Hare Krishna dear devotees, please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada.
ISKCON has become a huge worldwide movement that consists of people from every
possible country and language background in the world. It is definitely easy to miss or even
not find the correct Sanskrit pronunciation among its members, as every one of us brings
pronunciation traits and accents from our native languages. Let alone this, many devotees
end up creating their own conventions of how words in songs or mantras should sound, and
these "conventions" are accepted as a standard for the next generation of devotees.
To briefly illustrate what I am talking about, we often hear 'nāma om' or 'nāmas te
[narasimhāya]', with the first 'a' in 'nama' and 'namas' unnecessarily stretched. The correct
way of pronouncing both the examples, even in singing, would be 'nama oṁ…' and 'namas
te…' – keeping the initial syllable 'na' short. Also, we've heard things like 'hey radhey vraja-
deyvikey', where the vowel 'e' is wrongly changed to 'ey.'
So, if you were ever curious about whether your pronunciation of the standard ISKCON
Sanskrit prayers and songs is OK or not, there is a good news for you. Nityānanda Dāsa, a
student of H.G.Gopīparaṇadhana Prabhu, who has been working professionally in the field
of Sanskrit for more than 15 years (as a BBT Sanskrit editor & online Sanskrit instructor), has
come up with an online course, which he offers for free to all, and especially the devotees of
ISKCON. The course is entitled "Sanskrit Pronunciation for ISKCON," and it focuses on the
correct way of pronouncing and even singing the standard prayers and verses that comprise
the well-known book "Songs of the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas" by the BBT.
The course has two parts. The first part consists of demo videos, where Nityānanda Dāsa
sings or chants through the prayers with a minimal music accompaniment, so that the
attention of the listener is solely focused on the pronunciation. You will be encouraged to
imbibe the proper Sanskrit sound just by listening to the demos regularly for a certain
period of time. The second part of the course – tutorials – presents to you the detailed
analysis of every verse, line, and even many words of every prayer. You will be introduced
to the foundational principles of Sanskrit chanting and learn how to apply them right away,
in your daily spiritual programs. Moreover, the course offers you a downloadable manual,
with all the course notes and more in a PDF form, along with the mp3 playlist that you can
use offline anywhere you go.
Overall, it is a unique, unprecedented program that fills a very important need of the
ISKCON society, and I sincerely hope that devotees will take advantage of this great
opportunity to learn and improve their Sanskrit pronunciation and chanting skills for their
own, as well as the whole movement's benefit.
Now, someone could come and say, "Come on! This is spiritual singing! Don't burden us
with these rules of Sanskrit. It is bhakti, from the heart, pronunciation is not that
important!"
All right, prabhu, pronunciation is not that important, as you say, but let's assume you're a
native English speaker, and someone who is very close to you sings on your birthday:
"Huppy beerthday tow yow…" How would you feel? Yes, it is cute, especially if the person
sang it with love, but it is also true that if you would point out to your friend that the words
have to be pronounced in a certain way, he or she would surely listen to you and eagerly try
to adopt the proper way of pronouncing the song – to make you even happier! It's the same
love, and it will find its way to express itself in all areas of reciprocation, including singing
and chanting.
So, we love Prabhupāda, previous ācāryas, Krishna and his incarnations, etc, and many
songs written in their praise just happen to be in Sanskrit. Therefore, motivated by that
same love, let's try to make those songs sound in the way they were meant to, for the
pleasure of whom they glorify. This would be the right, devotional mood with which we can
approach this "Sanskrit Pronunciation for ISKCON" course. So, take it as your loving offering
or as an austerity of speech, the results of which you offer to Krishna.
The last point to add is that there is an ancient tradition of spiritual singing in India. For
example, in Śrī Vaiṣṇava sampradāya, Mādhva sampradāya, Vallabha sampradāya, and
many other disciplic successions. The members of those spiritual lineages have many
Sanskrit texts that they regularly chant and sing. Their pronunciation standards are very
good and they maintain the main principles of Sanskrit pronunciation, starting from long
and short vowels, even in singing. So I firmly believe that the existing ISKCON devotees
certainly can and should learn, preserve, and even teach to the newcomers the correct
Sanskrit pronunciation, chanting and singing the basic prayers that all devotees are
supposed to know. And the upcoming course – "Sanskrit pronunciation for ISKCON" very
much seems to be a step in the right direction.
The course will be going live very soon – on October 15 (Vijaya Daśamī). You can already pre-
enrol in and access it here: www.sanskritsense.com
Also, the course will be published on the ISKCON Kirtan Ministry website on the same date:
www.iskconkirtanministry.com
your servant, Shri Krishna Caitanya Swami
Nityānanda Dāsa: A global coronavirus lockdown changes our lives in many ways, and often it results in the amounts of free time you’ve never been able to find in the otherwise busy routine. So, learning Sanskrit could be a meaningful and rewarding time investment, especially if it is done by reading devotional texts such as the Bhāgavatam.
This is exactly what is offered in the Sanskrit Reading Room – a daily online Sanskrit workshop, offered by Nityānanda Dāsa free of cost. He is a former student of H.G.Gopīparāṇadhāna Prabhu from the days of his Śrīmad-Bhāgavata Vidyāpīṭha, which is more famous as the “Govardhana Sanskrit school.” Nityānanda Dāsa has been serving the BBT since 2010, in the capacity of a Sanskrit translator and editor, and has been offering online Sanskrit courses since 2018.
Sanskrit Reading Room is a way to learn reading and understanding devotional Sanskrit texts directly, by analysing the meaning and grammar of every word and verse, with everything displayed visually on the screen. In a sense, these online sessions follow in many ways the structure of Sanskrit classes that were offered in the Govardhan Sanskrit school mentioned above. The daily online meetings (45 min long) are very interactive, as the platform allows the participants to ask any topic-related questions along the way, share the materials, etc.
This workshop is free, from wherever in the world you are. And it is open for both beginner and intermediate Sanskrit learners. With the present setup, the seats for the daily meetings are limited, so you might like to act fast not to be left out:
In order to join you simply need to send your email ID by Facebook Messenger on the “Sanskrit Sense” Facebook Page, so that you could receive the invitation link. You may also request the invitation link by writing to ntd108@gmail.com.