Getting started with Dharmalib

Dharmalib is a Sanskrit corpus explorer. It brings together texts, word forms, lemmas, verbal roots, and semantic connections so that reading can begin with a passage and grow into research.

The main areas

• Texts at /text is the corpus catalogue. Start here when you know a title or want to browse by literary class.
• A text page at /text/[title] is the reader. It presents a selected range of the text in Devanāgarī, IAST, or both.
• The right-hand word lens opens when you select a word in the reader. It is the quickest route from a form in context to its lexical and corpus information.
• Dhātus at /root is the verbal-root index. Search in IAST or Devanāgarī, then follow a root’s linked word family.
• Concepts at /concept groups mapped lemmas into broad semantic classes for cross-text exploration.
• Dictionary and graph views let you continue outward from a word, root, or semantic relation.

The site is designed for two complementary habits: close reading of a single passage, and exploratory movement through the corpus.

A first reading session

1. Open Texts and choose a curated text or a class such as Vedic Saṃhitās, Upaniṣads, or Darśanas.
2. Open the text. Use the reference menus to jump to a chapter, section, or verse in the text’s own numbering system.
3. Choose Devanāgarī, IAST, or Both according to how you want to read.
4. Select a word. The word lens opens at right with its full available entry.
5. Follow a root, a related text, a concept, or an occurrence to continue your investigation.

A note on coverage

The corpus is an evolving collection of parsed Sanskrit materials. A text may have extensive reader data but little descriptive material, or a word may have a form and grammatical analysis before it has a full dictionary entry. Missing information means that the relevant projection is not yet available in this edition; it does not mean the word or text is unimportant.

How links behave

Most links keep you within the same exploration model. A text link opens a reader, a lemma link opens a word entry, a root link opens a dhātu entry, and a concept link opens a semantic grouping. You can use browser history to retrace an exploratory path.