Memoir: Why an American comparative literature scholar studied Sanskrit in Paris

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Once in Paris, I sought to partake of what Paris had to offer me. As was the case with my Vassar experience, it was not the social aspect that interested me, but what Paris could offer me intellectually: classes at the Sorbonne, seminars at the Collège de France, the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), the Institut Catholique, or the Goethe Institute. Since my adviser in the Religion Department at Vassar told me I would have to learn Sanskrit in order to study comparative mythology, I sought out an elementary Sanskrit class, finding one at the University of Paris’s Censier campus.

The professor had us try to diagram sentences on the first day of class. She was a linguist and I had never taken a language class among linguistics students. I was terrified. I remember running out of the classroom before it was my turn, and proceeding to the Rue Monge where at the corner there was a patisserie and a pay phone. I bought an éclair and a lemon tart, cried a bit, and then looked in the phone book for the number of the EPHE professor whose class on Indian sacrifice I was auditing. I called him at home...

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