Swami Venkatesananda

VOWELS:
a	ā	i	ī	u	ū	ṛ	ṝ	ḷ	e	ai	o	au	ṁ	ḥ

CONSONANTS:
gutturals:	k	kh	g	gh	ṅ
palatals:	c	ch	j	jh	ñ
cerebrals:	ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ
dentals:	t	th	d	dh	n
labials:	p	ph	b	bh	m
semi-vowels:	y	r	l	v
sibilants:	s as in sun ś palatal sibilant ṣ cerebral sibilant – as in shun
aspirate:	h

Please Note:

1. The pronunciation of the syllable ‘jñ’ (e.g. jñāna – meaning knowledge or wisdom) is similar to the ‘gn’ or ‘ny’ found in the French word ‘montagne’ or the Zulu word ‘nyanga’.
2. The use of capitals has been reduced to the absolute minimum.
3. The transliterated spelling for most Sanskrit proper nouns and words has been retained throughout the text and commentary. e.g. Kṛṣṇa, saṁnyāsa.
4. In this edition, anglicised Sanskrit adjectival forms and plurals have been abandoned. The adjectives are rendered in their transliterated Sanskrit form (e.g. vaidika, rājasa), whilst, in the case of plurals, an accent has merely been added to elongate the final vowel irrespective of the correct grammatical form (e.g. jīvā, yogī, rājasā). For this, we crave the indulgence of Sanskrit scholars.

Note On Gender Pronouns

Swami Venkatesananda spoke equally to both men and women, and his use of the masculine pronouns ‘he’ and ‘him’ does not exclude the feminine. It is, in fact, shorthand for ‘human being’! He did not feel it necessary to distinguish between male and female, and the editor has continued the tradition in this publication.