User:Jaykul72/Sanskrit

Sanskrit the mother of European languages
Knapp quotes Will Durant “India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all. Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaintance with India… This is the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilisation is an exclusive Western thing.”  Knapp, S. (2006). The power of the dharma : an introduction to Hinduism and Vedic culture. New York: Iuniverse. Pg 11.

Vedic Recitation
Particular Brahman caste groups still specialize in the preservation and chanting of one or another of the Vedic samhitas, and continue to learn and to transmit their texts verbatim through the most rigorous and intricate mnemonic techniques imaginable. Specifically, the same text is normally memorized in its entirety in up to eleven different modes of recitation (pathas) that require complex grammatical and recitative manipulation of the base text.. In these ways, together with strict traditions of accentuation and melodic rendering, the base text is mastered literally forward and backward in fully acoustic fashion as a hedge against faulty transmission of any word or syllable. by Holdrege, B., 1996. Veda And Torah. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, p.345.

Staal’s comparison of the mantras with music resonates with the brahmanical tradition’s own characterisation of the mantras as the primordial rhythms of creation. […] the fact the discursive meaning of the mantras is not emphasised does not necessarily imply that they are meaningless. […] view of the special status of the Vedic language as a natural language in which the sound is held to constitute its own meaning. ‌by Holdrege, B., 1996. Veda And Torah. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, p.347

Vedas were preserved because they were passed as a oral tradition for several thousand years by Hindus
The Vedas have been preserved because the large collection of hymns were passed down through generations by memory and recitation by Brahmin families.

Several historians agree that origins of Vedas predate the written texts by several millenniums. Vedas have been preserved because they have been orally transmitted by recitation. As mentioned by Hexam, Brahmin Hotar families had to learn and recite the entire vedic books with thousands of hymns and pass them to the next generation. This practice of learning by recitation exists even today.

The Rig-veda comprises about a thousand hymns. They are sung by families of bardic priests in praise of gods and kings. The kings ride chariots or wagons, fight battles, take forts, and drink the sacred soma, which is seen as a kind of elixir of the gods. The gods themselves are not in the main the deities you see today: they represent natural forces - rain, wind, fire, and thunder - very like the Greek gods. In fact, William Jones wrote hime asking his friends to imagine India as a Greece where Apollo and Zeus were still worshipped and the sacred books were known only to the priestly class. The texts you see were secret: they were and are passed down only in Brahman families. For more than 2000 years they were transmitted orally. It maybe only in the Middle Ages that first texts were written down on palm leaf, and later, like this one on paper. Almost miraculous isn’t it? -- Michael Wood, The Story of India Hardcover – 1 October 2007, BBC Worldwide ISBN 9780563539155

Vedic tradition began as an oral tradition. Recitation of the Vedic hymns employed, as we mentioned, elaborate methods to perpetuate the oral tradition. The Vedic tradition existed before the advent of a written script, and was passed on in oral tradition long before the advent of a written script by R.K.Pruthi, Vedic Civilisation, Discovery Publishing ISBN 8171418759 page 286

Hotars had to learn by heart the whole of the ancient sacred poetry that had been saved by oral tradition, and incorporated in the books of Rig Veda. Notices of the Proceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain: With Abstracts of the Discourses Delivered at the Evening Meetings, Volume 4, Publisher Royal Institution of Great Britain page 137

These were passed down for centuries as part of a carefully preserved oral tradition until around fifteenth century A.D By Irving Hexham, Understanding World Religions: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ISBN 9780310314486

Mythologies and Philosophies of Salvation in the Theistic Traditions of India, Klaus K. Klostermaier, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, ISBN 9780889201583 page 7

These hymns were orally transmitted from generation to generation in certain families for a considerable long period before they were written down. The Rigvedic hymns belong to Hotar priests and were sung at the time of sacrifies. Kishore, B.R. (2001). Hinduism. New Delhi: Diamond Pocket Books.

