Simple Sandhiḥ Book: Learn Sandhiḥ by Practice
Become friends with Sandhiḥ!
I’m excited to share a Sanskrit Grammar book I’ve been working on for some time Simple Sandhiḥ, an English translation (with extra explanations and charts added) of Sri G Mahābaleśvara Bhaṭṭaḥ’s Sandhiḥ book, which focuses more on hands-on practice vs technical explanations.
Sandhiḥ might be one of the most confusing and intimidating concepts for a beginner who is trying to read a Sanskrit text. Take, for example, this shloka from the Bhagavad Gita:
तद्बुद्धयस्तदात्मानस्तन्निष्ठास्तत्परायणा: |
गच्छन्त्यपुनरावृत्तिं ज्ञाननिर्धूतकल्मषा: ||5.17||
tadbuddhayastadātmānastanniṣṭhāstatparāyaṇā: |
gacchantyapunarāvṛttiṃ jñānanirdhūtakalmaṣā: ||5.17||
To even approach this shloka, the knowledge of how to split the letters into the following individual words is needed:
तद्-बुद्धयः तद्-आत्मानः तद्-निष्ठाः तद्-परायणाः।
गच्छन्ति अ-पुनः-आ-वृत्तिम् ज्ञान-निर्-धूत-कल्मषाः ||5.17||
tad-buddhayaḥ tad-ātmānaḥ tad-niṣṭhāḥ tad-parāyaṇāḥ।
gacchanti a-punaḥ-ā-vṛttim jñāna-nir-dhūta-kalmaṣāḥ ||5.17||
But, in reality, Sandhiḥ is a scientific way of expressing a very natural phenomenon that occurs in every language, including English.
The word सन्धिः (Sandhiḥ) means “union, junction, connection, combination”. In the context of Sanskrit grammar, Sandhiḥ is the science of how sounds are joined together in the vocal tract. After all, although there is an alphabet which presents each letter as an individual standalone sound, in practice, on a daily conversational speech level, we humans do not ever communicate in individual sounds, but with a group of sounds joined together.
The goal of this book is to explain the Sandhiḥ rules in a simple way, yet staying true to the original Sanskrit grammar of Pāṇini. So once you know some of the basic rules and practice speaking these combinations of sounds out loud, you will see how natural Sandhiḥ really is.