Yamunotrii 2012

One of the fascinating systems of Indian philosophy, too literally, is the cArvAka nyayya (cAru -> beautiful, fascinating). The followers of the system do not believe in no God, no rituals, no temples, but have a simple subhAShitam as their beacon of light: ऋणम् कृत्वा घृतम् पिबेत् यावत् जीवेत् सुखम् जीवेत् । भस्मी भूतस्य देहस्य पुनरागमनम् कुतः ॥ RuNam kRutvA ghRutam pibet yaavat jeevet sukham jeevet | bhasmI bhUtasya dehasya punaraagamanam kutaH || "Borrow money, drink ghee. Live happily as long as you live. The body once gone does not return back."

Despite strong vaidika and reincarnation foundations, the system thrived in India. For now lets forget about drinking ghee (or perhaps alcohol, in modern context) or rebirth. There is still this question of RuNam. RuNam is debt, "the payback that has to be made, no matter what".

Sri vishvarUpa-varya, in his concluding speech in Samskrita Bharati Yamunotrii 2012 residential family camp talked about the three RuNam-s we are all born with - pitRu RuNam, guru-RuNam and deva-RuNam. pitRu-RuNam is one's debt to his/her ancestors paid back via progeny. Guru-RuNam is the payback to teacher. This is not in form of money or Valentine day gifts but is made by teaching others what is learnt from one's guru. We somehow escape from these two debts citing various reasons. But you know, this deva RuNam - that is something that will come and haunt till "mokSha". pitru and guru are guides in aatman-s journey, but deva is a dependence.

The Yamunotrii 2012 camp preparations started early January. For the first time an half-a-page ad was published in the Austin South Asian monthly, Sulekha and Eknazar, but it didn't get the expected impact. The registration graph was pretty simple - there was a spate of registrations on the day when early-bird discount ends. And a spike of calls to cancel on the last day of penalty-free-cancellation. In other words, most people only respond to deadlines.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous over the weekend, with the highs around 80s and the lows around 67. The bluebonnets and Indian paint-brushes thickly annotated the landscape leading up to the stream, giving a glimpse of the serene and wild hill-country. Students started tricking in and quickly settled down to their rooms and gathered around the halls later, mostly talking in English. Little did they know, they will be mostly talking in Samskritam the next day! The bookstore was setup, there were a lot more books this time. The dinner was done, followed by a short orientation about the event.

As expected, the first day was crazy, students running from one corner to another in search of their rooms. "Aryabhatta kutra asti?" asked one. It was funny, because I wanted to say Aryabhatta lived 1500 years ago. The class names were chosen in the chronological order of Indian mathematicians: Aryabhatta for the beginner levels, Bhaskara for the Intermediate Level 1 (those who are already attending regular classes or those who attended last year), Madhava for Intermediate Level 2 and Nilakantha for the Advanced class. Madhava was a Kerala-born philosopher who had conceived what's known as Taylor-series now. Nilakantha has described foundations of Calculus, much of which were later known to the world via Newton and Leibnitz. In the Nilakantha class, students studied parts of bhoja-rAjA's campu-rAmayaNa and nAgAnanda by harShavardhana.

One of the things I realized in my college days is that the knowledge gained from lecture halls is little compared to the knowledge that is gained by hanging around with the professors after-the-classes, or with smart students in the streets, or studying non-class materials in the library that gives an immense edge later on. I sneaked out around 1 am in the morning and heard Govinda and Avinash-varyau sitting on a bench and discussing Samskrita-kAvya. I joined them and Avinash was talking something about "Kalidasa-overload". It looks that the emphasis on Kalidasa has been a lot while there have been equally great poets in Samskrita kAvya-vaangmaya. Funny enough, I had similar opinions too, the only difference is while Avinash has read all of Kalidasa, I haven't read any. I learnt an important thing that time - two people can have exactly same opinions and one of them could base it without having a clue.

