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Photo by Drew Fleming Cynthia Snodgrass, right, leads a class through the sounds of Sanskrit at a weekend workshop in Ashland. Sanskrit survives in the rituals of Hindu and Buddhist faiths and is the root of a number of English words, including mother, brother and sister. Ancient language lives Sanskrit lesson captivates students By BILL KETTLER Twenty men and women chanted new life into an ancient language Sunday. Cynthia Snodgrass sang the sounds of Sanskrit for students taking their first lessons in a language that was spoken in India 2,000 years ago. "Shhha, sha, sa, ka," she chanted, pointing to characters in Devanagari script. "Aye, oi, oh, ow." Snodgrass, a Sanskrit teacher from Connecticut, traveled to Ashland for a weekend workshop sponsored by Southern Oregon University's Extended Campus program. People from as far as Portland and San Diego came to listen and learn. "In Sanskrit what you see is what you pronounce," she said, as she led students through drills to help them memorize the sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet. Using colored markers she organized the unfamiliar characters into similar sound groups to make them easier for students to recognize. Snodgrass said interest in Sanskrit is growing as people recognize its connections to India's ancient spiritual wisdom. Students of yoga also study Sanskrit to learn more about the origins of their exercises. "All the moves we do in yoga class have Sanskrit names," said Carol Gray, an Ashland woman who helped organize the class. Snodgrass, an Episcopal priest, was attracted to Sanskrit five years ago while researching a book about the role of music in religions around the world. "I was looking for sounds that are a way of connecting with divinity," she said. "I happened upon Sanskrit and it was a real recognition for me that this was what the book was all about." "Ultimately what draws people to it are the sounds," she said, "and the interest in sacred sounds. "The sounds were originally perceived as the sounds of the cosmos -- the ultimate essence." Although Sanskrit is no longer widely spoken, traces of it survive in many modern tongues. The Sanskrit word "mata" became "mater" in Latin, "mutter" in German and "mother" in English. Many English kinship terms also trace roots to Sanskrit words: bhrata (brother), svasr (sister), duhita (daughter) and sunu (son). Words such as "hero" and "divine" also can be traced to Sanskrit roots: "vira" and "deva." Sanskrit survives in the rituals of Hindu and Buddhist faiths. "Hindu and Buddhist communities have always kept the language alive," said Snodgrass. "It's just that in the West we didn't hear that chanting." Snodgrass said Sanskrit's origins are lost in antiquity. "It could go back as far as four to six thousand years, or it could have come down in its finalized form a few hundred years before Christ." Many of the Sanskrit language sounds have no counterpart in English. Snodgrass focused her students on learning the five mouth positions where Sanskrit sounds originate. "It's a matter of doing yoga," she said, "or five ballet positions in the mouth," "We chanted all weekend," said Robin Noll, an Ashland yoga instructor. "I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of times we made those sounds." By the end of the weekend the students had isolated all the sounds. "I couldn't believe she could accomplish all that in one weekend," said Noll. "Not only did we do it. We enjoyed it immensely. "We all went off humming and chanting." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA