I doubt philology exists specifically because Hindi and Sanskrit diverged. Anyhow, have the meanings of extant words common to both languages significantly diverged? Do you have a source?

He didn't mean that philology exists because of the divergence. He means philology exists to better understand these kind of language differences.

The practice of Buddhism has nothing to do with arguing on the Internet about the exact meanings of words in an ancient language that Gautama Buddha didn't even speak (we are told he spoke Magadhi Prakrit, not Sanskrit).

Look, this is a discussion forum. I was under the impression that we were having a good faith discussion and I'm genuinely curious about my question, whether extant words in Hindi and Sanskrit have significantly diverged in meaning. You can antagonize me if you like, but you can also choose not to participate in this specific thread if you don't have a meaningful contribution.