On the joys of the Vedas

Wisdom of the Ancient Seers:

Mantras of the Rig Veda

David Frawley

Lotus Press, 1992 - Philosophy - 280 pages

"The Rig Veda is not only one of the oldest sacred scriptures of the world, but also one of the most misunderstood. Past scholarship has dismissed the hymns of the Rig Veda as being expressions of a primitive animistic mentality that only rarely rose to true spiritual and philosophical heights. David Frawley's book demonstrates that this judgmental view is ill-founded. His fine renderings of select Vedic hymns bear witness to the fact that their composers were sages and seers--powerful poets who knew the art of symbolic and metaphoric communication. The Vedic hymns give us a unique glimpse not into a primitive mentality but a mentality and culture that revolved around the highest spirtual values and visions. This is an important and riveting book, ushering in a new and sounder tradition of Vedic interpretation and scholarship." Georg Feuerstein

A good book to begin the exploration of the Rig Veda vs the usual 'Freudian' , 'judeo-christian' junk translations. For those of you suffering through disgusting english translations, this is a joy at $10 from amazon.com. This man is one of the few from the West who delved into the Vedas without funded special interests and with great sincerity of purpose.

Compare it with this book which is a one-dimensional read.

Veda from a Judeo-Christian Perspective, December 18, 2008

By	Benjamin Freedman

This review is from: Rig Veda (Paperback)

The supposed author is not the author at all. He just waited for the copyrights to expire on others' work. Also, he is not a hindu and does not revere the vedas, he is a right-wing "hebrew-roots" christian convert. Not recommended.
I highly recommend The Vedic Experience; The Secret of the Veda; Wisdom of the Ancient Seers; Gods, Sages and Kings; The Secret Teachings of the Vedas. For a translation of the Rig Veda, look up R.L. Kashyap. Most importantly, I recommend you look up David Frawley. He is the gateway to vedic knowledge.

A Freudian animistic color

The Rig Veda: An Anthology of One Hundred Eight Hymns (Classic) [Paperback]

Anonymous (Author), Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (Translator)

By	David Marshall (Nagasaki, Japan)

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

d.marshall@sun.ac.jp

As a Christian interested in comparative religion, I find the Rig Veda very interesting. J. N. Farqurhar argues, in The Crown of Hinduism, that the Veda is actually closer to Christianity than to modern Hinduism in some ways, in that 1) The early idea of Varuna, as Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, and identified with the Law, is more like Yahweh than the conception of Brahman that appears in the Upanishads. 2) The theme of sacrifice. 3) The Vedic idea of heaven. 4) The unambiguous assumption that the world is a good place. 5) More social and family freedom than was allowed in the more rigid caste system that followed. Some modern Indian Christians have said that the Vedic sacrificial ceremonies bare an uncanny resemblance to the death of Jesus on the cross. I found partial confirmation of some of these ideas here, though of course O'Flaherty did not select her poems to illustrate them!

Don't pay any attention to the person below who thinks O'Flaherty should have translated the Rig Veda according to its "spiritual" meaning.

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Now this man argues for his Christian leanings out of context, the author argues for her Freudian leanings out of context, yet the natives are barred from their cultural context to keep it "literal" reading!!! And all tell you what you should think :-) . eg. "Dont pay any attention to the person below".

An enriching journey for Dean Brown, a physicist and translator of Upanishads