Learning Sanskrit to read scriptures is a noble thought, and any start towards this objective is a welcome effort.
It may take some time, but the following words may keep us moving..
Everyone has to cover the path, or climb the mountain by oneself with perhaps some help from others. The start is important! As it is often said, the first step is the most difficult part of the journey.
We would like to `keep our enthusiasm in reasonable manner' while dealing with other subjects and people. Perhaps most of us are amateurs trying to do something with our limited abilities to learn and advance Sanskrit. So far as we maintain the `objective' approach, we can include others in our journey, irrespective of national origin or other considerations.
`Sanskrit' may not be the world's greatest commodity, although it may sound like it by reading this compilation. It is dear to us and we would like to do whatever is within our capacity. The phrase `more you give more you get' - used for many worthy undertakings, applies to this subject also.
Sanskrit can be called as a "language of consciousness", may be because it
opens the door to India's rich spiritual literature. Sanskrit is not
restricted to spirituality & religion, however, but also encompasses a vast
literature of many genres; and for us to understand the beauty behind those
copious beautiful texts, learning the Sanskrit language is a must.
Sanskrit, which was a primary language of communication in ancient India, lives on in modern India, though not in its full form: it survives in bits and pieces, in one way or another, in the various Indian languages that have descended from it. For natives of India, therefore, it is a matter of recapitulation of a language, which is present in them and merely seeking a proper channel.
Unlike English and other modern European languages, Sanskrit seems somewhat difficult to understand for most Westerners. This is true not only because of its script (devanagari), which is quite foreign to Western & European countries, but also because of its grammatically complex structure and highly inflected forms, which can be more richly inflected even than Greek or Latin, particularly the verbal conjugations.
The links in thsi section present an introduction to the Sanskrit language and a little motivation to joyously pursue it to one's own capacity.