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Summary: Book Review by THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW
Review: PROOF OF VEDIC CULTURE'S GLOBAL EXISTENCE is a remarkable and informative historical survey of Vedic civilization and its enduring cultural and spiritual contributions that are to be found in the cultures, religions, and spiritual movements of today. Informative, challenging, occasionally startling, PROOF OF VEDIC CULTURE'S GLOBAL EXISTENCE is very highly recommended reading for students of religion, spirituality, metaphysics, and ancient history.
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Summary: Authentic historical fact
Review: Stephen Knapp presents historical facts as they are. He does not distort them or color them with false beliefs or opinions.True scholars know that the Vedic Sanatana Dharma is the original true religion and that Samskrta(sanskrit) is the mother of all European languages including English. That being the case, it behoves us to read this book and understand what Stephen is really trying to say.
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Summary: Drop B.G. Tilak and P.N. Oak stuff to get credibility
Review: The book's value is unfortunately degraded by using pseudoscientific interpretations from people like B.G. Tilak and P.N. Oak with their nationalistic agenda. To publish anything available and let readers figure out what is true is not the way to write serious books. And I guess this topic needs serious treatment. Sadly, this approach is not helping the promotion of glorious Vedic past, rather the opposite. Why not stick to the many amazing _facts_? I like much better Devamrita Swamis' "Searching for Vedic India". Hare Krishna.
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Summary: knapp has no case for his linguistic equations
Review: 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 proclaiming 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 SK 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 SK. 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 SK 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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Summary: The better understanding of history
Review: This book provides you with a better understanding of human history. How we western people lost connection to the culture and religion of our forefathers, how the world became disunited due to later cultures and religions, how this later cultures and religions took over or demonized the teachings, holy places and temples of the original culture and religion. If we want the world to become a better place, we have to look at it when it was a better place: 5000 years ago, when the culture of our forefathers united the whole world. We have to revive this original culture of us all - at least in our minds and hearts.
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Summary: Good book on vedic culture
Review: This is a great book for anyone who has slightest interest in the old vedic civilization. It refutes the fallacy in the old historical books about aryan invasion etc and gloriously proves vedic culture as one source of all religions in the present world. This book is full of some very intriguing facts which really makes one think and believe the author. However, sometimes the associations of different words/names of places to a sanskrit word seems far fetched. Even then, this book is a must read for anyone interested in the subject.
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Summary: You are hooked on to this book if you want to believe
Review: This is the first book in last five years I read cover to cover and couldn't keep it down till I finished. Very well written with lots of examples and context. It's amazing to believe that there existed a global civilization long before modern history was began to be recorded. This existence of global civilization is a perfect explanation for me to understand the fact that the basic concepts like life, death, god, religion, society, marriage, language & script existed across the globe thousands of years ago.
One needs to read this with open mind as at times you may think the theory is going overboard.
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Summary: The Truth is finally out
Review: You haven't lived unless you have known the truth. The truth is revealed in here!!! Stephen Knapp has provided various rational arguments and historical evidences that underlines the fact that the Vedic Civilization was the most ancient and the Universal religion(true to its name Santana Dharma - Universal religion). It also brings to light the various conspiracies plotted by Mughals, Britishers and Germans. The plot to tarnish the Vedas and potray the Vedic civilization (known today as Hinduism) in bad light though might have been successfull to an extent but they haven't succeeded. The world now have started to realise their folly. This is definitely a 'MUST READ BOOK'. After reading the book there are NO doubts that linger in your mind, there are NO questions that remain unanswered. The research findings are praiseworthy. A sane and a person of rational thinking would definitely agree with the author. At the end of the book one is left satisfied and convinced.
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Summary: The Truth is finally out
Review: You haven't lived unless you have known the truth. The truth is revealed in here! Stephen Knapp has provided various rational arguments and historical evidences that underlines the fact that the Vedic Civilization was the most ancient and the Universal religion(true to its name Santana Dharma - Universal religion). It also brings to light the various conspiracies plotted by Mughals, Britishers and Germans. The plot to tarnish the Vedas and potray the Vedic civilization (known today as Hinduism) in bad light though might have been successfull to an extent but they haven't succeeded. The world now have started to realise their folly. This is definitely a 'MUST READ BOOK'. After reading the book there are NO doubts that linger in your mind, there are NO questions that remain unanswered. The research findings are praiseworthy. A sane and a person of rational thinking would definitely agree with the author. At the end of the book one is left satisfied and convinced.
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