How to use this website
Written plainly, for anyone who would rather be studying śāstra than working out how a website behaves. Nothing here assumes you have used one before.
Finding something
At the top of every page, on the right, there is a small magnifying glass. Click it and type what you are looking for.
You can type it in almost any way. “BG 2.13”, “Bhagavad Gita 2 13”, “what happens after death”, “dehino smin”, or the Sanskrit itself. All of these find the same verse.
If the writing is too small
At the top right, next to the magnifying glass, there is a button that says Reading comfort. Click it.
A small panel opens with three choices of writing size: Normal, Large and Largest. Click one and the whole website changes immediately. It will stay that way the next time you visit, on this device.
If the screen is too bright
In that same Reading comfort panel there is a choice called Background, with two options: Light and Dark.
Light is ivory, like paper, and is what you see now. Dark is a deep, quiet colour, which many devotees prefer when reading early in the morning or late at night.
Reading in your own language
The Reading comfort panel also has Language, with Hindi, Bengali and Odia beside English. Click the one you want and the website changes at once.
The complete research-edition lessons are currently written in English. Menus and selected guidance are available in the other routed languages, with visible fallback to English. Scriptural translation is never silently machine-produced; each language states its review level.
Reading a verse
Every verse is shown in three forms, one under the other: the Sanskrit in Devanāgarī, the same Sanskrit written in English letters, and then the meaning in English.
Above the verse you will see a row of words: Read, Study, Sanskrit, Teach. These change how much explanation you are shown. Start with Read. When you want more, click Study. You cannot break anything by clicking them.
Wherever an idea is difficult, you will see a button that says Show me. Click it and a picture or a diagram will appear that explains it without words.
Signing in, and why you might
Signing in means telling the website who you are, so it can remember you. You do not need it to read anything here. Everything is free and open whether you sign in or not.
It is useful if you want the website to remember which verses you have read, keep the notes you write, and let you continue on your phone where you stopped on your computer.
There is no password to invent or remember. You either click Continue with Google, or you type your email address and we send you a link to click. That is all.
Still stuck?
Write to us and describe what you were trying to do. No question about this website is too basic. If something confused you, it is our fault, not yours, and we would like to fix it.
Write to us