Last updated April 15, 2023
This page allows you to search a Sanskrit term across most of the dictionaries available online, all at once. You can input terms in the International Alphabet for Sanskrit Transliteration or in the Velthuis encoding scheme. See below for more details on input conventions.
The available dictionaries are given in the table below.
| Year | Name | Language |
|---|---|---|
| 1832 | Wilson Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1846 | Yates Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1847 | Bopp Glossarium Sanscritum | la |
| 1855 | Böhtlingk and Roth Grosses Petersburger Wörterbuch | de |
| 1856 | Goldstücker Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1861 | Abhidhānaratnamālā of Halāyudha | sa |
| 1866 | Benfey Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1866 | Burnouf Dictionnaire Sanscrit-Français | fr |
| 1872 | Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1st ed.) | en |
| 1873 | Vācaspatyam | sa |
| 1873 | Grassmann Wörterbuch zum Rig Veda | de |
| 1879 | Böhtlingk Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung | de |
| 1884 | Bergaigne Études sur le lexique du Ṛgveda | fr |
| 1884 | Lanman’s Sanskrit Reader Vocabulary | en |
| 1885 | Whitney Roots | en |
| 1886 | Śabdakalpadruma | sa |
| 1887 | Cappeller Sanskrit Wörterbuch | de |
| 1890 | Apte Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1891 | Cappeller Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1893 | Macdonell Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1899 | Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (2nd ed.) | en |
| 1900 | Śabdasāgara Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1904 | Index to the Names in the Mahābhārata | en |
| 1906 | Caland & Henry Termes techniques de l’Agniṣṭoma | fr |
| 1912 | The Vedic Index of Names and Subjects | en |
| 1928 | Schmidt Nachträge zum Sanskrit-Wörterbuch | de |
| 1932 | Stchoupak Dictionnaire Sanscrit-Français | fr |
| 1951 | The Purāṇa Index | en |
| 1953 | Edgerton Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Dictionary | en |
| 1954 | Renou Vocabulaire du rituel védique | fr |
| 1957 | Renou Terminologie grammaticale du Sanskrit | fr |
| 1958 | Renou Études sur le vocabulaire du Ṛgveda | fr |
| 1959 | Apte Enlarged Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary | en |
| 1962 | Aufrecht’s Catalogus Catalogorum | en |
| 1965 | Kṛdantarūpamālā | sa |
| 1966 | Indian Epigraphical Glossary | en |
| 1974 | Meulenbeld’s Sanskrit Names of Plants | en |
| 1975 | Puranic Encyclopedia | en |
| 1978 | Personal and Geographical Names in the Gupta Inscriptions | en |
| 1993 | Mahābhārata Cultural Index | en |
| 2000 | Tāntrikābhidhānakośa | fr/en/de |
Here is how to input each phoneme:
| अ a ’ | आ ā aa | इ i | ई ī ii | उ u | ऊ ū uu |
| ऋ ṛ r̥ .r | ॠ ṝ r̥̄ .rr | ऌ ḷ l̥ .l | ॡ ḹ l̥̄ .ll | ||
| ए e | ऐ ai | ओ o | औ au | ||
| अं ṃ ṁ .m | अः ḥ .h | ||||
| क k | ख kh | ग g | घ gh | ङ ṅ f “n | |
| च c | छ ch | ज j | झ jh | ञ ñ ~n | |
| ट ṭ .t | ठ ṭh .th | ड ḍ .d | ढ ḍh .dh | ण ṇ .n | |
| त t | थ th | द d | ध dh | न n | |
| प p | फ ph | ब b | भ bh | म m | |
| य y | र r | ल l | व v | ||
| श ś z | ष ṣ .s | स s | ह h | ||
| ळ ḻ ł _l |
To represent a hiatus, either follow the convention of adding a diaeresis to the second vowel—as in praüga—or insert a space character between the two vowels—as in pra uga.
