A New Approach to the Vedas: An Essay in Translation and Exegesis

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From the pen of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy this small but wonderful volume is an essay in translation and exegesis in relation to the Vedas in which passages from the Rgveda and the Brhadaranyaka and Maitri Upanisads, dealing with cosmogony, ontology and teleology, have been interpreted in a new perception of the quite extraordinary depth of those ideas and their amazing psychological accuracy. According to Coomaraswamy no great extension of our present measure of understanding of the Vedas can be expected from philological research alone. Further progress in the interpretation of the difficult cycle of liturgies cannot be made until they are more profoundly explained from the viewpoint of the history of religion and translated in accordance with the true spirit of the textual contents. The passages translated and interpreted in this volume reflect their technical significance and at the same time a comparative approach in regard to quality, understanding and depth.

About the Author

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, the greatest among the Indian Art-historians, was born in Colombo on August 22, 1887. after graduating from the University of London with honours in Geology in 1900, he became the director of the Mineralogical Survey of Ceylon. During his three-year's stay in Ceylon, he formed the Ceylon Social Reformation Society and led the University movement in which he initiated the national education, teaching of vernaculars in all school and revival of Indian culture. Between 1906 and 1917, when he joined as the Curator of Indian Art at the Boston Museum he was busy lecturing on Indian art. In 1938, he became the Chairman of National Committee for India's Freedom. His contributions on Indian Philosophy, religion, art and iconography, painting and literature are of the greatest importance as were his contributions on music, science and Islamic art. He died on September 9, 1947.