[INDOLOGY] Sanskrit mnemonics?

[Jonathan Silk]

Dear Madhav,

I remember when you explained this to me and to my then classmate, Ed
Hamlin. Ed, with a background in computing, immediately said: that's how
hard drives look for data!
Good memories of your book-crowded office in the Frieze building, back
there in the corner of the ground floor, almost 40 years ago!!

Jonathan

On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 11:34 PM Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> It depends upon how narrowly or widely one defines the word "mnemonic".
> There are a good deal of aids for memorization in Sanskrit, especially in
> various Śāstras and for the Vedic reciters. One such device is used in
> helping memorize Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī. For each Pāda, there is a string that
> includes the first words of rules 1, 20, 40, 60 etc. and the number of
> rules in the final odd lot. For example, the string for the first Pāda is:
> वृद्धिराद्यन्तवदव्ययीभाव:प्रत्ययस्यलुक्पञ्चदश. There are 32 such strings
> for the entire Aṣṭādhyāyī. One is expected to memorize the entire
> Aṣṭādhyāyī. But to find the numerical place of any given rule, if one
> begins reciting with that rule, very quickly one hits one of the location
> markers in one of these strings, and then it is an easy calculation.  My
> senior classmate in Pune, Mr. S.L. Athlekar used to do this in a split
> second, and then he taught his 8 year old daughter to do this. So this was
> a very efficient system.
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 12:34 PM Christian Ferstl via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> are there really no other mnemonics or are they perhaps too childish to
>> post them on this list?  I also like to use the verse rāmo rājamaniḥ
>> etc., but rather in order to recall the order and numbering of
>> vibhaktis.
>> Is there a common word for "mnemonic" in Sanskrit?
>>
>> Christian
>>
>>
>> Am 20.08.2021 19:56, schrieb sellmers--- via INDOLOGY:
>> > Dear Antonia,
>> > I use the verse rāmo rājamaniH ... for the masc.sg. forms of the -a
>> > declension.
>> > Best wishes,
>> > Sven
>> >
>> > Am 20.08.21 um 19:26 schrieb Antonia Ruppel via INDOLOGY
>> >
>> >  Von: "Antonia Ruppel via INDOLOGY" <indology at list.indology.info>
>> > Datum: 20. August 2021
>> > An: "Indology" <indology at list.indology.info>
>> > Cc:
>> > Betreff: [INDOLOGY] Sanskrit mnemonics?
>> >
>> > Dear all,
>> >
>> > Whenever I've learnt a language in a classroom setting, we'd get
>> > mnemonics to help us remember word forms or uses. (I am thinking of
>> > things like 'after si, nisi, num, ne, all the ali's fly away', or 'If
>> > one shwa by another is hounded, the first is silent, the second
>> > sounded.')
>> >
>> > Do any of you have any such mnemonics (no matter how silly - or dare I
>> > say: the sillier, the better?) for Sanskrit? So far I only have
>> > minuscule things like reminding students of Har*e* Kṛṣṇa (for
>> > the vocative of i-stems), and also verses like
>> >
>> > gurureva gatirgurumeva bhaje guruṇaiva sahāsmi namo gurave |
>> > na guroḥ paramaṃ śiśurasmi gurormatirastu gurau mama pāhi guro
>> > ||
>> >
>> > If you have anything you use that works well with your students, I'd
>> > be grateful if you were willing to share it. I'll happily sum up
>> > everything I get in an email to the List.
>> >
>> > Many thanks, as always,
>> >     Antonia _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY
>> > mailing list INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

website: www.OpenPhilology.eu
copies of my publications may be found at
https://leidenuniv.academia.edu/JASilk
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