Rath quotes Buddhist monk I-Tsing who visited India in 7th century: The scriptures they revere are the four vedas, containing about 100,000 verses. The meaning of the word Veda is clear understanding or knowledge. The vedas have been handed down from mouth to mouth, not transcribed on paper or leaves. In every generation there exist some intelligent Brahmans who can recite the 100,000 verses. In India there are two traditional ways by which one can attain to great intellectual power. Firstly by repeatedly committing to memory the intellect is developed; secondly the alphabet fixes one’s ideas. By this way, after a practice of ten days or a month, a student feels his thoughts rise like a fountain, and can commit to memory whatever he has once heard. Page 18, Saraju Rath (2012). Aspects of Manuscript Culture in South India. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004219005

Therefore, the Brahmins as a group are the true custodians of the Hindu religious tradition and its sacred texts. Assuming this role, they preserved the vedas as an oral tradition for centuries, and many even today, maintain that only the memorised and sung or spoken veda is truly a veda. Because the Vedas were preserved orally for many centuries, dating them is notoriously difficult. According to tradition, the most famous Veda, the Rig Veda, was composed around 2000 BCE, if not much earlier, while all the other Vedic hymns are said to have been composed before 900 BCE. 19th century scholar Max Muller dated Rig Veda around 1500 BCE, while Max Weber though 2000 BCE by Hexham, I. (2018). Understanding world religions : an interdisciplinary approach. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. Chapter 8

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Further Rath mentions that before the Common Era, the transmission of Buddhist texts were still predominantly oral in the heartland (northern part of the Indian subcontinent) but the transmission through manuscripts was on the increase. Buddhist monks displayed remarkable skills in memorisation, but the transmission left scope for usually only the marginal and formulaic variation. Most of the Jainas organised their canon around the same period. page 20, Saraju Rath (2012). Aspects of Manuscript Culture in South India. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004219005

Rath states that it does not suffice to characterise vedas as “oral” since it depends significantly on a memory culture. According to Staal this tradition “is far the more remarkable, not merely because it is characteristically Indian and unlike anything we find elsewhere, but also because it has led to scientific discoveries that are of enduring interest” page 20, Saraju Rath (2012). Aspects of Manuscript Culture in South India. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 9004219005

As far back as we know anything of India, we find that the years which we spend at school and at the university, were spent by the sons of the three higher classes, in learning from the mouth of a teacher, their sacred literature. Before the invention of writing, there was no other way of preserving literature, whether sacred or profane, and in consequence every precaution was taken against accidents. Friedrich Max Müller, January 1, 1878 Longmans, Green, and Company. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religions of India: Delivered in the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey, in April, May, and June, 1878, Volume 28; Volume 959. Page 153-154 ‌

The RigVeda samhita contained the hymns to be recited by the Hotri priests, but mixed up with a large mass of sacred popular poetry, and not arranged in the order of any sacrifice. Fortunately for us, there was one class of priests for whom no special prayer book was made, containing such extracts only as were required to accompany certain ceremonies, but who had to know by heart the whole treasure of their sacred and national poetry. In this manner much has been preserved to us of the ancient poetry of India. Page 151 Friedrich Max Müller, Palala Press, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religions of India: Delivered in the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey Volume 28; Volume 959. Page 153-154, ISBN 1341231801

At the centre of the canon is a fixed corpus of mantras that has been meticulously preserved through oral tradition in strictly unaltered form, syllable to syllable, accent for accent, for over three thousand years: the Vedic samhitas Patton, L.L. (1994). Authority, Anxiety, and Canon: Essays in Vedic Interpretation (SUNY Series in Hindu Studies). State University Of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-1937-1, page 35

A number of Indologists have reacted to Goody’s ideas and pointed out that his conclusions cannot be extended to India without major adjustments. Besides ordinary memorisation, India knows an altogether different kind of memorisation, viz Vedic memorisation. This kind of memorisation appears to be unique in the world, and must, in India itself, be strictly distinguished from other forms of memorisation. Vedic memorisation, which a youngster acquires in his teens even before, uses special techniques to make sure that no syllable of the text committed to memory be lost. Understanding the content of what is learnt by heart is not part of this training, and is sometimes claimed to be a hindrance rather than help. Johannes Bronkhorst (2016). How the Brahmins won : from Alexander to the Guptas. Leiden ; Boston: Brill. ISBN 9004315519 page 164

Goody's work has been based on this work on long recitations in West Africa - page 111, Goody. Goody mentions that he is only looking at oral transmission from an interested outsider in page 111.