This is what happened: In the early 1700's, some Britishers and learned Sanskrit pundits were sitting in a udupi-style hotel. One English gentleman asked with puff and pomp "Do you have anyone like William Shakespeare in India?". The pundits looked at each other, one said maagha, another said bhaaravi, some said daNDin, some other said varakavi. A mini-quarrel broke out between the pundits. But one Bengali paNdita was busy ordering food and due to the simmering quarrel, the waiter was hard of hearing. So the paNdita shouted "I want kAli-dosa". All the pundits gasped, stopped for a moment and murmured "Yeah, yeah, kAlidasa" and the matter was settled. Kalidasa become Shakespeare of India. (For those who didnt get it, kAli-dosa is also called set-dosa with a bit of butter on top of it, that is served in Darshani-styled restaurants).

Again, Avinash-varya's point was not to take away anything from the wonder that is kAlidAsa. Its just that there are other equally great poets too and we are just wasting our time over superlatives, instead of actually reading them.

The highlight of the camp was Sri Padmakumar's speech of which I wont write about much. Feel free to watch it here and I challenge you to tell me if you did not understand what he said.

Another highlight of the camp, was something a little beyond Samskritam, for everyone to remember about. Given the dark skies it was inevitable we wanted to do something about it. We brought out our 8-inch Orion telescope and set it up though the skies were not very forgiving. Still we caught a glimpse of crescent Venus (Yes! Crescent Venus!), the rising moon and Mars. A faint realization of how vast and deep are both Sky and Samskritam.

Yet another highlight was how quickly we adapted to the needs of the students. It was observed that the teen age kids are not having much of a great time - as they were in either adults or younger kids classes. We quickly arranged for a special youth class and that was a runaway hit.

A final rush for group photo and sponsored lunch ended the camp. Almost. But back to the RuNam, what Sri vishvarUpa talked about. I could not attend any of the classes as I was taking care of an younger one. I tell "nAsikA..." and she touches her nose; "shiras" - she touches her head; "lalATam - she touches her forehead"; "jihvA" - she puts her tongue out and touches it; "dantAH" - she opens her mouth with a broad smile and touches her teeth. As I was watching her, I was also paying back my guru-RuNam.

Yamunotrii 2012 comes to town

I almost feel like a circus manager when I say something comes to town. Surely you all must have been excited when you were kids and heard 'Barney Circus' or 'Russian Circus' comes to town. The very thought of clowns would derive a big laugh and joy. Well, this time, its not a funny clown who will be in town, but atleast the fun part will be there.

Here is a very succinct write-up of my friend Sudhee Subrahmanya about learning Samskritam.

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Have you ever wondered what makes an individual special? It is generally the person's character, wealth or it could be the person's unique contributions to the world.  But, what makes a culture special? Or what about a civilization ? – The answer then, is much more complex.  While everyone works towards for the betterment of one's own self-interest and family, there is also the issue of cultural capital that gets associated with a person based on the person's background and tradition.  This is where Indians have a unique civilizational capital – Samskritam (Sanskrit is the anglicized term). 

Samskritam is the ingredient that changes India from being yet another country on the globe to a Civilization and forms the ‘cultural capital' that Indians can be proud of.
Samskritam is unique in that it is the language in which much of the ancient intellectual tradition of Hindus, Buddhists & Jains are preserved. According to the mathematician Seidenberg, India's samskritam tradition has the origins of geometry in a text called Baudhyana Srauta-Sutra, (which contains what is now wrongly named as Pythagoras theorem) for the design of vedic-yajna altars. The great  mathematician from Kerala,  Nilakantha was the author of a mathematical work called Tantrasangraha  in the year 1501 CE. Prof George Gheverghese in his book “Crest of the Peacock” states that the work of Kerala mathematicians like Madhava and Nilakantha was the foundational source which influenced Newton & Leibniz in their development of calculus. 

There are also linguistic works in Samskritam, such as Panini's Ashtadhyayi, a compact text of four thousand rules that defines all of Samskritam.  The technique used in these rules is very similar to what is used in compilers for modern day computer languages. The great epics Mahabharata and Ramayana are in Samskritam. There are also the wonderful poetry and dramas of Kalidasa, Bharavi, Magha, Banabhatta and many others.   The various classical dance traditions of India like Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Kathak etc all are based on the Samskritam work by Sage Bharata called Naatyashaastra. 

Samskritam has a unique technique of using verb-roots for various actions, noun forms, along with additional sounds called pratyaya. This standardized technique makes it very easy to create new contemporary words.  This has proven very valuable for all Indian languages to leverage and almost all Indian languages now adopt this technique for preserving and enriching India's own languages and also creating a unifying factor among various Indic languages and culture.

