nuchchanata

Not only science and technology are very good in Germany, but also ancient languages and religious studies are also very desired for academists in the fields around the world. As I know, Indologie is open in many universities and the study relates to Indian cultures and religions. I expected to study Vergleichende Religionwissenschaft ‘comparative religion’ at Bonn. To understand more the nature of scriptures and other religion texts, I have to study the tradtion of texts in Christianity and terms used in religious study that are very prosperous in Germany.

German is a language which researves old features of IndoEuropean language. I was surprised when I first studied German because I found that some grammatical forms are similar to Pali and Sanskrit, the ancient Indian languages. Furthermore, there are a lot of cognates in German that can relate to the two ancient languages, such as, ist/asti/atthi ‘is’, essen/as ‘to eat’, wissen/vid ‘to know’. I hope to study German well, and apply my PaliSanskrit knowledge to learn the language.

Pali is not an easy language. Comparing with Sanskrit, some people may say it is much easier. In my opinion, learning Pali well requires linguistic knowledge and fundamental Sanskrit. I have studied the language for 7 years, and expected to study more. The language helps me understand more Pali scriptures than the translations. Also it is the key to a number of Pali texts in the tradition of Theravada tradition.