The journal Philosophy East and West has just published a positive review of Classical Sanskrit for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners. The review is available here, though only for people with institutional access (I’ll excerpt a few bits below). The reviewer, Iwona Milewska, graciously calls the book “multi-sided and competent, but also charming.” As I say in the acknowledgments, the competence of the book has much to do with helpful editing from colleagues, especially David Buchta (though he shouldn’t be blamed for any errors that remain!). Any book that comes into existence does so not just because of the author’s efforts but because of a multitude of people behind the scenes.

I also appreciate that the reviewer understood my book’s moderate goals: to explain and illustrate some of the main features of Sanskrit and give a readable orientation to it. That’s in part because I think of myself as a philosopher who reads Sanskrit, not a Sanskritist or philologist. I could not write the kind of robust grammars that already exist, and to which I point readers in the text. Yet it is because I came to this language later in life that I wanted to write a book that is as engaging and accessible as possible.

I hope the book will spur others to begin learning Sanskrit, or, even if they only ever read this book, to learn about the riches available in the language. (And maybe they’ll also have a few myths dispelled along the way, like what namaste literally means and how it’s pronounced!) At this inflection point in history, when artificial intelligence now allows for rapid, accurate translation, even of ancient languages, I think it’s important to recognize the value of language learning as an exercise of curiosity and patience, and as a discipline, dare I say even a yoga?

A few excerpts from Milewska’s review:

Since excerpts are taken from literary, religious, and philosophical texts, readers get exposed to the versatility of the ancient Indian tradition. One lesson emphasizes the significance of commentarial literature, which was highly valued in India but rarely gets attention in Sanskrit grammar books…Also worth drawing attention to is
lesson thirteen, which includes a crucial fragment in which the author explains how to work with critical editions and walks the reader through a comparison of existing translations of the texts. This is a rarity in Sanskrit grammar books.

It should be added that some of the explanations of grammar rules are given in a beautiful way, which often is not the case in Sanskrit grammars. He writes: “There are verb roots and verb stems. The root first takes some changes to become a stem, and then endings designating person and number are added. A plant metaphor can help you: The verbal root is the unseen starting point from which a verb grows into a stem” (p. 53). This nicely shows Keating’s style of describing Sanskrit grammar. His helpfulness and ability in making difficult problems easier, and his attitude towards explaining grammar, standout and deserve to be recognized.

Keating’s Classical Sanskrit for Everyone is an innovative learning guide that should be recommended for modern readers, even though they can choose from among numerous already existing textbooks.

From Milewska, Iwona. 2025. “Classical Sanskrit for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners by Malcolm Keating (review).” Philosophy East and West 75(4): 1–4.