Between 1970 and 1980s, Sanskrit was taught at Vilnius University by Prof. Ricardas Mironas, who learned and did research in Sanskrit in European academic institutions. He translated 13 hymns of the Rig Veda into the Lithuanian language and became the 3rd recipient of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award (the first two were poets Vacys Reimeris and Eduardas Miezelaitis who published their books of poems on India in the late 70s). Another Indologist, Vytautas Narvilas published a book "Distant, yet very close". In this book, Narvilas identifies an obvious parallelism between the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the three ancient Baltic Gods of Perkunas, Patrim Pass and Pikulas (described as the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer). Narvilas also sees a number of references in Lithuanian folklore which are similar to a number of incantations in the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda.
The Lithuanian linguists and historians believe that there is a close similarity between the Lithuanian and Sanskrit languages and claim to have very old links with India. They consider Sanskrit, along with Lithuanian, to be one of the most ancient languages in the world with an emphasis on the similarities of the two languages. The first direct knowledge of India reached Lithuania through Lithuanian Christian missionaries who served in India since the 16th century. Since the early 19th century, most Lithuanian intellectuals were very interested in India due to the linguistic affinity between Sanskrit and Lithuanian languages. One of the prominent Lithuanian philosophers and ideologists of the national movement, Vydunas (real name Vilhelmas Storost) was extremely interested in Indian philosophy and he has even created his own philosophical system closely based on the Vedanta. He argued that before the introduction of Christianity, Lithuanian spiritual culture had a lot of similarities with Hinduism.
Since the 19th century, when the similarity between Lithuanian and Sanskrit was discovered, Lithuanians have taken a particular pride in their mother tongue as the oldest living Indo-European language. To this day, to some Lithuanians their understanding of their nationality is based on their linguistic identity. It is no surprise then that they proudly quote the French linguist Antoine Meillet, who said, that anyone who wanted to hear old Indo-European should go and listen to a Lithuanian farmer. The 19th century maxim - the older the language the better - is still alive in Lithuania.
The history of sounds explains how the Lithuanian word sûnus and the German Sohn, English son, and Polish syn are not loanwords from one language to another, but have the same origin. The same is true of the Lithuanian duktë, German Tochter, English daughter, and Polish corka.
Thank you Priya! Very intresting info It seems that influence of Sankrit spread from India and Lithuanian language must have been got from Sanskrit and all other european languages must have been born out of that
The westerb scholars say Rig-Veda dates to 1500 BC and atharvana veda, last veda to 200 BC I think certainly there is a contradiction since Lithuanians and Ukranians have known Atharvana Veda, vedas must be very ancient than any recorded history,much before any supposed migration which leads to the conclusion that Aryan invasion theory is flawed
as Vijay said, inverse migration would be possible, I feel this Sanskrit and Indian civilization must have reached upto Central Asia and from there European languages must have been formed.So, it seems that India is mother of many cultures