At the top of dictionary entries, immediately after the headword, there is often a list of terms that might be the same as the one you looked for, or that might be related to it, grammatically speaking. For instance, within the entry gandharva, you will find links to the entries gandharbba, gandharvaḥ, gandharvva, gandharvvaḥ and gaṃdharvaḥ.
These clusters of terms are generated mechanically through a set of rules, and can thus be inaccurate. Some cases are inherently ambiguous. For instance, a term that ends with -ī might either be a stem or the nominative masculine singular of a term that ends with -in. I am experimenting with machine learning to address these issues, but much work remains to be done. The end goal is to make this aggregation process transparent.
As a general rule, when searching for nouns and adjectives, you should input the stem instead of a declined form, and then follow cross-references, if any. If the term you are looking for does not appear as a stem in any of the available dictionaries, you will still probably find it among suggested approximate matches.
It is sometimes useful to browse through terms. You can jump to a given location in the dictionaries lexicon by typing the hash symbol # in the search field, followed by a few characters. While doing so, you will be presented with a list of terms that start with the prefix you typed so far. This autocomplete feature is currently only available for romanized input.
Confirming the query will bring you to the first term that starts with the prefix you typed, or, if there is none, to the closest term that follows it, lexicographically speaking. Try for instance the query #uddhār. Submitting the query # just brings you to the very beginning of the lexicon.
It is possible to find terms that match a pattern by using wildcard characters. The question mark character ? matches a single phoneme; the star character * matches a sequence of zero or more phonemes. Note that matching is performed at the phoneme level, not at the character level. Thus a?i matches abhi, but ab?i does not match it, since bh represents a single phoneme.
It is also possible to find terms through approximate matching—sometimes called ‘fuzzy matching.’ The metric used for comparing strings is the Levenshtein distance. This matching mode is enabled by appending a tilde ~ at the end of the search string. The query mandra~, for instance, returns terms like mandra, maṃdra, madra, mantra, etc.
Approximate matching can be performed with wildcard patterns, not just string literals. This is particularly useful for finding occurrences of a given term within compounds. The query *uddyota~, for instance, matches terms that end with something close to uddyota, and returns, among else, uddyota, śāntyuddyota, ācāroddyota, udyota, etc.
Most of the above dictionaries were prepared and encoded by Jim Funderburk, Thomas Malten et al. at Cologne University. The textual version of Whitney’s Roots comes from Peter Scharf, with some emendations of my own. The enlarged edition of Apte’s dictionary is derived from the data prepared at the University of Chicago.
I prepared indices for the following dictionaries:
Le 5 sept. 2023 à 09:02, Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle@uclouvain.be> a écrit :
The server is indeed now suddenly disconnected...! Hoping it is temporarily...<Renou - Terminologie grammaticale Index.docx>The first link enabled a multiple search in nearly all the Sanskrit dictionaries available online (except the NWS).For the rest, here samples of what there was
<Renou - Voc. rituel védique Index.docx><Whitney Roots Index.docx>
Le 5 sept. 2023 à 02:36, Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier@gmail.com> a écrit :
These links to Michael Meyer's papers provided by Christophe Vielle don't seem to work.Harry Spier
On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 3:24 AM Christophe Vielle via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
We can be grateful to Michaël Meyer for having developed such useful tools:
etc. vide
Le 1 sept. 2023 à 20:12, Michaël Meyer via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> a écrit :
Dear Ram, dear all,
Here it is.* English translation: https://michaelmeyer.fr/blobs/Malamoud_Cooking.pdf* French original: https://michaelmeyer.fr/blobs/Malamoud_Cuire.pdf
Best,Michaël Meyer
Le ven. 1 sept. 2023 à 19:42, Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi <c.ram-prasad@lancaster.ac.uk> a écrit :
Dear colleagues,
Does anyone have a copy of the paper/chapter by Charles Malamoud, “By Heart: Notes on the Interplay between Love and Memory in Ancient Indian Poetry” in his book Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India, trans. David White?