Is Samskritam hard to learn?

There is a great misconception that Samskritam is a tough language to learn. This misconception is because in the 19th century under British rule, the method of teaching Samskritam was changed and it was directed mostly towards translation of existing works.  So the focus was shifted to teaching mainly grammar.  If one were to start teaching English, starting with grammar and Shakespearean texts then no one would learn English.  There may be more exceptions in words usage in English than other languages, making it more difficult to learn.  

Fortunately, due to extensive work over the past 30 years by a non-profit organization called Samskrita Bharati, the technique of teaching Samskritam has changed in many places.  Samskritam is now taught in ‘conversational manner', adding a ‘fun' aspect and making it very accessible to people of all backgrounds.

Any speaker of an Indian language, ranging from Tamil to Kashmiri or Gujarati to Assamese, probably knows about 70% of the basic vocabulary and basic sentence formation.  The teaching method of Samskrita Bharati, allows a person to leverage this latent knowledge of vocabulary and sentence structure to learn Samskritam.
Many people who know some basic shlokas already know many terms making it easier to learn. 

Opportunity to learn Samskritam in Austin

Texans have a unique opportunity to learn Samskritam this April.  Samskrita Bharati is conducting a weekend Samskritam camp at Radha Madhav Dham from April 6th-8th. 2012. More than 110 participants attended last year's camp and this year about 130 participants are expected. The classes are conducted using games and conversational techniques that are fun.  The beautiful hill country of Central Texas and comfortable accommodation makes the location a perfect place to immerse oneself in Samskritam.
There are multiple levels ranging from beginner to advanced. At the end of the camp, even a raw beginner will be able to understand speak simple conversational sentences in Samskritam.  There are special classes for kids as well.  This camp will be a great, family oriented fun filled opportunity for families in Texas.

For more information visit Samskrita Bharati USA.

Yamunotrii 2011, Austin, Samskrita Bharati Residential Camp

One seed is all that is required for a tree. One spark is all that is required for a raging wild fire. One thought is all that is required for success. Yeah, plus ofcourse that thing called passion.

Almost an year ago, Apr 2010, when Vasuvaj-ji mentioned about holding a Samskrita residential camp at Austin during summer that year, I was very skeptical. We do not have a big group here, we have so far been conducting only beginners classes and we do not have a solid presence compared to other Samskrita Bharati centers like Dallas, Houston, East coast or West coast. Personal life improvements and other commitments took over and the July camp did not happen. The yet-to-be-fire remained a pilot.

Around January 2011, the spark came again and this time, time was ready. The Yamunotrii team was formed with the kartyakarta-s of Austin, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and College Station. The place was decided to be Austin. There wasn't much choice except Barsana Dham, a picturesque setting in the Hill Country of Central Texas. We decided to check that place out. One unknown question among the Austinites was what to expect in a camp? Despite his extremely busy schedule, Dr. Venkat Raju from College Station came over and helped us set the expectations of rooms, classes, food etc. We were able to now somewhat visualize how the camp could be conducted there.

I had not been to any camps before and I just did not know what to expect. The Yamunotrii registration page was setup soon with several hours of work from Sri Madhu Pillai and his team of Sreyo. Yamunotrii was the first camp on the new version of Jhoomla. After several rounds of testing, the page went live on March 8th. I wasn't even the first to register, but it was Ajay from Raleigh. The registration started ticking on with a very slow progress.

Sleepless nights started with that. What if there are less than 50 people? What if there are 150+ people and there is no place for some to stay? What if we could not get enough teacher-to-student ratio? What if not many people from Austin itself come to the camp? What if it rains on that weekend? What if it is too hot? What if food is not enough? I had only questions and no answers.

