, is that because you had a particular audience in mind, is it such that anyone who is looking to learn Sanskrit can learn from this text? Tell us a bit more about that decision in terms of the actual publication.
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Luke Gibson
Right. So obviously, first, maybe as a bit of a background, people probably associate Sanskrit mainly with the religious writings of Hinduism and the popular, especially the Western imagination. That's mainly the connection that's made in the east, in Taiwan, in China and in Japan, these places, Sanskrit is mainly associated with Buddhism. So people who study Sanskrit in Taiwan and these other places, they have an interest for Buddhism, but the textbooks they use are mostly designed for students of Hinduism. So from the very beginning of the advent of kind of Sanskrit teaching in the West, Hinduism has always been the focus. So all of the textbooks, well, almost all of the textbooks, there's a few exceptions, but almost all the textbooks focus on Hinduism. And so one of the reasons for writing this textbook was to kind of. I felt like there was the need for a textbook that kind of a complete introduction to Sanskrit that uses Sanskrit texts based in the Buddhist traditions for this particular audience. But my intention also wasn't merely just to create a textbook for people with a specific interest in the Buddhist tradition, but more broadly for people interested in engaging Sanskrit through the medium of religious, spiritual, we might say, or philosophical texts. From what I've seen the traditional kind of approach to maybe Sanskrit instruction has been a bit more focused on narratives, maybe. And so the idea with this textbook was to just put a bit more emphasis on kind of spiritual dimension of this tradition.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
So then tell us a bit about some of the influences, maybe some of the texts that you use in your training. And of course, a question that comes to mind for many colleagues and students of Sanskrit alike is what is different about this text? You mentioned the fact that the excerpts are from the Buddhist tradition. Is there a particular pedagogy or emphasis that you've adopted for learning Sanskrit?
- [06:38]
Luke Gibson
Right. So writing this textbook. So we've kind of touched on one of the interventions that I want to make, which was to kind of foreground Buddhist texts, not only so that students, my students, could have a textbook that kind of more that they resonated more with, but also kind of to also to expose maybe students beyond East Asia to a wider kind of the greater diversity of the Sanskrit literary tradition. I think partly, maybe because of the disappearance of Buddhism, almost the virtual disappearance of Buddhism from Southeast asia around the 12th century, it's had a kind of a distorting effect on basically taking Sanskrit, associating Sanskrit almost exclusively with the Hindu tradition, when we know that actually, historically speaking, Buddhism had a very big impact on the development of Sanskrit literature. So maybe I can go a little bit into, if that's okay with you, a little bit into this history.
- [07:42]
Dr. Raj Balkara
I'm sure our listeners will be interested about this intrigue of Buddhism in India and Sanskrit. There's a lot there.
- [07:51]
Luke Gibson
I'll let you there. There's a lot there. And then I'll try to go back to your question about pedagogy. So basically, so I think what happens is that Buddhism has had an ambivalent attitude towards Sanskrit from the beginning. It is recorded that the Buddha instructed his disciples to use vernacular languages instead of Sanskrit, because at the time, Sanskrit was mainly the preserve of kind of cultured Brahmins. So for the purpose of diffusing his new teachings, that was the decision that was made at the time. But eventually what happens is that what we call Brahmanism, or kind of a main mainstream Hindu religion, undergoes a resurgence between the period of, you know, around the turn of the millennium, basically. And with this resurgence, Sanskrit acquires a new degree of prestige. And so probably there are many possibilities and theories about why Buddhists eventually decide to adopt Sanskrit, but eventually they do. And what's remarkable is that actually, if we consider the history of Sanskrit literature, the very first ext work of Sanskrit belles lettre, like Cavia, like proper court poetry, is written by Ashvaghosha, who is a Buddhist author. And it's a long form, a long story, poetic retelling of the life of the Buddha. And actually this Ashvaghosha is the main predecessor, the only predecessor that we have for Kalidasa, who comes several centuries later. So I think that's an