Thank you,
Ram
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Fellow of the British Academy
Distinguished Professor of Comparative Philosophy and Religion
Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion
Lancaster University
U.K.
From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>
Date: Friday, 1 September 2023 at 14:56
To: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: [External] [INDOLOGY] Instructional Professor of Sanskrit at the University of ChicagoThis email originated outside the University. Check before clicking links or attachments.
Dear colleagues,
We are re-running the search that I posted last year for an Instructional Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Chicago. The job details are on Interfolio and are also pasted below. The application closes on October 12 and the successful applicant will start next year (Autumn 2024). Please do circulate this posting widely. I encourage you, and potential applicants, to write to me (ollett@uchicago.edu) if you have any questions.
Andrew
---------------------------------------------------
Instructional Professor in Sanskrit (open-rank)
South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
Description
The Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and the College of the University of Chicago invites applications for a position as an Instructional Professor (open rank) in Sanskrit. The position begins in academic year 2024–25, with a start date of September 1, 2024 or as soon as possible thereafter. The selected candidate will be appointed at the rank of Assistant Instructional Professor, Associate Instructional Professor, or Instructional Professor, depending on qualifications and educational background. The initial appointment will be for a minimum of two years, with longer initial terms possible depending on initial rank, with review and progression schedule determined by a collective bargaining agreement between the University and the Service Employees International Union.
Responsibilities include both teaching and service duties. Teaching normally consists of seven courses across three quarters, six of which are Sanskrit courses at the beginning and intermediate levels of the language. One additional course may include non-language offerings in the College Core or in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, to be determined in consultation with the Department and College. There may also be an opportunity to teach occasional courses in another South Asian language, depending on departmental need as well as the ability and experience of the selected candidate. Service duties may include advising undergraduate theses, teaching independent studies, and engaging in outreach, or other program-specific duties. Instructional Professors of all ranks are required to engage in regular professional development.
Qualifications
Applicants must have advanced proficiency in Sanskrit and evidence of excellence in teaching Sanskrit at the university level. An M.A. degree or equivalent is required. A Ph.D. in a related field is desirable. Preferred qualifications include proficiency in another South Asian language, advanced training in South Asian area studies, and specialized training in second-language pedagogy.
Application Instructions
To apply for this position, please submit your application through the University of Chicago’s Academic Recruitment website at http://apply.interfolio.com/131243. An application must include:
- a cover letter;
- curriculum vitae;
- a teaching statement;
- one sample syllabus for a Sanskrit language course at the beginning or intermediate level;
- a second sample syllabus for a non-language course; and
- the names and contact information of three references who can supply letters of recommendation upon request.
Application deadline: All applicant materials must be received by 11pm Central Time/Midnight Eastern Time on October 12th 2023. Candidates may be asked to provide additional materials following the initial review.
This position is contingent upon budgetary approval. The terms and conditions of employment for this position are covered by a collective bargaining agreement between the University and the Service Employees International Union. For information on the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, please visit https://salc.uchicago.edu/. For questions about the position, please contact salc@uchicago.edu.
EEO Statement
All University departments and institutes are charged with building a faculty from a diversity of backgrounds and with diverse viewpoints; with cultivating an inclusive community that values freedom of expression; and with welcoming and supporting all their members.
We seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest value on rigorous inquiry and encourages diverse perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, engagement, and exchange. The University’s Statements on Diversity are at https://provost.uchicago.edu/statements-diversity.
The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University's Notice of Nondiscrimination.
Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-834-3988 or email equalopportunity@uchicago.edu with their request.
About South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Founded in 1966, the Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations emphasizes the comprehensive humanistic understanding of the South Asian region. Historical, social, literary, and political issues of South Asia are addressed here through close textual analysis and detailed studies of South Asian cultural forms. Preeminently, SALC emphasizes linguistic study and textual analysis; SALC's faculty, alumni, and students are at the forefront of the humanistic study of the region globally. The department regularly offers instruction in seven South Asian languages (Bangla, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Tibetan, and Urdu).
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