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21 of 28 found the following review helpful:
 I'm very impressed with the research Dec 03, 2003
I'm very impressed with the amount of research that was presented in this book. It is interesting and one of the few nonfiction books that I could not put down once I started reading it. So many things I've wondered about and questions I've had were answered here by the information that made a lot of sense to me.
There are all kinds of bits and pieces of evidence scattered throughout numerous books and articles on the widespread influence of Vedic culture, and Stephen has collected a large amount of this to present in this one condensed volume. As he mentions in his Preface, which most critics don't seem to read, he has compiled the information from many sources and researchers who have been studying this for many years, and you can decide what evidence is most agreeable or not. However, whether you agree with it all or not, the credibility is when the numerous references and researchers that are mentioned all allude to the premise that the area of India was far larger, and Vedic culture far more influential, hundreds of years ago, creating a global culture. And this book points out why and how it can be recognized.
Personally I found the book to be fascinating and well documented and referenced. There's a lot more here than a few points of comparative linguistics. You can see the connections of the different areas of the world and religions to Vedic culture, which is the real point of the book. So if you want to get an idea of how Vedic culture had spread around the world and had been a worldwide influence, this book will certainly give you insights into this. As others have said, this book is a must read.
11 of 14 found the following review helpful:
proof of vedic culture Oct 02, 2006
By Neel A. Shah
This is an easy to read book, full of interesting information for those interested in spirituality and the history of religions.
It uses examples that are not always scientifically proven, and yes, the claims are so amazing that even if only one tenth of them would be true, it still would mean a radical new view on world history.
But science is not absolute, and so called scientists have been known to cover up the truth. I, for one, am glad to be able to read about some other perspectives on world history.
Some reviewers mentioned that comparing languages on the basis of similarity in writing is not acceptable, and they gave some examples.
I would like to give some counter-examples that I found rather convincing, such as the names of the months - Saptamber, Ashtamber, Navamber, Dashamber in Sanskrit - the analogies between Krishna and Christ, Abraham and Brahma in their contextual meaning, and the fact that the Lithuanian language still contains so much Sanskrit.
The book has a militant undertone and after reading about the Taj Mahal it is easy to understand why. This magnificent Vedic palace - like much of the Vedic culture - has been appropriated by conquerors and up to today is still widely considered the summum of Islam civilisation. Even though there is ample evidence that this is not the case, we are still taught to believe the false stories fabricated by occupiers.
It is time that the world learns the truth about this.
17 of 23 found the following review helpful:
Historical Facts Oct 19, 2005
By balance o oholic
"Dugu"
Linguistic comments by negative reviewers should not deter one from reading this book. The notes on non standard linguists are pure rubbish. Non standard according to whom? and defined by whom?
Theories about Sanskrit and Indian culture written by European 'Historians'and experts with an agenda which are taken as Gospal should not be a factor. History is written by the winners to distort their world view. This book is an honest attempt to rebut the distorted theories taken as fact in the western world which should be disputed.
I would urge the reader to read with an open mind without allowing those with a hidden agenda to poison the well.
A good attempt at exposing Vedic ideas. Not fully sold on all aspects of the book, but certainly a much more honest attempt then prevailing theories put forward by Colonial quacks.
19 of 26 found the following review helpful:
If you wondered why is God such a universal concept Oct 29, 2001
By Uday Singh
For anyone who has wondered as to why, despite the existence of different religions, different cultures and different races of people in different regions of the world... why do they all have some common basic foundations, such as the concept of God. Every religion has some form God or the other. There is this concept of heaven and hell (the description varies from relg. to relg). There is this concept of good and evil. The concept that if you do good you go to heaven and if not, you go to hell.Whether you believe in them or not, it is just too much of a concidence that all these different part of the world/religions should come up with the same basic concepts. The only theory that can completely explain these concidences, is the theory that there existed one religion/culture throughout the world at one time. And over a period of time, it broke up as is bound to happen. And the author has done an excellent job of driving that point home with the use of linguistic tools, prevelant names and legends. There are some places where I felt that the facts were being stretched to fit the theory, but such occasions were very rare. Anyone on a quest to understanding vedic religion and its roots, this book definitely a must read. You can also read "In search for the Cradle of Civilization".
19 of 26 found the following review helpful:
 no case for knapp's linguistic equations, in particular Feb 06, 2001
By Mark Newbrook
This book adopts the non-standard view that Sanskrit was in India much earlier than is thought by most linguists. This view is almost certainly mistaken, but there is an argument of sorts to be had about it. Knapp, however, goes well beyond this in claiming that Indo-European actually originated in India, as early Sanskrit, and spread westwards, and indeed he proclaims that Sanskrit is the ancestor of all languages! These more extreme positions, especially this last, simply do not hold up.
Knapp's ideas historical linguistic reasoning is straight out of the 18th Century, before historical linguistics became a serious discipline. He identifies superficial similarities between Sanskrit words on the one hand and words in English and other languages on the other, and deduces that these words have a common origin. Because of his main theory, this amounts to claiming that the non-Sanskrit words are derived from the Sanskrit words. Most of these links are simply asserted as facts, with no supporting evidence.
As we now know, such cases are in fact much more complex and uncertain. One cannot rely on superficial resemblances of form, even when accompanied by similarity of meaning, in establishing etymologies. It can be established that words are cognates (ie, that they descend from a common ancestor word in a common ancestor language) - only if they display systematic correspondences in their pronunciation, repeated over large numbers of word-sets.
Isolated superficial similarities prove nothing. ANY pair of languages will display some such pairs, simply by chance. The likelihood can be calculated and it is often quite high.
In some of Knapp's examples, the Indo-European roots from which a complex English word is derived do appear in Sanskrit. But in most such cases the English word is clearly derived from Indo-European via Germanic, or else from the Latin or Greek forms - not from the Sanskrit forms.
But many of the equations given by Knapp are altogether illusory. A high percentage of them are actually known to be invalid; the words in question have separate, established etymologies and are clearly unrelated. In some other cases, we simply cannot be sure whether words are cognates or not; there is insufficient evidence. But in most of these cases there is no particular reason to believe Knapp. And in many of them his equations are implausible on other grounds, eg historical.
One fairly typical case involves the name Australia, which is a modern coining transparently derived from Latin, where it would mean 'southern' (land, etc). On p 76 Knapp states that it is from Sanskrit Astralaya, meaning 'land of missiles'; he suggests that the pilots of vimanas practised firing their missiles in Australia, thus creating the deserts! This is just not true.
Knapp places a great deal of emphasis on linguistic equations, and I am sure he is sincere; but he apparently does not know linguistics well enough to use linguistic examples persuasively. If he did, I think he would realise that there is no linguistic basis for his claims.
It should be added that Knapp's historical expertise is also suspect, and that even if his story were true that would not imply that Vedic religious beliefs are themselves true.
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