interesting point, that it shows at least kind of the adoption of Sanskrit as a means medium for literary expression and also later on for philosophical discussion by the Buddhist tradition. So originally, Buddhism maintained kind of a distance with Sanskrit, which really kind of was mainly associated with a Brahmanical tradition. But eventually it adopted it, even to the point that in Mahayana Buddhism, which is this kind of more developed form of Buddhism that arises around the 1st and 2nd century, in Mahayana Buddhism, the study of Sanskrit grammar, which is referred in the Buddhist tradition as sabdavidya, the science of language. So the study of Sanskrit grammar is elevated to one of the first sciences that a Bodhisattva is supposed to study. So that really shows kind of the change of heart that happens within the Buddhist tradition. And from that point on, Buddhism plays a big role in kind of contributing to the development of Sanskrit literature. Maybe two examples would be the Amara Kosha, which is this very important foundational text, which kind of gives. It's basically an ancient lexicon of Sanskrit words. So, for example, we will provide for the word sun, what are the different words that can be used in Sanskrit for expressing the idea of the sun, the moon, et cetera? So this is a work that has been used by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, commented upon by people from different traditions. And very probably there's some discussion, but very prob. Its author, Amarasimha, is a Buddhist author from the Gupta dynasty. And I mean, that's one example. There's other examples that we could talk about. So I felt like even for people, yeah, even people in the west might be interested in kind of discovering through this kind of a textbook, kind of a fuller picture of Sanskrit literature, not just limited to Hindu texts. So that was a lot. Sorry.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
That's fine. It's always a scenic route. Always a scenic route. So clearly, I believe in your jacket, there's a very brief patelling comment by the great historian Chalan Pollack, and he says something along the lines of, this is a great valuable contribution to the study of Sanskrit and no less to the study of Buddhism. And so that essentially answers what I was driving at earlier. And there seems to be a dual focus of the book insofar as endeavoring to raise awareness on the extent to which Sanskrit offers access to Buddhism and not just Hinduism.
- [12:10]
Luke Gibson
So if I try and answer maybe your first question, which was about pedagogy, Sanskrit, kind of a Sanskrit pedagogy. And indeed. So my first one of my goals was to kind of foreground Buddhist texts. But also the second intervention that I had in mind when I wrote this book is really that in my experience, using the publications that were available at the time, my experience was after having completed my first year of Sanskrit grammar, feeling very overwhelmed when I got into the reading classes, the second year reading classes, and reading in large quantities of real Sanskrit texts. And eventually I realized that the reason is that most of the textbooks that we have at the moment are mostly focused on what we call morphology, which is the study of how words in some regions like Sanskrit, not just sandhiya, sandhi, of course, is an important component, but morphology in a broader sense of conjugation and declension. So in Sanskrit, for people maybe who are not familiar, is a language like other Indo European languages, where words, the end of words changes to express different meanings. So if a word is, for example, if a noun is the subject of a sentence, it takes a certain form. If it's the direct object of a transitive verb, it takes a different form. And so this takes up quite a bit of time when we study Sanskrit, of learning the different forms of words. And this field is called morphology. But I felt like these textbooks, because it is such an important topic, it takes a lot of time, but it really didn't give enough information about what I call what I refer to as syntax, or more broadly, kind of Sanskrit usage or style, which is how the language is actually used. Once these words have been properly formed, conjugated, and declined, how are they actually used? What are the kinds of maybe idiomatic expressions that exist in Sanskrit, or what is kind of the style of Sanskrit expression? Different languages have different ways of saying things. And I felt like this is something that wasn't sufficiently discussed in other textbooks. So I don't know, maybe I can give some examples of what I mean by this to make it a little bit more concrete.
- [14:26]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Please do.
