Sanskrit is a language that has a long and rich history spanning more than three millennia of oral and written traditions across South Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia and Inner Asia.  

Over the centuries, Sanskrit was used to communicate ideas about religion, literature, history, politics, and social life. Composing in an older form of the language, Vedic seers compiled hymns to deities and recorded ideas about religious life. Later, epic bards spun lengthy poems about long-lost pasts. Kings and queens inscribed political statements on monuments and pillars in Classical Sanskrit. Scholars wrote manuals on everything from the ethics of kingship to theories of literature and aesthetics, as well as guides on architecture, elephant training, astronomy, yoga and Ayurvedic medicine. Jurists drafted legal treatises about social and ritual life. Poets penned stories of love, works for the stage, political thrillers, historical chronicles, and vulgar satires. And Hindu philosophers, Buddhist monks, and Jain ascetics debated philosophy and theology in Sanskrit. Sanskrit’s history is not singular; it reflects a wide range social and historical changes. 

Linguistically, Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The earliest Sanskrit texts were composed in Vedic Sanskrit, which has a grammar distinct from that of Classical Sanskrit. Up until the first millennium CE, Sanskrit was predominantly used for ritual and religious texts, while political rulers used other languages such as the middle Indic Prakrit languages. After the first millennium CE, classical Sanskrit became the preferred language of politics, literature, and knowledge production. Classical Sanskrit is marked by the adoption of the grammatical standards formalized by the grammarian Pāṇini sometime in the mid first-millennium BCE. Around the twelfth century, language preferences shifted again. As regional languages grew in popularity and patronage practices changed, Sanskrit came to be used for more specialized purposes, and the production of Sanskrit texts became more limited. Today, Sanskrit continues to animate many debates and is one of the twenty-two official languages of India. 

Sanskrit has been written in many different scripts over time. Early on, Sanskrit inscriptions used scripts such as Brahmi, Karoshti, and Siddham. Later, handwritten manuscripts used regional scripts including Bengali, Devanagari, Grantha, Kannada, Kawi, Malayalam, Sharada, Telugu and others. From the nineteenth century onwards, after the introduction of the printing press, Devanagari became the most widely used script for printed Sanskrit texts. 

Sanskrit at Penn

Penn offers a full sequence of Sanskrit courses, from beginning through advanced levels with an emphasis on grammatical proficiency and developing the skills needed to do independent reading and research in Sanskrit. Sanskrit courses are open to undergraduate and graduate students at the beginning through advanced levels. 

Beginning Sanskrit introduces students to the fundamentals of Sanskrit grammar through a two-semester sequence. In this comprehensive course, students acquire a working knowledge of Sanskrit grammar, syntax, and essential vocabulary. Students then continue through to a two-semester Intermediate Sanskrit sequence. At the intermediate level, students are introduced to different genres of Sanskrit literature. Intermediate Sanskrit students focus on learning genre conventions and deepening their knowledge of Sanskrit grammar. After the Intermediate Sanskrit sequence students are eligible to take the Advanced Sanskrit course. Students in advanced Sanskrit read and discuss original Sanskrit texts while learning about the social history of Sanskrit through engagement with literary theory, South Asian history, epigraphy and manuscripts studies, gender studies, and religious studies.Advanced Sanskrit can be taken multiple times for credit as the content varies each semester.

Completing two semesters of Advanced Sanskrit qualifies students for the Language Certificate in Sanskrit.

Students who wish to formalize their Sanskrit focus often pursue the SAST minor with an emphasis on Sanskrit, combining four Sanskrit courses with two foundational SAST courses. Sanskrit courses can likewise be counted toward the SAST major.