SKT 203 | Intermediate Sanskrit III:
Sanskrit Narratives: Echoes of the Bṛhatkathā
9-Week Online Course
(Jan 10 - Mar 11, 2022)
with Dr. Antonia Ruppel
Cutting-edge online Sanskrit curriculum
Join renowned teacher Dr. Antonia M. Ruppel, and a global cohort of students, for this unique opportunity to study and receive world-class training in Classical Sanskrit—from the comfort of your own home.
"Dr. Ruppel is without a doubt one of the finest teachers I've ever encountered, in any subject. SKT 101 was superbly organized and I'm immensely grateful for the ease of use and especially the recordings which allowed me to attend classes I otherwise could not have done."
– Jeffrey Kahane
Professor of Keyboard Studies, USC; PhD Student in Classics, USC
Sanskrit Narrative
This course builds on our foundational Elementary Sanskrit program and provides students the opportunity to reinforce the principles of Sanskrit grammar, build vocabulary, and gain more confidence through reading original Sanskrit texts. Each term of Intermediate Sanskrit will focus on a different text or genre to expose students to a wide variety of classical Sanskrit. This term our subject is Sanskrit narrative.
Bṛhatkathā, The Long Story
Once upon a time, the story goes, the god Śiva was asked by his wife to tell her a story no one had ever heard before. He happily obliged his beloved, and the result was the Bṛhatkathā, or ‘Long Story.' This mythical, divine tale does not survive: yet what we do have are various retellings of it, and in SKT 203, we are going read excerpts from two of these.
Both the Kathāsaritsagara, ‘The Ocean of Streams of Stories’ and the Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha, the much more prosaically named ‘Verse Summary of the Bṛhatkathā', originating in 11th-century Kashmir — an exciting, vital, multicultural, multi-faith time and place. This vitality is reflected in the stories we will read. Some of them are simply there to entertain, some to make you think, some to inspire awe and wonder: all of them are beautiful, both in their contents and their elegant language.
Note: Students who have not taken our SKT 100-level courses are welcome to join, so long as you have sufficient background in the language.
Course Structure
Live Zoom Class Sessions (90 min)
Jan 10 - Mar 11, 2022
Mondays @ 12-1:30pm Pacific (California)
Wednesdays @ 10-11:30am Pacific (California)
*ALL LIVE SESSIONS WILL TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM, AND WILL BE RECORDED FOR LATER VIEWING.
Each SKT 200-level course offers students:
- 18 Zoom live class sessions + recordings (90 min each)
- 5 YSACP Credits
- Up to 27 Hours of CE credit with YA
- Yogic Studies Certificate upon completion (PDF)
- Access to the private Yogic Studies Online Community Forum
Your Instructor
Dr. Antonia M. Ruppel is a Classicist by training who came to Sanskrit through a series of fortunate accidents. She learnt the language as an autodidact, and one of her reasons for writing her textbook, The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit (2017), was to make the experience of studying Sanskrit easier and more pleasant for others. She has been teaching Sanskrit for 15 years at universities such as Cornell, Oxford and now the LMU in Munich, Germany, as well as offering courses in variety of formats online.
Language pedagogy is at the heart of her life, and she is currently working on an Intermediate Sanskrit Reader. It is designed to help students gain reading fluency in an enjoyable and straightforward way, and will come out in late 2021.
Listen to our interview with Dr. Ruppel on the Yogic Studies Podcast.
Three 9-week terms
-
SKT 201 | Intermediate Sanskrit I:
The Bhagavadgītā (May 3 - July 2, 2021) -
SKT 202 | Intermediate Sanskrit II:
The Rāmāyaṇa (Aug 23 - Oct 29, 2021) -
SKT 203 | Intermediate Sanskrit III: Sanskrit Narratives:
Echoes of the Bṛhatkaṭhā (Jan 10 - Mar 11, 2022)
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Students should have the equivalent of 1-year of academic Sanskrit or close-to.
If you'd like to begin learning Sanskrit, please see our Elementary Sanskrit I course.
Not to worry! All live sessions with Dr. Ruppel will be recorded and posted to the course website within 24 hours. Students will have lifetime access to them.
So while live attendance is strongly encouraged to get the most out of the course, you can still participate by watching the recordings.
You are also encouraged to participate in the online Community forum, and have the opportunity to send questions in ahead of time, especially if you cannot attend live.
No, not at all. You are welcome to only register for a single course/term, as it suits your interests and level of study.
For the Intermediate level courses, students will be provided with PDF copies of the text selections we will be reading.
However, students will also be reviewing grammar and other topics using The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit (Cambridge University Press, 2017), written by our instructor, Dr. Antonia M. Ruppel herself!
If you don't own this already, we strongly encourage you to pick up a copy prior to the start of the course.
Unfortunately, SKT 100-level and 200-level courses are the only courses that are NOT included in the YS Membership Program. The reason behind this is we need to open/close enrollment at set dates and create unique Sanskrit cohorts to better serve the learning environment for both instructor and students.
However, both SKT 100a | The Devanāgarī Seminar and SKT 100b | Sanskrit for Yogis are available to students in the YS Membership Program.
Yes! Upon completion of each SKT course in the series, you will be eligible for an official Yogic Studies certificate of completion.
Each course also earns you 5 credits towards the Yogic Studies Advanced Certificate Program (YSACP).
If you have any further questions about this course or our Sanskrit curriculum, please email us at [email protected]