- [14:27]
Luke Gibson
Yeah. So, I mean, for example, one question. Syntax, in its kind of most narrow definition, is kind of more about sentence structure. So, for example, in Sanskrit, a very common type of sentence in any language is a sentence of the type something is something, X is Y. Well, for example, I don't know, sound is impermanent. So a sentence like that in Sanskrit, we could express it in the same way as in English. But more typically a Sanskrit of this type. For example, first thing is that it won't have a verb. The verb is the verb to be. The copula of the sentence would be mostly elided. So the sentence would be something like sound, impermanent. And then additionally in Sanskrit, in this type of situation, typically the predicate would come before the subject. So the sentence would actually read impermanent sound. So this is some basic kind of facts of life of Sanskrit modes of expression. That are not typically covered in other textbooks. But as soon as you start reading actual Sanskrit texts. You're immediately confronted with these kinds of unfamiliar sentence structures. So that's one example. Other examples would be the use of cases. So in Sanskrit, Sanskrit is a language that has different cases for nouns. And so it uses these cases to express different grammatical functions. So, as I said, if a noun is supposed to be the subject of the sentence. Or if it's the direct object, it uses different cases. So one of the basic things that every textbook does. Is to explain what cases do, what do they do. But what happens is that it typically limits itself. They limit themselves to the basic uses of those cases without going into much depth. And so, for example, an example that I cover in my book is, for example, what we call the locative case. Which is typically used to express the location of an action where an action takes place. For example, if I say, I don't know, Queen Maya sees an elephant in her dream. The word dream would use the locative case. It indicates a location. But that's only one of its uses. Another use, for example, is to express the.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Pertaining to.
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Luke Gibson
Exactly. Pertaining to something. So in Sanskrit, if I want to say a person like ordinary, unenlightened beings. They produce the notion of something being permanent. With reference to something that is impermanent. This idea of with reference to something that is impermanent. In English, we use this with reference to or regarding something. In Sanskrit, we would also use, in this case, the locative. I wanted to use a simpler example. For example, in Sanskrit, verbs expressing emotions typically nouns expressing emotions. Typically also take this locative. So in English, we say, for example, the king. I don't know, the anger towards the ministers. The king had anger towards the ministers. But in Sanskrit, more literally, we say anger in the ministers. Ministers would also use the locative. But if we have, you know, if we have this kind of very basic idea of, oh, I see, a locative. I translate it as in or on to indicate a location, then I won't be able to make sense of these different kinds of uses. So these are just a couple of examples of what I mean by kind of giving more of a focus on syntax. Welcome to Walgreens. Looking for a holiday gift? Sort of.
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Luke Gibson
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- [19:36]
Dr. Raj Balkara
You say there is an emphasis on I want to say spoken Sanskrit? I don't mean spoken instead of written or instead of exegesis. I mean would you say there is a pedagogical emphasis on utterance and actually becoming familiar with syntax the way you would in a living language?
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Luke Gibson
In my textbook, I don't. That is an interesting pedagogical approach of focusing more on the kind of the oral aspect of using kind of like spoken Sanskrit classes as a part of and some teachers do as part of they're teaching Sanskrit grammar, they integrate spoken Sanskrit. I think there's great benefits to that. These teachers might benefit from using the book to kind of supplement their teaching of going into finer points of Sanskrit usage, kind of more idiomatic Sanskrit usage. For example, something that comes to mind is that In Sanskrit, we have this word, this very common verb that means to be. This verb, asti. There is this verb that means to be. You encounter it, especially this present tense third person form almost on every page. But there's something that we realize when reading classical texts is that there's this unformulated rule that these forms, these third person forms of this verb, whether it be okay, this singular, dual or plural, all of these forms are always used in the sense of there is. It expresses the existence of something. It is never used to mean, for example, the king is righteous in a sentence. The king is righteous in a sentence. X is Y. Classical Sanskrit writers would never use the word asti. Asti would always be used to say there is a righteous king, not to express the existence of something. It's used in existential sentences, not in these kind of these equational sentences of descriptive. Right, exactly. But what we encounter in kind of modern spoken Sanskrit is this use of asti in this sense of is like he is a student. I don't know. Saha, shishya, asti. This sentence would be grating, would sound somewhat strange to a classical writer. And this is an example of the kind of stuff that I cover when I talk about Sanskrit usage or style. But to answer your question more directly, the book is not designed directly to kind of to be used in the context of kind of a spoken sensory class, but I think it could still be useful.
- [22:20]
Dr. Raj Balkara
So your emphasis on what you describe as sort of the syntactical dimension of Sanskrit, and on the one hand, with declensions, it has obviously a lot less emphasis of necessity as it does in English. But it's not as if there isn't importance in tactical formulae and sounds great. So this emphasis, is it what you describe as perhaps lacking in other texts that you're foregrounding in yours? This is for the sake of translation. This is what the goal is for.
