Namaskaram: On saturday June 18, 2005 at the Womens Choir of Dallas (near the SW Medical Center in Dallas where JFK was pronounced dead), 2 girls from Reno, Nevada chanted the vedic mantras. they call themselves Shanti Shanti group - the 'only' sanskrit rock group in the US/world they started off with Sahana Bhavathu, Asatoma, and Vakrathuda - i was able to listen to each of the words clearly.
They have composed songs in english, most of which are translations of the verses in the veda. they alternate between the vedic chants and their 'english' songs they had composed. at the end of each song/chant they talk about 'sanskrit' language - they also seem to be fluent in Sanskrit.
They listed out the words that are currently used in English that are derived from Sanskrit - i can related to a lot of words that are of sanskrit origin myself. They listed guru, pandit, and a whole range of words such as duo, tri, and whole list of words .. the one that caught me off guard - 'Stand' is derived from 'stha (thishta)' - the future forms use the root 'stha' and the present tense uses 'thistha'. when I think abotu the differnet words borrowed from Sanskrit - i could never identify the word stand. how they learnt sanskrit is in a book. the gist of it is mentioned here: http://www.shantishanti.com/theartists.html
They recited MahaNarayana Upanishad (though they announced it as Narayana Upanishad) WITHOUT ANY READING material. Thye also mentioned that vedas were scientific then - 5000+ years ago and then recited:Brahma Jnanam Param....Aakashath vayuuhu..vayor agnihi - to explain the origin of life. and those 2 girls thought it was pretty cool. they mentioned that the energy generated from their chants, has made their house green with trees and growth - the only house in that neighborhood that has a lot of trees/greenery - particulary in Nevada state. sometimes, they do not even care to water the plants.
Their mother came up on the stage (ayurvedic doctor - learnt it many years ago) and also a friend of Deepak Chopra to tell the 'confusion' they went through before identifying the fact that the kids knew sanskrit and had to 'encourage' them. In the webpage, it is mentioned that while learning Sanskrit, Andrea felt that she was remembering (recapitualing) what she had learnt and not learning a new stuff.
I do not know whether they were some sanskrit pundits in their previous life. since they are learning the Devanagiri script, they composed a song 'City of Angels'. Overall, to 'bring' Sanskrit its recognition to the 'western world' god gave them a great voice. Herdad sings the Engligh songs with them and the whole family knows sanskrit.
