Posts tagged "Vedas"
There are Three Sanskrits
Vedic Sanskrit Lost
I was giving a class the other day about the Vedic era and its particular religious expression as witnessed by the 4 Veda samhitas. I explained that we are not sure about the translation of these texts because the Sanskrit of that era is lost. Prof. Tatiana Elizarenkova , regarded as the greatest linguist of the Rg Veda, authoritatively claimed that the Rig Veda was composed somewhere in modern Russia.
Epic Sanskrit is not Vedic Sanskrit
The students objected and said that the Sanskrit grammar and vocabulary are very well established. I said yes - Classical Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of Panini (500 B.C.E.) But that is not Vedic Sanskrit nor even Epic Sanskrit, the language of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
Classical Sanskrit is a dead language
The grammar of Classical Sanskrit was artificially fixed for the last 2500 years. But the language of the Vedas and the epics was a living language. "Even after some 150 years of studying the texts, a dark mist still covers the whole Vedic period." (M. Witzel 1987).
Subscribe to comments