Worldwide, saṃskṛta is used in varying doses for Vedānta teaching. The most traditional schools in India still teach entirely in Sanskrit. Lineages like Arsha Vidya, founded by Svāmī Dayananda, offer Sanskrit in their curriculum, and make reasonable use of Sanskrit in Vedānta lessons. But even within that, it varies. A teacher like Neema uses it functionally. Andre Vas too, but in his lessons quite a few terms are used. James Swartz uses even less, but he does use the terms that are essential for correct understanding.

The point is to teach as effectively as possible in order to reap the benefits of this wonderful knowledge. In principle, you do not need to know Sanskrit to know the nature of reality, with the correct self-knowledge that goes with it. Sanskrit can also be daunting for some aspiring practitioners.

Having said so, Sanskrit remains the language in which the unparalleled means of knowledge to freedom is revealed.

Today, people new to vedānta can choose their own teacher, and thus their style of teaching, with much or little Sanskrit. Some understanding of Sanskrit terminology is recommended.

This is because Sanskrit is designed to unfold the means of knowledge very precisely. There are no equivalents in other languages ​​for terms like karma, dharma, yoga and many, many other concepts. This is mainly because many Sanskrit words are layered. There is a literal meaning and an intended, folded (lakṣyārtha) meaning. The teacher can unfold these in your mind. Knowledge is about the emergence of direct meaning in your mind.

Science indicates that Sanskrit evolved from a language that must have been spoken in Central Asia, Proto-Indo-European. This was brought by nomads into the Indus and Ganges basins in Northern India. Other nomadic movements brought this language influence to Europe. Hence much affinity in vocabulary, hence Indo-European.

Tradition says: Sanskrit is of divine origin, made to bring people out of ignorance. These two visions do not have to bite each other at all. The scientific domain is included as a manifestation of reality. Science is also divine.

Saṃskṛta comes from the seed form kṛ ‘to make’. Kṛta is a kind of past participle and means ‘made’. Sam means ‘full, well, whole’. Saṃskṛta then becomes perfect, made perfect. Sam also means ‘equal, or together’. This is no coincidence. Everything comes together, or is equal in the one reality brahman, consciousness. With all apparent properties brahman is called the one īśvara. Both brahman and īśvara are non-dual, and apparently different from each other but not really.

One truth, one apparent maker of the Sanskrit language, one maker of everything. Everything is made perfectly according to the impeccable laws of dharma. But Kṛ also means ‘doing’. Just as there is only one so-called ‘maker’, there is also only one so-called ‘doer’. That too is called īśvara.

The Sanskrit language is built up from seed forms, dhātus, a kind of seed form of language. These express basic meaning, from which all kinds of derived meanings can be made. I have to think of the basic Ideas of Plato. The word dhātu itself, for example, comes from dhā and means to place. What is apparently placed (superimposed, adhyāropa) in reality, all names and forms (nāma and rupa). By names they mean language, labels, concepts.

Vedānta also consists of concepts, only these are concepts that remove ignorance about the truth of yourself. What happens when ignorance is removed? Then knowledge is revealed in the mind that was previously ignorant. What happens in a mind that is in correct and complete knowledge? In it, consciousness shines in its full glory.

An important figure in the history of Sanskrit was the grammarian Pāṇini. Science states: Pāṇini inventoried what was spoken in Sanskrit at that time and recorded it in his (incredibly systematic) treatise Aṣṭādhyāyī. This is a system of coded mantras that ingeniously refer to each other. It is a linguistic work that still amazes and inspires modern linguists.

The Sanskrit before Pāṇini is now called Vedic Sanskrit. A language that was still developing (the older ṛgveda was composed in a different Sanskrit than the Vedas that came after it). Pāṇini literally recorded the language. This is called Classical Sanskrit, which has not changed since then (a dead language). At most, words are still invented today for modern subjects or objects. There are a few communities in India that regard and cultivate Sanskrit as their first language.

There is also a myth in which Pāṇini receives the basic mantras for his grammar from Śiva: According to the Kathāsaritsāgara legend, Pāṇini studied under his guru Varsha in Pataliputra. Although not the brightest of his students, Pāṇini, on the advice of Varsha’s wife, went to the Himalayas to do penance and seek knowledge from Śiva. Śiva, dancing and playing his ḍamaru (a kind of drum) for Pāṇini, gave him śūtras, and produced the basic sounds of these śūtras. Pāṇini accepted them and they are now known as the Śiva-śūtras, also called māheśvarāṇi sūtrāṇi. Armed with this new grammar, Pāṇini returned from the Himalayas to Pataliputra. But at the same time, Vararuchi, another disciple of Varsha, had learned a grammar from Indra. They engaged in a debate that lasted eight days, and on the last day, when Vararuchi became dominant, Pāṇini defeated him with the help of Śiva, who destroyed Vararuchi’s grammar book. Pāṇini then defeated the rest of Varsha’s disciples and emerged as the greatest grammarian.

Śiva (none other than īśvara, saguṇa-brahma) has made language perfect. In Vedānta we say: Īśvara is the problem and īśvara is the solution. That is the joke of reality. The beauty is that krṛ also means doing. Īśvara is the maker and the doer, and then also sam, full, perfect. The truth is that as consciousness, we do nothing at all. Recognizing this is the blessing (vara) of īśvara. The root of īśvara is īś which means to rule. But not to rule as a ruler or something like that. No, since īś is everything, it automatically controls everything, both our actions and the results. Sole ruler is therefore meant non-dual here. It is consciousness, brahman, with its apparent possibility of properties, qualities, guṇas.

The solution is there in the form of the Vedas. They are apauruṣeya, not (a-) of people puruṣa, resembles person. Īśvara has given us a means of knowledge, a pramāṇam (upasarga pra-), something to contemplate (man). Something to which a person may expose his mind (his manas).