It is often said the pronunciation of the Vedas in Vedic recitation in all parts of India, despite widely different local vernaculars, is the same. This statement is attributed to Frits Staal. The idea is that he made recordings of Vedic recitation in widely different parts of India and found this to be true. As part of the same statement he apparently said that the Vedas are the closest thing we have to a 3000-year-old audio recording. Does anyone know where he made this statement?

I have not found it in his monumental 1983 book, Agni: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, nor in his more popular 2008 book, Discovering the Vedas. I thought it might be in his 1961 book, Nambudiri Veda Recitation, but I did not find it there, either. Incidentally, when I could not at first find my copy of this book, I searched the web for it, but did not find a digital copy. So when I later found my copy, I scanned it, and I will ask our digital expert Lubomir Ondračka to upload it to archive.org.

Best regards,

David Reigle

Colorado, U.S.A.