One of the practical points that Hariharan brought up was even if people don't come to "learn" Sanskrita, they should atleast go back home saying that the food was good. Reminds me of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's saying - education is not for empty stomach. There were several rules: Food should be from a vegetarian-only restaurant, no onion, no garlic (mainly sattvic), tasty, a lot of variety and most important of all - not expensive. Curry n Hurry was the only restaurant that met all the requirements and its owner Jinesh Gandhi did everything what we wanted. Though we could not get a sumptuous South Indian food -- I would have wished for a finger-licking rasam -- but we compensated with Uppma for Sunday morning breakfast. We set a few rules ourselves - alternate with appetizers and sweets, ensure coffee was available always, juice, cookies and ice-cream for kids. Thus came dhokla, spring rolls, gulab jamoons, mixtures and jahangirs. Vasudha bhaginI helped with Sanskrit-izing some of the food names to be displayed next to each food item.

We were lucky to have the best teachers visit the camp even though it was for only two days. Starting with Smt Shaaradaa Varadaraajan, Sowmya bhaginI, Vidya bhagini and then Govinda, Avinash and Murali mahodayaa: - we had an impressive list of teachers. And finally we roped in Naresh too (vaak.wordpress.com). When I mentioned this to Srikanth, he was like "Get outta here! I don't believe we are getting all those for the camp..."

The checkins went fine, most people arrived on time with Sudhee guiding them to rooms. After the dinner (everything starts after some food in the camp), the camp commenced with a prayer by Sowmya bhaginI. Govinda mahodaya gave the initial speech and later I welcomed everyone to Austin on behalf of Samskrita Bharati.

And then the first trouble started. Someone spotted a snake near the rooms. It was a bit of a flutter, but later it turned out to be a non-poisonous rat snake, but a snake is still a snake, whether you are going to call it sarpaH, nAgaH or even snake-mahodaya, it still scares you. But where there are peacocks, there are snakes. Such is life. And then we saw a huge lizard in the dining room. Later Srikanth killed 3 scorpions near the rooms. I did spot a few colorful lizards and birds. This place is wild!

On Saturday morning, students were up at 5:45 am, greeted by a very pleasant weather and a cool breeze. Morning Yoga with some recitation of Yoga sutras of Patanjali followed. After the bath, the smell of fresh coffee and a continental breakfast was awaiting in the dining room. And then it was just frenzy. Classes, breaks, vargaaH, katham asti bhavaan, bhojanam, classes, viraamaH, bhavaan kutra vasati, mixture, kakshyaa, jaangiri, aham kushalinI asmi, tea, more classes and finally at the end of the evening I could hear someone ask - "mama naama kim?". Whew.. what a crazy day it was!

The MVP (most-valued-person) of the camp, Anmol brought both the lunch and dinner for Saturday and Narendra helped with the arrangements. Meanwhile the bookstall was setup. Sarma became the official bookstore owner and with Sruti taking care of toddlers, I was finally able to sneak into one of the classes. Avinash mahodaya was teaching about chandas and gaNa. Binominal stuff, I mean, phenomenal stuff.

The evening manoranjana kaaryakramaM was presented by both kids and adults with several creative skits. Kids mimicking animals, a skit about which finger is the best finger, another called Dosa Dham, a dumb-charade in Sanskritam and finally an almost extempore skit adapting the Brahmin and The Tiger hitopadesha story to modern setting of Austin to Dallas, Rest Area, Google stocks, Chronicles of Narnia and Nigerian scam. That was total fun.

The next day began with a similar note, morning yoga followed by Uppma with chutney and sambar. The Barsana Dham lunch was sponsored by Samskrita Bharati for Sunday and quite a few volunteers came out and helped prepare the food. A couple of more classes and finally the closing ceremony honoring Smt Shaaradaa Varadaraajan for her years of service. She gave a wonderful speech ending with Samskritam rakShitam rakshati. It was already 12:45 and I could see the long queue for the lunch and I hurried a bit thanking every one. One final group photo, lunch and the camp was already over.

Just a few minutes before everyone were leaving, 8 year old Manisha came and asked me "When is the next camp? I would love to come again". And that I define as the success of the camp. Everything had went fine, well, except one thing. I spent yet another sleepless night after the camp, but this time it was due to a tune that was ringing in the background of my mind all night long --

avanitalam punaravatIrNa syaat samskrita gangaa-dhaaraa | dheera bhagIratha vamshosmaakam vayam tu kRuta nirdhaaraaH | vayam tu kRuta nirdhaaraaH |

Samskritam needs us, as much as we need her to know ourselves.