Dear Michael,

There are various bits of Sanskrit throughout Galactica - at the end of the mini-series, Elosha chants the 'asato mā sadgamaya' (helpfully subtitled as 'priestess chanting in foreign language':-)); the surname of Roslin's aid Billy is Keikeya (close enough to Kaikeya to make me think:-)); Roslin's medicine is kamala extract - and so on.

I've long been wondering how this made it into the series - so far to no avail. Ron Moore, the creator of this Galactica remake, was a Cornellian, and Cornell has long had a fairly solid Sanskrit tradition - but beyond that I have no idea. If anyone on the List can contribute to this, I'd be most grateful!

(And for what it's worth, I hear the intro as svaḥ, over two notes, rather than svāhā.) 

All the best,
     Antonia (outside the US, hence syfy's generosity does not reach me:-(!)

On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 22:01, Witzel, Michael via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear All,
We have been talking about the Gāyatrī a lot.

As it is the weekend, for your amusement:

The Scifi TV channel is streaming (free) all 50+ episodes of their old "Battleship Galactica" series now:
 (https://www.syfy.com/battlestargalactica)

Did anyone notice that the theme song of each episode is the Gāyatrī:  
"oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svāhā(!).  Tat savitur … pracodayāt"

Cheers!
Michael


Michael Witzel
Wales Prof. of Sanskrit, Dept. of South Asian Studies, 1 Bow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
ph. 1 - 617 496 2990
witzel@fas.harvard.edu
www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm



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