SADĀSVĀDA

BY

Mohan K. V. and Shreevatsa R.

Welcome to Sadāsvāda, a collection of essays in appreciation of Sanskrit literature. Each essay begins with a beautiful Sanskrit phrase, and goes on to explore its literary features, the work it was picked from, and some philosophical musings it inspires. Sadāsvāda's key hope is to demonstrate the universality and 'evergreen-ness' of Sanskrit: to show, for example, how a 3000+ year old hymn from the Atharva-veda sounds so very much like what we'd say to comfort a loved one today; how a verse by the 9th-century poet Bhallaṭa seems to resonate with an incisive observation by Bernard Shaw, both of which we feel like learning by heart; to laugh out loud at a 17th-century satire by Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, which advises astrologers to always predict long life because dead men don't ask for refunds, and so on. 
 

You can check out the Google Group where we'll continue with our posts at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sadaswada

You can download a PDF copy of the first (draft) volume of the Sadāsvāda book here: http://goo.gl/H76me7 

In making this text, we corrected as many errors as we could find, and integrated the comments we received from our readers as best as we could; we’re sure that there still exist several errors -- typographical, factual and conceptual -- and we would very much appreciate your kindness in pointing them out to us.

As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestions from you all. Please email us at kvm.1986 [at] gmail and shreevatsa [at] gmail 

Last updated: Jan 11, 2014