rivers revisited

[Rajesh Kochhar]

What is the significance of  Sanskrit-sounding Lithuanian river names(Narayan R Joshi)?While addressing the question, the following points need to be kept in mind.

1.Texts like the Rgveda are valuable for what they contain, but useless for what they omit.Salt is not mentioned in Rv ,even though the Salt Range was a part of the territory known to Rv.

2.In the Rgvedic times there were a number of tribes speaking Indic dialects. All of them did not participate in the composition of Rv,They however all merged later to give  Sanskrit and Prakrits. The catchment area for Sanskrit/Prakrits is larger than  that of the Rv. In other words,all Sanskrit/Prakrit words should not be sought to be traced back to Rv.

3.There are no records of  linguistic/literary developments prior to the Rgvedic/ Avestan times.One would be at liberty to propose hypotheses, but these hypotheses cannot be tested.


Rajesh Kochhar