Customer Reviews

Sanskrit Pronunciation: Booklet and Audio

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The objective of this booklet with cassette is to provide the student with an elementary guide for the acceptable pronunciation of Sanskrit terms transliterated in Latin characters. As the author says: "...They should enable speakers of English to pronounce Sanskrit words so that they are recognizable to Indian Scholars..."
Consecuently, the reader will not find any phonetic introduction to the "devanagari" script. The aim looked for is merely that the student can pronounce Sanskrit words with some accuracy.. It is not tried to obtain a perfect intonation by one of the very few 50.000 hindus who still today affirm in official census to have Sanskrit as their first language. In fact, he who reads the selected words as an example is not a native professor, as you can notice when he commits some isolated slip in the emission of the "aspirated" consonants (bh, ph, gh, dh, etc.)
Briefly, this booklet with cassette will allow to pronounce Sanskrit words (if duly transliterated in Latin characters only), without feeling inhibited or ridiculous.

This tape and booklet is a simple guide to achieving acceptable pronunciation of transliterated Sanskrit terms. This is all it claims to be and it achieves this end well with minimal effort on the part of the reader.

The booklet is well-organized and it contains many useful terms that are likely to appear in the study of Indian philosophy and religion. While there are some minor problems with pronunication as pointed out by the other reviewer above, this is a great start for most people.

Also, Bruce Cameron Hall has very good credentials. He studied Sanskrit at the University of Hawaii and also with Pandit Ambika Datta Upadhyaya in Banaras, India. He also did further study with Daniel Ingalls and Masatoshi Nagatomi of Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in Sanskrit and Indian Studies. In other words, while his pronunication might not be perfect, I think it's pretty reliable despite an occasional error.

This is a short but beneficial tape for those who know nothing about Sanskrit, particularly those with interests in theosophical words. The tape is the same on both sides, I think about 45 minutes of teachings. It covers the very basics of pronunciation. Often the proper way in Sanskrit is not what is commonly said in Western cultures. You might be surprised to learn the correct way to pronounce "tathagata" or "Avalokitesvara."