Goody admits that he is only looking at the subject of oral transmission of Vedas from an interested outsider's viewpoint. Goody also mentions the questions he is intrigued to find answers for: Are the Rig-Veda's identical? If so, are they dependent upon exclusively oral modes of transmission, uninfluenced by the literate dimension? And why should literate specialists insists upon oral transmission? Goody, J. (1987). The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press. pg 111

Goody mentions two implications "Firstly, that writing is not necessary for the developments described by Havelock (Indian texts have been written for technical information, moral judgement, mathematics...). Secondly, that even if writing were a prerequisite, oral processes continue to be of primary importance in reproduction of these works" Goody, J. (1987). The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press. pg 113

Goody himself calls his views as the simplest explanation based on limited evidence, In all these features, the materials from early India resemble other early written traditions. There is no difficulty in conceiving a written tradition being passed on largely by oral means, and this, I suggest, is the most parsimonious hypothesis of what was happening in the present case. Goody, J. (1987). The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press. pg 116

Not only is the organization of Vedas influenced by writing, but also the mnemonic devices (of oral tradition) used by those who teach and learn them. Is it not time to recognise the Vedas as 'texts' rather than 'utterances'? Goody pg 122

“Harry Falk found that Goody’s theses were clearly proved wrong by the historical material from ancient India” Wilke, A. and Moebus, O. (2011). Sound and communication : an aesthetic cultural history of Sanskrit Hinduism. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter. Pg 192

Goody’s argument that early works in India bear hallmarks of a literate culture and existed side by side with oral transmission. Wilke, A. and Moebus, O. (2011). Sound and communication : an aesthetic cultural history of Sanskrit Hinduism. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter. Pg 192

Goody no longer wanted to deny that the Vedas was passed down over centuries by purely oral means. …., but at the same time it was supplemented with writing, Wilke, A. and Moebus, O. (2011). Sound and communication : an aesthetic cultural history of Sanskrit Hinduism. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter. Pg 193

‌: Alright, let me state the issue here so that we are on the same page, we are discussing the article on Vedas, topic is "Chronology and transmission". There are two viewpoints on how the Vedas were passed down both of which need to be presented with due weight. Mainstream viewpoint with lot of supported literature is that "Vedas were passed down by oral tradition". A fringe theory presented by Goody, quote from his book Even if they were not written down at the moment of composition (and this we can hardly know), these works, including the Vedas, bear the hallmarks of a literature culture. Moreover, these texts have existed side by side with oral transmission for atleast 600, possibly 1800, or even 2500 years Goody, J. (1987). The interface between the written and the oral. Cambridge Cambridgeshire ; New York: Cambridge University Press. pg 122. While there are different ways to mention Goody's work, in this article quote from Lopez He argues the Vedas are not the product of an oral society is mentioned whereas, Lopez himself mentions in conclusion, Goody sees the Vedas as a written tradition passed down, for the most part, by oral means. I propose the the present quote of Goody be replaced with: Goody no longer wanted to deny that the Vedas was passed down over centuries by purely oral means. …., but at the same time it was supplemented with writing, Wilke, A. and Moebus, O. (2011). Sound and communication : an aesthetic cultural history of Sanskrit Hinduism. Berlin ; New York: De Gruyter. Pg 193.

Plofker, K. (2009). Mathematics in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Frits Staal (2017). Discovering the Vedas : origins, mantras, rituals, insights. Gurgaon: Penguin.

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Staal and Falk raised criticisms against Goody

Last edit on the page Vedas link

Sanskrit grammar is not closer to any Indo-European language

 * In the Aṣṭādhyāyī, language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar according to Louis Renou & Jean Filliozat. L'Inde Classique, manuel des etudes indiennes, vol.II pp.86–90, École française d'Extrême-Orient, 1953, reprinted 2000. ISBN 2-85539-903-3.

Sanskrit has been influenced by South Indian Languages
The direction of influence is in no sense one-way, and it is very likely that in some instances the direction of influence is from Old Tamil to Sanskrit

As far as syntax goes, there is ample room for continued debate; but it likely that the Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit.

At first glance, the most striking similarity between the two literary traditions is the use of the same or similar conventions. Examples are the messenger poem, the motif of separation of lovers during the monsoon […] The messenger poem does not occur in Sanskrit before Kalidasa, but it is found in Tamil in the Sangam poems.

This evidence taken together suggests strongly that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from the other. Tamil did not borrow from Sanskrit because many of the conventions first appeared in Tamil, the metre is not native to Sanskrit (but is to Tamil), and the related elements are not identical to their Sanskrit counterparts. And Sanskrit did not borrow from Tamil because clearly the Sanskrit writers were not acquainted with the Tamil tradition and because, again, the resemblance between the two literatures is not close enough to indicate direct borrowing.

If classical Sanskrit literature derived important elements from a South Indian source, other expressions of classical North Indian civilization may have done so as well.

