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The oldest known Samskrit speakers were from ...

Updated: Oct 2, 2021

If you thought India, you are wrong.

In fact the oldest known speakers of the Samskrit language were the the Mitanni people of Syria.


The Syrian speakers of Sanskrit


As mentioned in a previous blog, the earliest form of Sanskrit used is the Rig Veda. Amazingly, Rigvedic Sanskrit was first recorded in inscriptions found not on the plains of India but in in what is now northern Syria.


Between 1500 and 1350 BC, a dynasty called the Mitanni ruled over the upper Euphrates-Tigris basin, land that corresponds to what are now the countries of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. The Mitannis spoke a language called Hurrian, unrelated to Sanskrit. However, each and every Mitanni king had a Sanskrit name and so did many of the local elites. Names include Purusa (meaning “man”), Tusratta (“having an attacking chariot”), Suvardata (“given by the heavens”), Indrota (“helped by Indra”) and Subandhu, a name that exists till today in India.


The Mitanni had a culture, which, like the Vedic people, highly revered chariot warfare. A Mitanni horse-training manual, the oldest such document in the world, uses a number of Sanskrit words: aika (one), tera (three), satta (seven) and asua (ashva, meaning “horse”). Moreover, the Mitanni military aristocracy was composed of chariot warriors called “maryanna”, from the Sanskrit word "marya", meaning “young man”.


The Mitanni worshipped the same gods as those in the Rig Veda (but also had their own local ones). They signed a treaty with a rival king in 1380 BC which names Indra, Varuna, Mitra and the Nasatyas (Ashvins) as divine witnesses for the Mitannis. While modern-day Hindus have mostly stopped the worship of these deities, these Mitanni gods were also the most important gods in the Rig Veda.


Reference: https://scroll.in/article/737715/fact-check-india-wasnt-the-first-place-sanskrit-was-recorded-it-was-syria

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1 Comment


Bhaskar Sharma
Bhaskar Sharma
May 22, 2022

Requesting Ravijays for not to reference some hypocrite and hindu hating person 's article whose only agenda is to degrade our pavitra Samskrut language.

I done think any hindu needs any reference for language which came from our devi, Devta and Bhagvan.

When we hindu believe that our Devi and Devata existed much before western and islamic culture existence so what is the need of referencing such baseless articles.


Hindu believers are definitely offended when someone gives proof of x document and y transcript and z countries. Tomorrow some other article will show that Hindu devi and devata went to x country and studied under z teacher of some western religion teacher so do we have to start believing it…


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