Tatyana Elizarenkova was a distinguished Soviet Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 Indologist

Indology

Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....

 and linguist, known for her study of the Vedas

Vedas

The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....

.

She was described as "the greatest living scholar of the RigVeda

Rigveda

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...

, and certainly the greatest linguist of the RigVeda". In 1972 she published a translation of selected Rigvedic hymns into Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, which eventually evolved into a complete translation of Rigveda

Rigveda

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...

 in the following decades, published by Nauka

Nauka

Nauka is a Russian publisher of academic books and journals. Established in the USSR in 1923, it was called USSR Academy of Sciences Publisher until 1963. Until 1934 the publisher was based in Leningrad, then moved to Moscow. Its logo depicts an open book with Sputnik 1 above it.Nauka was the main...

 1989-1999 (3 volumes). Her complete Russian translation of Atharvaveda

Atharvaveda

The Atharvaveda is a sacred text of Hinduism and one of the four Vedas, often called the "fourth Veda"....

 was published in 2005-2010 (3 volumes).

In 1976, together with her husband Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov, she published in English a linguistic analysis of Pali

Pali language

Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pāi Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism.-Etymology of the name:The word Pali itself...

: The Pali Language. She was also an expert on Hindi, and published numerous works on its grammar.

Elizarenkova and Toporov were also the chief driving forces of Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics

Semiotics

Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...

.

India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 had honored her with the Padma Shri

Padma Shri

Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...

 in 2004 for her contributions in the study of Vedas

Vedas

The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....

.