- [22:53]
Luke Gibson
The sake of reading, reading Sanskrit, of being able to read it fluently. And it's all the information basically, that as a student I had to kind of collect this information about Sanskrit usage and style that I had to collect through years of reading texts. And also a very valuable resource that I want to mention is this book written by a Dutch Sanskritist called Speyer, who wrote a book called Sanskrit Syntax. And a lot of the insights that I've included in my book have been adapted from this book. On this question of syntax, my sense is that the reason why there has been a lack of focus on this, this, I think, very important aspect of the language is that traditionally speaking Sanskrit instruction in the west was geared towards people with a background in Latin or Greek, these other ancient Indo European languages. And so the sense that I get is that teachers would typically just go over the basics of Sanskrit morphology. Okay. This is how verbs are conjugated, nouns declined, and then the syntax that the students had already learned, the kind of common syntax, tactical patterns of ancient Indo European languages that they had already learned, they didn't have to be described again in the case of Sanskrit, So they were able to intuit Sanskrit syntax without having much need for much discussion by the teacher. And so, in a sense, I had the advantage of coming to Sanskrit without that background. So it wasn't second nature to me. And so I had to learn it the hard way way. And I'm still young enough of a teacher to still have a vivid memory of the kinds of questions I was asking myself. I can feel already then I'm starting to become cursed. The curse of knowledge that I'm starting to be afflicted by. The curse of knowledge, of kind of forgetting the kinds of questions that students ask themselves. But I still, at the time of writing this book. Yeah.
- [25:03]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Perhaps the curse of habituation.
- [25:05]
Luke Gibson
Of habituation. Of it becoming second nature. And so that's the information that I try to convey in that book.
- [25:15]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about some of the unique features that. So we have an emphasis on Buddhist text. We have an emphasis in addition to morphology. You're looking at syntax and stylistics from the very outset. Would you tell us a bit about whether the excerpts are original or they're from canon or both?
- [25:44]
Luke Gibson
So that's another aspect of the book. Indeed. And it's already been. It's not something that is completely new of trying as much as possible to include original Sanskrit texts, not just, you know, sentences of the author's own making. And I've tried to push that even further. So the lessons, as soon as the student has acquired enough of the basics of the grammars, they start to be introduced to original, authentic Sanskrit texts. And the way that I've tried to expose the student as much as possible to these texts is to original Sanskrit texts, is to make sure that it's not only. So what happens in these textbooks is typically you'll have kind of longer readings at the end of each lesson. And you'll also have some basic translation exercises which are just one sentence long, which will typically be prose. So the readings can be verses. And we know that Sanskrit literature, a big part of Sanskrit literature, is made of verses. But then you'll also have some basic sentence long translation exercises made of prose. And these exercises, as much as possible, as early as possible in the textbook, I've made sure that they also come from authentic texts. What I find probably what happens is that not probably, it's clear that the writers of past Sanskrit textbooks have had difficulties finding easy kind of beginner friendly prose texts for these kind of simple sentences, translation exercises, and also for the examples that are used in the lessons. Typically you don't want to have verse texts. Having verse texts in the lessons or in kind of the simple translation exercises introduce an additional layer of complexity because in verses the order of words is all jumbled up. But in the case of this textbook, because I'm using these Buddhist sources, Buddhism has access to a vast corpus of very diverse prose writings. So including what are we called the Avadanas, which are these simple prose tales of the Buddha and his disciples, and all kinds of texts, including Jataka stories, which are stories about the Buddha's past lives before he became the Buddha. So this was also a benefit that I had, for example, over another Sanskrit textbook that I actually learned a lot from, which is Michael Colson, Teach Yourself Sanskrit, which was a big influence because this is actually one of the only Sanskrit textbook that does put an emphasis on syntax. It really does discuss quite a bit about Sanskrit syntax. But the issue that I find with this textbook is that all the examples are drawn from Sanskrit dramas, which is a very high form of literature, very difficult form of literature that's not really suitable for beginner students. And so in Sanskrit dramas you do find prose texts, but they tend to be more difficult, difficult. And so the use of kind of simpler Buddhist prose writings was really kind of a real, kind of a pedagogical advantage of using Buddhist sources.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
Wlson was actually my first Sanskrit text.
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Luke Gibson
So what was your experience?
