Little information survives concerning the history of ancient India. There was a massive immigration into the country around 3000 B.C. by people who called themselves "nobles" or "Aryans", a term we explained in the prior lecture. These immigrants spoke an Indo-European language which formed the basis for Sanskrit, which is the standard ancient language of India just as Latin is the standard ancient language of Europe. Yet while Latin is a dead language today, Sanskrit is still an official language in India. The scriptures of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit. The most sacred of these scripts form the [[Vedas]] and [[Upanishads]], which are considered to have the most authority, importance, and antiquity. | Little information survives concerning the history of ancient India. There was a massive immigration into the country around 3000 B.C. by people who called themselves "nobles" or "Aryans", a term we explained in the prior lecture. These immigrants spoke an Indo-European language which formed the basis for Sanskrit, which is the standard ancient language of India just as Latin is the standard ancient language of Europe. Yet while Latin is a dead language today, Sanskrit is still an official language in India. The scriptures of Hinduism are written in Sanskrit. The most sacred of these scripts form the [[Vedas]] and [[Upanishads]], which are considered to have the most authority, importance, and antiquity. |