This course is an eight-week summer intensive that integrates University Sanskrit 1 and University Sanskrit 2 into a single, accelerated sequence. Designed for students seeking immersive language training, the course covers the full scope of the Devavāṇīpraveśikā Sanskrit primer (Goldman and Goldman, 1980), moving from foundational grammatical systems to more advanced forms required for sustained reading and translation of Sanskrit texts.
Through daily instruction, sustained memorization, recitation, and guided translation practice, students will learn to recognize, recall, and apply the major paradigms of Sanskrit inflection, including nominal declensions, verbal conjugations, participial formations, compounds, indeclinable suffixes, and key syntactic constructions. Emphasis is placed on disciplined study habits and cumulative mastery, with the understanding that the accelerated pace of a summer intensive requires consistent engagement and regular review.
Students will develop essential research skills in Sanskrit philology, including close attention to grammatical form, syntactical analysis, and methodical translation practice, by translating carefully selected and modified excerpts from Sanskrit literature. While the course moves more rapidly than a standard academic-year sequence, instructional pacing is intentionally structured to provide initial orientation and methodological grounding, followed by a period of accelerated coverage and a final phase of consolidation and integration.
Competency in Sanskrit translation is a central research skill for scholars in South Asian Studies, providing direct access to primary sources and supporting credibility in academic writing. At the same time, Sanskrit study can also deepen engagement with lived religious traditions. For many dharma traditions—particularly Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism—Sanskrit functions as a primary medium of liturgy, doctrine, and philosophical reflection. Accordingly, this course supports both academic research preparation and informed engagement with the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual landscapes shaped by Sanskrit texts.
By the end of the intensive, students will have completed the Devavāṇīpraveśikā primer in full and will be prepared to advance to more independent translation and textual study at the upper-division undergraduate or graduate level, including advanced
8003 | Sanskrit 3 and
8004 | Sanskrit 4 coursework.
Course Details
LENGTH: 45 hours, full semester course
Learning Area

Jain Philosophy, History & Anthropology
Instructor

Cogen Bohanec, MA, PhD
Cogen Bohanec currently holds the position of Assistant Professor in Sanskrit and Jain Studies at Arihanta Institute where he teaches various courses on Jain philosophy and its applications. In addition, he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Claremont School of Theology (CST) where he teaches Sanskrit and Gujarati, and he has taught numerous classes on South Asian Culture & Religions and Sanskrit language at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley. Dr. Bohanec specializes in the Jain and Hindu traditions, comparative dharma traditions, philosophy of religion, theo-ethics (virtue ethics, and environmental and animal ethics in particular), and Sanskrit language and literature, and has numerous publications in those areas, particularly in the fields of Jain and Hindu Studies amongst other disciplines. He has a PhD in “Historical and Cultural Studies of Religion” with an emphasis in Hindu Studies from GTU, where his research emphasized ancient Indian languages, literature, and philosophical systems. He also holds an MA in Buddhist Studies from the Institute of Buddhist Studies at GTU where his research primarily involved translations of Pāli Buddhist scriptures in conversation with the philology of the Hindu Upaniṣads. He is the author of “Bhakti Ethics, Emotions and Love in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Metaethics” (Lexington, 2024), an interdisciplinary study that frames traditional Hindu themes of ecotheology, ecofeminist theology, feminist care ethics, within a framework of virtue ethics in conversation with a bhakti-based psychology of emotions. Currently he is largely engaged in publication and research on various aspects of the Jain tradition, emphasizing translations and analyses of Jain Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Gujarati texts, but is also publishing academic works on various topics within the Hindu tradition.