- [29:18]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Well, it was 20 years ago this semester or so. Some time ago. Well, sounds good. Obviously a challenge, I think. Before I comment on that, let me ask you one thing. Is your text meant to be standalone or meant to be engaged with a teacher?
- [29:36]
Luke Gibson
My hope is that it can be used for both. Obviously learning sounds good by yourself requires a great commitment, a great degree of tenacity, I would say. But the book was designed with those students in mind. Maybe in a moment we can talk about what I've done to help those students. But yeah, that was the purpose this. But yes, we understand Coulson's work was partly intended. Yeah. For self learners. Was that your case?
- [30:01]
Dr. Raj Balkara
I Think it was called, if I'm not mistaken, I think it was called Teach Yourself Sanskrit.
- [30:05]
Luke Gibson
Yeah, that's right, yeah.
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Dr. Raj Balkara
But it was used in a class. I was enrolled in a class at the University of Toronto at the time. Lovely, lovely person, Great Sanskrit. Libby Mills, actually, she's still at the University of Toronto, I believe. But yeah, one fateful day, I sauntered into her class about 20 years ago.
- [30:25]
Luke Gibson
And here we are.
- [30:28]
Dr. Raj Balkara
But yeah, I mean, there is. Obviously, the world is full of various types of learners and some of those learners are autodidact Sanskrit. To my mind, I think few and far between would be the person. Typically someone who's gifted at languages and has studied languages in abundance can thrive otherwise, I think it's. It's like you're in a jungle. A guide is indispensable. Right. And so, yeah, there's. Because there's so many questions that arise that a text can't anticipate. All the questions in a way that a teacher can. Teacher can meet you where you're at, depending on the question you're asking. So let's talk a little bit more about some of the. Would you say that. That your textbook includes all of the essentials of censor grammar, like all the basics?
- [31:23]
Luke Gibson
That was my purpose, yeah. To include. So when you talk about grammar, to include both of these important aspects, which are morphology and syntax. So the focus that I give, there's this onus on syntax, but I also try to cover morphology as completely as possible. And yeah, the goal was really to create a book that once you've read through it, either with a teacher or with a bit of perseverance by yourself, that you'd be able to read independently, possibly with the help of a dictionary kind of Sanskrit texts. And I found that this would not have been. This is probably for the average student. It's not typically the case with most other Sanskrit textbooks. And really that's not a fault of the textbooks themselves. It's just a different approach. I think typically the approach with teaching Sanskrit, the idea is that during the first year of study, we cover the basics of morphology because it is a big topic, there's a lot to talk about. There's the question of sandhi, of the changes of sounds, and there's a new script to learn. And so it keeps students busy enough. And then after. In the reading classes, that's when gradually, over the course of time, over years of study, students will become familiar with syntax, with usage and style and all the various. Various kinds of ways that Sanskrit has to say things. And so that's kind of an approach and it has its merits. But my idea with this book was to give a different approach, which was to from the outset, try to cover both. Both morphology and syntax. So that once you've read the book, you're equipped with the basics, or maybe you don't remember everything, but at least you have it in a book. And the book, every paragraph is numbered so you can make quick references or teachers can make referen access to this information fairly easily. And so you have all that information with you. But I mean, spoken like that, it sounds too good to be true. And I think maybe the natural question, I don't know is that, well, can you really be expected to cover that much in one year of study? And that is the real question. And what I'm trying to do is to. To explain these aspects of Sanskrit syntax as plainly as simply as possible, so that it's something that the student can go over themselves. They can go over, I think, the bulk of the most of the book by themselves. And then the teacher is able to answer questions and has more time to go over the student's questions. So the book is 640 pages long, I think thing. So it's pretty massive. And the idea is kind of to offload a lot of the classroom discussion onto the book so that all these aspects of Sanskrit's usage can be kind of at least previewed by the student and then if necessary, discussed by the teacher.
- [34:26]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Why would. Maybe I'm missing something in terms of why would a comprehensive Sanskrit grammar with the bells and whistles you're describing over 26 lessons. Why would that be a year? Why would we limit that to a year? I'm not understanding that.
- [34:45]
Luke Gibson
Well, I mean, at least typically in the context that I've been teaching in. Sanskrit grammar covers a year of study and then in the second year it's usually reading classes.
