Gabriella Burnel, popularly known as Gaiea Sanskrit hails from England. She first came into contact with Sanskrit as a little girl hearing it from her parents and later went on to study it at school. At the University of Oxford, she read Sanskrit and India’s most ancient Hindu philosophical texts, including its great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. She has a number of accolades for Sanskrit singing and has performed across the globe with her sheer talent and love for the Sanskrit language. Her videos on YouTube have captured the hearts of millions of followers from across the world. Alongside teaching Sanskrit, Gabriella currently sings,teaches Alexander Technique and Yoga, and leads monthly Vedic Chanting / Kirtan sessions at different places.

On being asked in an interview about how did she embark upon the Sanskrit journey, she replied-

” I asked my mother when I first came into contact with the language and she replied that when she was pregnant with me she would go to sanskrit classes where she would learn how to write the devanagari script and as she wrote the devanagari script, she would chant it with the other people in the class. So as a growing baby, I heard the sounds and then in childhood, I heard many prayers from the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads.” She also says that hearing her teacher, Mr Warwick Jessup chant the shiva sutras enthusiastically every morning at the school assembly has been one of her founding memories of life and that it was deeply imprinted in her from age 4 or so.

This is a contemporary example showing the incredible power of how the prenatal influence and formative years of a child’s life have an indelible impact on its future.