- Entry
- Reader's guide
- Entries A-Z
- Subject index
Sanskrit
Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language tree. Although commonly associated with ancient India, Sanskrit represents a global language, historically appearing in diverse contexts and scripts across a wide range of regions. It continues to be an important liturgical language for Hindu and Buddhist practitioners across Asia.
Origins
Two prevailing theories have been proposed to explain the origins of Sanskrit. First, proponents of the Aryan invasion (also referred to as the Aryan myth) argue that Sanskrit, along with other elements of Indian culture, entered India during the invasion of the Aryan people, sometime between the second and first millennium BCE. Regarding Sanskrit nomenclature, they point out that the lexis found in the earliest Vedic texts overlaps considerably with Iranian sources, most notably ...
- Loading...
