For beginners and returning students

Your Starting Point for Sanskrit

Begin reading, pronouncing, translating, and chanting Sanskrit with confidence through structured home study and expert support.

Our annual cohort begins each April, making this the best place to begin to build a strong foundation.

See all levels ↓

What you will gain

a confident grounding in pronunciation and chanting
practice in reading, writing, and grammar
guided work with selected Sanskrit texts
a structured path into further study

How you will learn

Every level is taught by Dr Zoë Slatoff, using her textbook Yogāvatāraṇam: The Translation of Yoga, which integrates traditional Indian and modern Western methods of learning.

Each level runs for seven to nine weeks, with video teaching, audio recordings, written materials, weekly assignments, and three live Zoom sessions with Dr Slatoff.

About the programme

Our Sanskrit programme runs over eleven levels. You begin with pronunciation, chanting, and basic grammar, and within a few levels you are reading verses from the Bhagavad Gita and popular mantras in the original. By the upper levels you are translating passages from the early Upanishads and from classical and hatha yoga texts, with almost all of Sanskrit grammar covered by the end.

Levels follow one another quarterly, so the full programme takes just under three years, though many students join for as long as suits them.

New to Sanskrit? Begin with Level 1, which starts every April. If you have studied Sanskrit before and are unsure where to join, contact us and we will help you find the right level.

20%

Special offer: sign up for any three levels of Sanskrit and get a 20% discount, applied automatically at checkout.