अहम् युष्माकम् अध्यापकः न अस्मि।
युष्माकम् अध्यापिका रोहिणी अस्ति।
Shri Bibek Debroy
I don’t possess the skills to teach you Sanskrit. My learning of Sanskrit is entirely self-taught. There is nothing formal about it. In any formal learning process, there are steps one takes – speaking, reading and then writing. That’s not the way it works in an informal learning process. My reading skills are very good, speaking average and writing isn’t that good. Therefore, I make mistakes in writing and do point them out. There may be some, not just typos. I am also in a process of learning. It is just that I am a bit more advanced than most of you.
However, I do deliver talks on persuading people to learn Sanskrit, popularize the language. Don’t mistake them for lessons on Sanskrit. They are only meant to generate interest and trigger the process of learning. These are typically extempore talks, so there are no hand-outs and written texts. But I use little tidbits to make people interested. In this series, I will share some of those tidbits with you. Hope that helps you and adds in some way to what Rohini is doing. I will try to keep pace with what you are learning, so that I do not get too far ahead of you. But to tease you, I may put in a few concepts that you aren’t familiar with yet. No one reads anything that is too long. None of these will therefore be more than 1000 words, perhaps shorter. I am not sure about frequency. Let’s plan for once a week. And do send me suggestions on what such future tidbits can be on.
Bhaskaracharya was a famous Indian mathematician and astronomer (1114-1185). He is also known as Bhaskara-II. Leelavati is both the name of a text (actually part of a text) that he wrote and Leelavati is also believed to have been the name of his daughter. Many of the problems are addressed to Leelavati and Leelavati also seems to have composed some of them.
इन्द्र: वायुर्यमश्चैव नैरृतो मध्यमस्तथा ।
ईशानश्च कुबेरश्च अग्निर्वरुण एव च ॥
The one given above is one such, composed by Leelavati. When one learns Sanskrit, there is a problem. Words spill over into one another, following the rules of grammar. Because one doesn’t know how to break them up, one can’t understand. Once you learn how to break things up, it becomes simpler. Let me break up the one given above.
इन्द्रो वायु: यम: च एव नैरृतः मध्यम: तथा ।
ईशान: च कुबेर: च अग्नि: वरुण: एव च ॥
So far, so good. But I couldn’t figure this one out. Why was this important enough to be written down in the form of a shloka? It is just the names of various gods. Actually, not just any gods. This gives the names of lokapalas. Lokapalas are protectors or guardians of the world. There are 10 directions. If you leave out above and below, there are 8. These are north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-west, west and north-west. North, south, east and west have specific Sanskrit names as directions. But we will place that on hold. Look at the matrix below. Vayu is the guardian of the north-west, Kubera of the north, Ishana of the north-east, Indra of the east, Agni of the south-east, Yama of the south, Nairrita of the south-west and Varuna of the west. You get the idea. It is because Yama, the lord of the death, is the guardian of the south that there is a belief that you should not sleep with your feet pointing towards the south. You will offend Yama.
| Vayu | Kubera | Ishana |
| Varuna | Indra | |
| Nairrtta | Yama | Agni |
But what’s the point of the shloka? Why write out a shloka that only lists the names of the lokapalas? We know their names. Wait. Now follow the order listed by Leelavati, Indra is the first, Vayu is the second, Yama is the third and so on. Madhyama means middle, there is no guardian there. Fill in the matrix below in the order in which Leelavati has listed the names.
| 2 | 7 | 6 |
| 9 | 5 | 1 |
| 4 | 3 | 8 |
Notice anything about this? It is a 3X3 magic square, with the sums along all rows, all columns and all diagonals adding up to 15. So that’s what she was doing. She wasn’t writing down any odd shloka, she was actually constructing a magic square. Interesting? Sanskrit literature (I am using the word literature in a very broad sense) is littered with such nuggets. If we don’t learn and read Sanskrit, all this will be lost.