While Dravidian languages borrowed a great deal of Indo-Aryan (especially Sanskrit) vocabulary, they in turn are argued to have impacted on In Indo-Aryan at deeper levels of structure, for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence. With regard to syntax, Chatterji claimed that Dravidian and Indo-Aryan syntax ‘are one’ the convergence starting in early Middle Indo-Aryan. […] A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting  Bengali or Hindi equivalents for the Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order, but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into NIA language.

Reinöhl mentions that not only have the Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary but they have also impacted Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure “for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian Influence”. Hans Henrich et al. quoting George Hart state that, there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language Prakrit from which both derived – “that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from the other.”. Reinöhl  further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian language like Kannada or Tamil with Indo-Aryan language like Bengali or Hindi whereas the same is not found in Persian or English sentence into Non-Indo Aryan language. To quote from Reinöhl --  “A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for the Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order, but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into Non-Indo-Aryan language”. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit".

Sanskrit has the highest influence on South Indian languages

 * None but India (Bharat) the Cradle of Aryans, Sanskrit, Vedas, & Swastika by Jagat K. Motwani Ph.D
 * Universal opinion held on Dravidian languages is that they held their development long before the advent of Sanskrit. Considerable proportion of Sanskrit root is of Dravidian Origin. by R. Swaminatha Aiyar pg 4
 * Quotes Dr.G.U. Pope a distinguished missionary well versed with Tamil languages says that between the languages of Southern India and those of Aryan family there are many deeply seated and radical affinities. The differences between the Dravidian tongues and not so great qs between Celtic and Sanskrit Page 12 Dravidian Theories by R. Swaminatha Aiyar pg 118
 * The influence of Sanskrit on Kannada is also very common among the different dialects of Kannada. Words borrowed from Sanskrit also have blended well in Kannada. This influence of Sanskrit, however, is not restricted to the spoken varieties. Fletcher, P., Ball, M.J. and Crystal, D. (2016). Profiling grammar : more languages of LARSP. Bristol ; Buffalo: Multilingual Matters. pg 123

Rice, E.P. (1921). A history of Kanarese literature,. Calcutta, Association Press; London, New York Oxford University Press. ‌ ‌R Narasimhachar (1988). History of Kannada literature : readership lectures. New Delhi ; Madras: Asian Educational Services. ‌
 * It is to Sanskrit scholars from the north that Kanarese is indebted for its reduction to writing and its introduction into the world of literature. The grammatical terms and arrangement follow Sanskrit models. The Alphabet is consequently syllabic, and follows the orderly arrangement of the Sanskrit alphabet. pg 14
 * As regards vocabulary, Kanarese is dependent on Sanskrit for practically all abstract, religious, scientific and philosophical terms. Even the oldest extant Kanarese works abound in Sanskrit terms. pg 15
 * Quoting Ragunatha Rau, It has been well said that Sanskrit, though not the mother of Kanarese, is entitled to be called its foster-mother, because it was owing to the vigour infused into it by Sanskrit that it was enabled to become a literary language. pg.15
 * Kannada

MalayalamA considerable percentage of lexical items in Malayalam are loanwords from Sanskrit. This borrowing is quite interestingly spread across different domains of vocabulary and from different languages, and it it even affected the replacement of native terminology of body parts. Some examples of loanwords are: dandham < dantha, agni < agni, bala < bala, garbhini < garbhavati, lokam < loka.

Dravidian Languages

Tamil‌

The propagation of Jainism and Buddhism in South India led to a number of lexical borrowings from Prakrit and Sanskrit in Old Tamil Cankam anthologies. Besides the Cankam anthologies, two long epics, Cilappatikaram and Maniemakali and a number of ethnical and didactic texts show the growing influence of Sanskrit kavya literature. […]Middle Tamil shows a significant influence of Sanskrit. Religious poems and songs of Bhakti poets dominate the literary scene. Tevaram verses on Saivism and Nalayira Tivya Pirapantam on Vaishnavism, adaptations of religious legends such as 12th century Tamil Ramayana by Kamban and the story of Saivite devotees known as Periyapuranam were produced during this period.

Although the influence of early Sanskrit grammars (fifth century BCE) is obvious in certain grammatical concepts like Tamil kalam (Sanskrit kala – ‘time, tense’), Tamil peyar ‘name’ for the noun (Sanskrit naman – ‘name, noun’). 4

Claims from Tamil purists to the contrary notwithstanding, modern spoken Tamil is astonishingly rich in Sanskrit loan words. Indeed there may well be more Sanskrit in Tamil than in the Sanskrit derived north-Indian vernaculars. Sanskrit words tend to be Tamilized in accordance with the Tamil phonematic grid, much in the way they were already at the time of Tolkappiyam grammar.

