View source for Do you use any grammar, Sanskrit grammar, when you study Sanskrit?... How do they learn when they learn Sanskrit?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1973]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1973_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="6" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1973 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1973 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="RoomConversationwithSanskritProfessorDrSunesonSeptember51973Stockholm_0" class="quote" parent="1973_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="71" link="Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm" link_text="Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm">
<div class="heading">We have given some hints. In the last... You can show him, in the Bhagavad-gītā. Or Īśopaniṣad. The mode, how to read.
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm|Room Conversation with Sanskrit Professor, Dr. Suneson -- September 5, 1973, Stockholm]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Professor: ...Yes. And, I think, he was ill also. He was quite weak.</p>
<p>Paramahaṁsa: When he died, he... Every year he was going to these trips to visit these Buddhist monasteries.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He was a little attached to Buddhism?</p>
<p>Paramahaṁsa: Yes, like Śaṅkarācārya, remember, he was...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Impersonalist.</p>
<p>Paramahaṁsa: Yes. He was mentioning to you that he thought Śaṅkara's teachings were much more simpler, much more understandable, he said. Than, attractive, he said, than Caitanya Mahāprabhu's. This was his...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is your... (break)</p>
<p>Professor: I do not find Śaṅkara... Well, it's too abstract and it's...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, right you are. It is round.</p>
<p>Professor: It's a question of...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: ...about way.</p>
<p>Professor: Yes, of course, it's difficult to practice, of course, for people in general also. But, of course, he has also written hymns.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. About Kṛṣṇa.</p>
<p>Professor: And they are... Yes. And they are, of course, a bit different. So he, Śaṅkara himself, seemed to...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is explained in this Caitanya-caritāmṛta, why Śaṅkara prepared, presented his Māyāvāda philosophy. It is explained there.</p>
<p>Śrutakīrti: I remember where it was.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Eh?</p>
<p>Śrutakīrti: I remember where it was...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, yes, yes. (break)</p>
<p>Professor: Do you have classes on Caitanya-caritāmṛta?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh yes. Read it.</p>
<p>Pradyumna:</p>
:tāṅra doṣa nāhi, teṅho ājñā-kārī dāsa
:āra yei śune tāra haya sarva-nāśa
<p>Prabhupāda: ...haya sarva-nāśa. Read the English translation.</p>
<p>Pradyumna: "Śaṅkarācārya, who is an incarnation of Lord Śiva, is faultless because he is servant carrying out the orders of the Lord, but those who follow his Māyāvādī philosophy are doomed. They will lose all their advancement in spiritual knowledge."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: This is the opinion of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Anyone who hears Śaṅkara's comment on Vedānta philosophy, he is doomed.</p>
<p>Professor: That's about it.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is the purport?</p>
<p>Pradyumna: "Māyāvādī philosophers are very proud of exhibiting their Vedānta knowledge through grammatical jugglery, but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in Bhagavad-gītā certifies that they are māyayāpahṛta-jñānāḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 7.15|BG 7.15]]), bereft of real knowledge due to māyā. Māyā has two potencies with which to execute her two functions: prakṣepātmikā..."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Prakṣepātmikā.</p>
<p>Pradyumna: "...śakti, the power to throw the living entity in the ocean of material existence, and āvaraṇātmikā-śakti, the power to cover the knowledge of the living entity. The function of the āvaraṇātmikā-śakti is explained the Bhagavad-gītā by the word: māyayāpahṛta-jñāna. Why the daivī-māyā, or illusory energy of Kṛṣṇa takes away the knowledge of the Māyāvādī philosophers is also explained in Bhagavad-gītā by the use of the words āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, which refer to a person who does not agree to the existence of the Lord. The Māyāvādīs, who are not in agreement with the existence of the Lord, can be classed in two groups, exemplified by the impersonalists Śaṅkarites of Vārāṇasī and the Buddhists of Saranātha. Both of them are Māyāvādīs, and Kṛṣṇa takes away their knowledge due to their atheistic philosophies. Neither of them agree to accept the existence of a personal God. The Buddhist philosophers clearly deny, clearly deny both the soul and God, and although the Śaṅkarites do not openly deny God, they say that the Absolute is nirākāra, or formless. Thus both of them are aviśuddha-buddhayaḥ ([[Vanisource:SB 10.2.32|SB 10.2.32]]), or imperfect and unclean in their knowledge and intelligence."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What do you think?</p>
<p>Professor: That's... Of course, in the introduction to Śaṅkara's commentary to Bhagavad-gītā, he does, it seems, if it is for him, which is that...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He accepts Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.</p>
<p>Professor: Yes, Kṛṣṇa, yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Professor: So Śaṅkara is a bit difficult because his followers, even he's Māyāvādī, the followers, even the followers, they clearly believe in it. But whether, what Śaṅkara himself meant by it...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, that is explained. Śaṅkara is the incarnation of Lord Śiva. He has no fault. He has simply executed the order of the Supreme Lord. But the way in which he has presented the commentary, one should not hear it. That is his warning. Here is the Tenth Canto of Bhāgavatam, two volumes.</p>
<p>Professor: That's also "Not for sale in India". Why?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Because...</p>
<p>Professor: Well, I'm not in India.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: India, we make members. We get more price. Because we are, our scheme, life member, they pay eleven hundred rupees, and whatever books we can supply, we supply. That's all. That is not even to the amount they pay. So we give our presentation and they contribute. This is the program.</p>
<p>Professor: Do you use any grammar, Sanskrit grammar, when you study Sanskrit?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sanskrit grammar?</p>
<p>Professor: Yes, how do they learn when they learn Sanskrit?</p>
<p>Paramahaṁsa: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: We have given some hints.</p>
<p>Professor: Or do they learn from a text or...?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: We have given some hints. In the last... You can show him, in the Bhagavad-gītā. Or Īśopaniṣad. The mode, how to read.</p>
<p>Professor: No, Sanskrit is quite difficult...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, there...</p>
<p>Professor: Many forms and so forth.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Now, these boys, they did not know Sanskrit. By, by following the direction, they read very nicely these diacritic marks.</p>
<p>Professor: Yes. Oh, this is good.</p>
<p>Pradyumna: (indistinct)</p>
<p>Professor: But they don't learn how to inflect forms and so on...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Simply they have to learn the alphabet.</p>
<p>Professor: Alphabet, but not, I mean...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They they write the mark...</p>
<p>Professor: Devaḥ, devam, devena, devāya, and so on.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: He has given the direction. This is made by him, how to pronounce. And then, by practice, it comes.</p>
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