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:
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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