Telugu

The language of pre-modern Telugu literature was highly Sanskritized and was the language learned and used in traditional literary education.

Another class of tadbhavas in Telugu the first and second letters of a varga are often replaced by the third and fourth letters and fourth again replaced often by h. Examples of the same are: Sanskrit arthah becomes ardhama, vithi becomes vidhi, putrah becomes bidda, mukham becomes muhamu.









Dravidian Influence on Sanskrit
 * The direction of influence is in no sense one-way, and it is very likely that in some instances the direction of influence is from Old Tamil to Sanskrit









There has been a profound influence of Sanskrit on the lexical and grammatical systems of Dravidian languages. As per Dalby, India has been a single cultural area for about two millennia which has helped Sanskrit influence on all the Indic languages. Emeneau and Burrow mention the tendency “for all four of the Dravidian literary languages in South to make literary use of total Sanskrit lexicon indiscriminately”. There are a large number of loanwords found in the vocabulary of the three major Dravidian languages Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. Krishnamurthi mentions that although it is not clear when the Sanskrit influence happened on the Dravidian languages, it can perhaps be around 5th century BCE at the time of separation of Tamil and Kannada from a proto-dravidian language. ‌The borrowed words are classified into two types based on phonological integration – tadbhava – those words derived from Prakrit and tatsama – unassimilated loanwords from Sanskrit. Strazny mentions that “so massive has been the influence that it is hard to utter Sanskrit words have influenced Kannada from the early times”. The very first document in Kannada, the Halmidi inscription has a large number of Sanskrit words. As per Kachru, the influence has not only been on single lexical items in Kannada but also on “long nominal compounds and complicated syntactic expressions”. New words have been created in Kannada using Sanskrit derivational prefixes and suffixes like vike:ndri:karaNa, anili:karaNa, bahi:skruTa. Similar stratification is found in verb morphology. Sanskrit words readily undergo verbalization in Kannada, verbalizing suffixes as in: cha:pisu, dowDa:yisu, rava:nisu. George mentions that “no other Dravidian language has been so deeply influenced by Sanskrit as Malayalam”. Loanwords have been integrated into Malayalam by “prosodic phonological” changes as per Grant. These phonological changes are either by replacement of a vowel as in Sant-am coming from Sanskrit Santa-h, Sagar-am from Sagara-h, or addition of prothetic vowel as in aracan from rajan, uruvam from rupa, codyam from sodhya. Hans Henrich et al. note that, the language of the pre-modern Telugu literature was also highly influenced by Sanskrit and was standardized between 11th and 14th centuries. Aiyar has shown that in a class of tadbhavas in Telugu the first and second letters are often replaced by the third and fourth letters and fourth again replaced often by h. Examples of the same are: Sanskrit arthah becomes ardhama, vithi becomes vidhi, putrah becomes bidda, mukham becomes muhamu. Tamil language also has been influenced from Sanskrit. Hans Henrich et al. mention that propagation of Jainism and Buddhism into south India had its influence on Old Tamil Cankam Anthologies, Sanskrit poetical literature influenced Old Tamil literature Cilappatikaram and Maniemakalai. Middle Tamil has shown a significantly higher influence of Sanskrit into the Bhakti poems. Shulman mentions that although contrary to the views held by Tamil purists, modern Tamil has been significantly influenced from Sanskrit, further states that "Indeed there may well be more Sanskrit in Tamil than in the Sanskrit derived north-Indian vernaculars". Sanskrit words have been Tamilized through the "Tamil phonematic grid".

Sanskrit vocabulary has not influenced any Indo-European or Indo-Iranian languages
Sanskrit is considered mother of almost all Indo-European languages. Page 200, Recent Findings in Intelligent Computing Techniques, Pankaj Kumar SaSambit BakshiIoannis K. HatzilygeroudisManmath Narayan SahooNovember 3, 2018 page 200

Proto-Indo-European languages do not have same meanings

 * Other proto-indo-european languages do not have the same meaning. Meaning of the root word vid in Serbo-Croation, Slovene is eyesight. In Spanish it is vine, grapevine, In Swedish it is wide.

