2. Pāli and Sanskrit

Sanskrit and Computational Linguistics

The importance of ashtādhyaȳı is three fold. The first one, as is well known, as an almost exhaustive grammar for any natural language with meticulous details yet small enough to memorize. Though ashtādhyāȳı is written to describe the then prevalent Sanskrit language, it provides a grammatical framework which is general enough to analyse other languages as well. This makes the study of ashtādhy...

Sanskrit Segmentation

Sanskrit Sandhi Splitting using $\pmb{seq2(seq)^2}$

In Sanskrit, small words (morphemes) are combined through a morphophonological process called Sandhi to form compound words. Sandhi splitting is the process of splitting a given compound word into its constituent morphemes. Although rules governing the splitting of words exist, it is highly challenging to identify the location of the splits in a compound word, as the same compound word might be...

Plant Names – Sanskrit and Latin

Ascertaining the botanical identities of many of the plants described in Sanskrit literature is a difficult task. However, the problem can be solved by basing the studies on an authentic and ancient Sanskrit work. Thus the Garuda Purana was studied and the botanical identities of the numerous plants listed in chapter 202 of the Purvabhaga were ascertained.

The Death of Sanskrit*

In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the ...