Pronounce!
Ottawa, Ontario
My antsy nature led me to Ottawa, a five hour drive from Toronto. My generous driver was Sahil, a young man from our community. The other passenger was Yajna, a monk soon to get married. Yajna insisted on the scenic route as we had a choice. “I’m with you. Highway 7 it is.”
Before departing for the journey, I made a point of at least planting my feet on the ground through walking a 45 minute stretch to counteract the negative effect of sitting for so long.
Once we had arrived at the Krishna Centre on Somerset St. I was asked to speak from verse 18:64 of the Bhagavad-gita regarding the ultimate meditation. Chanting preceded and followed the talk.
For me personally, a highlight of the day, during the drive over, was a serious reading of a book by Lokanatha Swami entitled “Samskrtoccaronam – A Comprehensive Guide to Sanskrit Pronunciation.” This is a new publication and worth exploring. After all, don’t we all need to improve on pronunciation? It’s a beautiful language, and when heard and chanted, enhances your spiritual life. A short excerpt is as follows:
“Om kara (aum) starts from the kantha (throat), resounds on the murdhanya (palate), and ends with the osthya (lips) closed. Similarly, hare krsna and hare rama both begin with “ha” in the throat, resonate “krs” and “ra” at the palate, and end with “na” at the dantya (teeth) or “ma” with closed lips.
Sanskrit is a precise language, which needs to be very attentively articulated.”
Those of us who use Sanskrit in our day may not end up being super precise in pronunciation, but we can certainly improve ourselves in the usage of this root of many European languages.
3 KM
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