Politicisation of Sanskrit was a propaganda by the British EIC to prove their superiority over natives

 * Franz Bopp the creator of comparative linguistics came into contact with H.T.Colebrooke who was from the British EIC. https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/b2/franz_bopp.html
 * "These Britons at opposite ends of the nineteenth century sought to devise an historical past not for the sake of pure knowing, but for the purpose of controlling a subject people whose past was to be so constructed as to make British rule a necessity as well as virtue." Stein, B. (1989). The new Cambridge history of India. I, 2 Vijayanagara. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521266939 . Pg 3
 * The present classification of Indo-European Languages was carried out during 19th century. In the light of increased knowledge and awareness in hitherto unknown areas, post internet information explosion, there appears to be an urgent need to revisit the existing Indo-European language classification. I am of the view that the original classifications were carried out during an era of British colonial power’s dominion over a sizeable population of the globe. Hans, A., 2017. Proto-Indo-European Language: FACE UNVEILED !. 1st ed. Notion Press, Inc. Chapter 10
 * “Next, British, French and German scholars wedded the linguistic theory about the industrious Aryans to Darwin’s theory of natural selection and posited that Aryans were not just a linguistics group but a biological entity - a race. And not just any race, but a master race of tall, light haired, blue eyed, hard working, and super rational humans who emerged from the mists of the north to lay the foundations of culture throughout the world. Regrettably, the Aryans who invaded India and Persia intermarried with the local natives they found in these lands, losing their light complexions and blond hair, and with them their rationality and diligence. The civilizations of India and Persia consequently declined. In Europe, on the other hand, the Aryans preserved their racial purity. This is why Europeans had managed to conquer the world, and why they were fit to rule it - provided they took precautions not to mix with the inferior races. Such racist theories enjoyed prominence and respectability for many generations, justifying the Western conquest of the world.” Yuval Noah Harari (2019). Sapiens. Random House Uk. ISBN 0062316095, pg 24
 * Harari states that Aryan Invasion Theory was a racist theory invented by the Europeans to demonstrate moral superiority and legitimise colonial rule on India.
 * Etymology in language pages: Greek no, Spanish yes, French no, Russian no, Punjabi yes, German no, Persian no, English no, Hindi yes, Bengali no, Persian no, Italian no, Portugese no, Catalan yes, Occitan yes, Gujarati no, Marathi yes, Iranian no, Celtic no, Slavic no, Latin no, Armenian no, Albanian no, Norwegian no, Nepali no, Assamese no, Kashmiri no, Ossetian no, Odia no, Pashto no, Kurdish no, Venetian no, Galician no, Sardinian no, Neapolitan no, Sicilian no, Romansh no, Sanskrit yes, Rajashthani no
 * British colonialism as a proto-modern state set out to shape and control not only the political and economic destiny of Indians, but also the way they thought about themselves, the way they thought about themselves, they way in which they interpreted their history and the present, and how they conceived the future. Among the many marks these colonial agents left imprinted on the collective consciousness of the Indians was the homogenisation of a loosely articulated religious tradition as Hinduism. The difficulty that these laws were written in Sanskrit and Arabic (for muslims). Much of the meaning systems of these texts were lost during the translation. Caste system was another. Sanskrit was the third. Temples and idol worship was the fourth. Neera Chandhoke in the book Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism and Tolerance: Anxieties of Coexistence Hardcover – 15 January 2019, Sage Publications Pvt Ltd, Chapter 4
 * British colonialism as a proto-modern state set out to shape and control not only the political and economic destiny of Indians, but also the way they thought about themselves, the way they thought about themselves, they way in which they interpreted their history and the present, and how they conceived the future. Among the many marks these colonial agents left imprinted on the collective consciousness of the Indians was the homogenisation of a loosely articulated religious tradition as Hinduism. The difficulty that these laws were written in Sanskrit and Arabic (for muslims). Much of the meaning systems of these texts were lost during the translation. Caste system was another. Sanskrit was the third. Temples and idol worship was the fourth. Neera Chandhoke in the book Rethinking Pluralism, Secularism and Tolerance: Anxieties of Coexistence Hardcover – 15 January 2019, Sage Publications Pvt Ltd, Chapter 4

Devanagari script has been found much earlier in India
Devanagari script existed in the Indus-Saraswati valley by 3000 BCE, this would place the origins of Vedic traditions long before 3000 BCE. by R.K.Pruthi, Vedic Civilisation, Discovery Publishing ISBN 8171418759 page 286