Finding the word’s worth

On his divergence from marketing to researching words:I had started my career as a stenographer. That brought me close to the English lan...

On his divergence from marketing to researching words:
I had started my career as a stenographer. That brought me close to the English language. Over a period of time, I realised that there are many words in English that bear a striking similarity to Marathi words. So I started to read Marathi literature and concluded that the origin of almost all European languages lies in Sanskrit.

On how he arrived at this conclusion:
The first civilisations to develop did so in the fertile lands on the banks of the Ganga and Sindhu rivers. Due to its superiority, its culture began to be adopted in other parts of the world.

It is generally considered that for the Latin alphabet F, the English equivalent is B while in Sanskrit, it is the alphabet bha that is used. For example, the Sanskrit word bhratu which becomes brother in English is freter in Latin.

Then take tritiya. In Greek, the word is trita, in Latin, it is teteerya and in English, third. The influence of Sanskrit in all these other languages is unmistakable.

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In the Rig Veda, reference is made to Africa and African countries. It is interesting to see how the name `Africa’ evolved. The original word is Aprantica which means west land or territory. Africa is on the west side of India. Thus, `Aprantica’ changed to Apratica which then became Aprica and finally, `Africa.’

Equally interesting is the evolution of the name, `Iran.’ The origin of this word lies in the Sanskrit word Arya which means great or respectable. From Aria it became Aria and finally `Iran’ over a period of time.

On how research in Sanskrit led him to delve into history:
This was but natural. I needed to go behind the evolution of every word and this entailed a study of history itself. Also, I became aware of the scientific basis of many of the things we read about in mythology, like the concept of the Earth’s evolution. After completing my research on Sanskrit, I plan to concentrate on proving the scientific basis of various things that we dismiss as myths recounted in our ancient scriptures.

Meanwhile Vakankar spends his days in the marketing department and his evenings and late nights immersed in mythology, philology, archeology and even geology in a bid to revive the past. And, perhaps more importantly, assert its relevance to the present.