according to wikipedia sanskrit is an indo-european AND and Indo Aryan language which became a parent language for the Indo Aryan languages.

The Rig Veda is the earliest known document written in Sansrit, and scholars standardly date the Rig-Veda to the 2nd millennium BC on grounds of its references to late bronze age culture (horse-drawn chariots; mostly bronze, but some iron weapons) and to the assumption that Vedic culture post-dates the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is commonly held to have been completed between 1500 BC and 1200 BC. Nevertheless the hymns were certainly composed over a long period - several hundred years at least. Some, mostly Indian, writers have used astronomical references in the Rig-Veda to date it to the third and even the 4th millennium BC.

The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is Pạ̄nini's Ạṣtādhyāyī ("Eight-Chapter Grammar") dating to ca. the 5th century BC. It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i. e. an authority that defines (rather than describes) correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for Vedic forms that had already passed out of use in Panini's time.

(from wikipedia)