A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

INTRODUCTION

“further progress in the interpretation of the difficult cycle of . . . liturgies cannot be made until the cult is more profoundly interpreted from the point of view of the history of religion.”’*

As regards the translation: every English word employed has been used advisedly with respect to its technical significance. For example, ‘‘ nature’”’ is here always the correlative of “‘ essence,’ and denoted that whereby the world is as it is ; never as in modern colloquial usage to denote the world, ens naturata. Similarly, existence is distinguished from being, creation from emanation, local movement from the principle of motion, the incalculable from the infinite, and so forth. All that is absolutely necessary if the sense of the Vedic texts is to be conveyed. In addition, the few English words added to complete the sense of the translation are italicised : and when several English words are employed to render one Sanskrit term, the English words are generally connected by hyphens, e.g., Aditya, “ Supernal-Sun”; Aksara, “ Imperishable-Word.”

As regards the commentary: here I have simply used the resources of Vedic and Christian scriptures side by side. An extended use of Sumerian, Taoist, Safi, and Gnostic sources would have been at once possible and illuminating, but would have stretched the discussion beyond reasonable limits.® As for the Vedic and Christian sources, each illuminates the other. And that is in itself an important contribution to understanding, for as Whitman expresses it, “‘ These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me. If they are not yours as much as mine, they are nothing, or next to nothing.” Whatever may be asserted or denied with respect to the “ value” of the Vedas, this at least is certain, that their fundamental doctrines are by no means singular.

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, December, 1932. ix