- [34:58]
Dr. Raj Balkara
So your students would learn all of this in a year?
- [35:01]
Luke Gibson
Yes, yes. In Taiwan it's two semesters, so about four months. Months. And in my experience of teaching with this textbook, it's completely feasible. Probably as I indicate in the book itself, not covering all 26 lessons. What I suggest is that at least the last four lessons are not really necessary to be included in an introductory course. They include kind of more advanced notions that could be used as a reference material. But the core part of the book on, I'm pretty much always able to cover in my classes, even though these are students whose mother tongue is not English. So actually during my classes I have to go over a lot of the material with them in Chinese. And so even in that context, it's usually manageable. So my hope is that other teachers can also use it in that way.
- [35:56]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Great. Let's see, is there anything else that comes to mind about the project or the. The enterprise Sanskrit, the book in particular that you'd like to touch on?
- [36:08]
Luke Gibson
Well, I mean, I think we've said quite a bit. Hopefully this hasn't been too technical of a discussion. But one thing that I've tried to do, in addition to kind of trying to give more of an emphasis on Sanskrit usage, kind of foregrounding Buddhist texts, also I've tried to improve on accessibility ability to make this book as accessible as possible. On one hand, to kind of offload a lot of the study away from the well so that the classroom time can be more focused on student questions and students can preview most of the book by themselves, but also to allow, as we were mentioning, independent students to use it to study Sanskrit. And so one of the things that I've done for this book is created a companion website that provides a number of kind of supplementary material, so including audio recordings of all the exercises and all the readings, also including some flashcards, some worksheets, and other kinds of materials that independent students especially maybe will find useful.
- [37:16]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Without question, that'll be useful. And sort of digital tools are often covered. Digital developments are often covered on the podcast. Just because of the medium itself and because of my own interests and career path, all of my teachings online these days. So those sorts of. That level of accessibility and multimedia engagement is always sort of welcome by learners. So, yeah, so there are a number of things here. So for those listening to sum up, I mean, it's whether you are currently studying with another text or you're looking for text, this text may be of interest, but you're going to be looking to access Sanskrit Buddhism. There is uniqueness in the pedagogical design in that it doesn't emphasize morphology or the ways in which the words change and the elision alone, but it emphasizes syntax and stylistics. There's sort of a progressive immersion throughout the book as a very comprehensive structure over the 26 lessons. And we have accessible multimodal learning, including audio recordings, flashcards, and downloadable Dave Nabri materials. The link for that will be included in the podcast floats. And I'd say that there's a sort of accessible, clear, contemporary, didactic tone throughout the text, which is quite useful for learners. I think that's about it. Is there anything else that you wanted.
- [38:58]
Luke Gibson
To Add, maybe the last thing I'd like to emphasize is that although the book was originally created in the context of this teaching Sanskrit in East Asia for students with an interest in Buddhism, my intent when I designed the book was really not to create a book for just Buddhist students, but really create a book for any student of Sanskrit who's interested in studying Sanskrit. As I was saying, via the medium of kind of texts that really focus on more kind of spiritual or philosophical aspects of the tradition. And also I make sure in my book to not just present Buddhism on its own, but kind of show its connection to its kind of wider South Asian context. So I tried to do that as much as possible in the appendices discussing kind of this broader cultural context and also in the readings, not all the texts are from Buddhist sources. There's quite a bit of non Buddhist writings also that kind of echo the same kinds of themes and to kind of show the bridges some of the common kind of ethical concerns that different South Asian traditions share in common. So this really is not a textbook just for people interested in Buddhism. I think someone interested in Hinduism will gain a lot from understanding, for example, how the Hindu tradition was also shaped by this kind of non Brahmanical Buddhist context. And this is in addition to learning Sanskrit, some of the things, some of the ideas that I've tried to convey through the readings and through the kind of the various appendices and notes. So thank you again for having me on the podcast.
- [40:43]
Dr. Raj Balkara
Well, thank you for appearing. So for those listening, we've been speaking with Luke Gibson on reading Sanskrit, a complete step by step introduction with texts from the Buddhist tradition. Until next time, keep well listening, keep reading and keep contemplating the usages of Sanskrit here.
- [41:09]
Luke Gibson
Sam.