Vedas

he Rigveda is the oldest Sanskrit text, consisting of over one thousand hymns dedicated to various divinities of the Vedic tradition. Orally composed and orally transmitted for several millennia, the hymns display remarkable poetic complexity and religious sophistication. As the culmination of the long tradition of Indo-Iranian oral-formulaic praise poetry and the first monument of specifically Indian religiousity and literature, the Rigveda is crucial to the understanding both of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian intellectual and aesthetic prehistory and of the rich flowering of Indic religious expression and Indic high literature that were to follow.

This new translation represents the first complete scholarly translation into English in over a century and utilizes the results of the intense research of the last century on the language and the ritual system of the text. The focus of this translation is on the poetic techniques and structures utilized by the bards and on the ways that the poetry intersects with and dynamically expresses the ritual underpinnings of the text.

This dissertation deals with the Buddhist dhāraṇī, mainly understood as the term selected by Indian Buddhism to assimilate the non-Buddhist notion of mantra. In the Introduction the two major categories of dhāraṇīs are defined, i.e., the ‘formulaic’
and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs. In Chapter 1 the two sources for the emergence of dhāraṇīs are studied: the non-Buddhist source being focused on the non-Vedic, Vedic and Śaiva Tantric factors, and the Buddhist one being focused on several mainstream Buddhist and Mahāyāna factors. It continues with a study on the Dhāraṇī Scriptures’ emergence and their inclusion within Vajrayāna Tantras. Chapter 2 provides a detailed summary
on the traditional definitions of the dhāraṇī term, its synonyms, compound terms, and its pairing with other Dharma qualities. It is followed by a survey on how the dhāraṇī term is defined and classified according to key Indian Mahāyāna Sūtras and Śāstras,
and the Indo-Tibetan and East Asian Vajrayāna traditions. Chapter 3 is focused on the dhāraṇī practice, first dealing with its ethical basis, its non-ritual and ritual approaches, and its mundane and supramundane accomplishments, and then the main dhāraṇī practices are analysed intended for worldly and soteriological purposes. The dissertation closes with five Appendices including a study on a set of early Vedic mantras appearing within the Buddhist dhāraṇīs, an analysis of the ‘formulaic’ and ‘syllabic’ dhāraṇīs, a survey on mantras/dhāraṇīs accepted by several mainstream Buddhist schools, and another one on mantras/dhāraṇīs within Mahāyāna Scriptures,
and finally, a ‘References’ list providing a comprehensive and updated bibliography in several Western languages mainly focused on Buddhist mantras/dhāraṇīs.

The academic paper on the topic, “The Vedic Influence on Indian Culture” is an attempt to review and summarize the book entitled The Veda and Indian Culture written by Kireet Joshi. This book gives an obvious introduction to Veda and its influence on Indian Culture. The author tries to encapsulate the central ideas of Vedas in simplified language. He also tries to answer what the questions on the fundamental teachings of Vedas. This book constitutes many aspects of the teachings of Vedas and even gives an etymological explanation on certain key words such as Atma, Brahman, Guru and so on. This review is written based on the chapters of the said book.

This article discusses the first Indian compilation of the four Vedic Saṃhitās into a printed book in the year 1971 entitled “Bhagavān Vedaḥ.” This endeavor was the life’s mission of an udāsīn ascetic called Guru Gaṅgeśvarānand Mahārāj (1881–1992) who in the year 1968 founded the “Gaṅgeśvar Caturved Sansthān” in Bombay and appointed one of his main disciples, Svāmī Ānand Bhāskarānand, to oversee the publication of the book. His main motivation was to have a physical representation of the Vedas for Hindus to be able to have the darśana (auspicious sight) of the Vedas and worship them in book form. This contribution explores the institutions and individuals involved in the editorial work and its dissemination, and zooms into the processes that allowed for the transition from orality to print culture, and ultimately what it means when the Vedas are materialized into “the book of the Hindus.”

The Vedas unfold their mysteries...While this mantra speaks metaphorically, the very next mantra spells this out clearly...How can a sane person address a plant, or call out to a piece of stone to hear what he is saying?.... It is mentioned in the Mahabharata that a yogi, who has acquired supernatural powers...It is this unknown fact which the Vedas acquaint us with...Such a method seeks to reconcile apparently conflicting statements, not discarding even a single Vedic sentence.

visit: https://bit.ly/3sYUqzs

The intellectual achievements of ancient India lay scattered across several fields of study texts ranging from the Vedas and the Upanishads to a whole range of scriptural scientific and artistic sources. In ancient India, the development of knowledge in scientific disciplines like Astronomy, arithmetic, algebra, medicine, chemistry, biology were the results of meticulously accurate observations of natural phenomena. The contribution of ancient India in this field was not well documented but it is known to many prominent astronomers and physicists in the world. India stood in the highest position in the Vedic period. The objective of the study is to search the enrichment in Astronomy in ancient India. This study is a descriptive type of research based on secondary data gathered from ancient books, epics like Upanishad, Srimad Bhagavad Gita, articles, websites and web-based journals.

Recorded in Nirukta 1.15-16, the controversy between Kautsa and Yāska on whether the Vedic mantras are meaningful or not represents a turning point in the traditional interpretation of the Veda. While references to this controversy are often found in literature, a systematic discussion of the whole episode has not to our knowledge been undertaken. This paper offers a detailed analysis of this controversy. We first review previous scholarship and elucidate the structure and rationale of the controversy. Then, we provide an annotated translation in which we propose new solutions to several philological and interpretive issues.

This paper is about a small south Indian village called ‘Pappankulam’ which has many
temples and interesting stories associated with it. This article includes deep in depth research on the origins of the myths. This artciel will try to answer the following questions:

1) Why was the Indian society divided into four varnas?
2) Were Shudras (working class) denied access to Vedic study? If so, why?
3) Who is a Brahmin?
4) Why did Rama kill Shambuka, a Shudra ascetic?
5) What is Svadharma?
6) What is the essential message of Vedas and Vedanta?

The article has links to many important posts that I have written in the past three years. By going through all of them, you can get the complete picture when it comes to the history of religions.

Wydanie Staroruskiej Inglistycznej cerkwi Prawosławnej Starowierców￾Inglistów. Asgard Iryjski (Omsk), rok 7500.

Oryginalne San'ti jedynie obrazowo można nazwać "książką". San'ti - to płyty z metalu
szlachetnego, nie poddającego się korozji, na których umieszczono stare H'Aryjskie Runy.

Runy H'Aryjskie to nie litery i nie hieroglify w naszym współczesnym tego słowa
rozumieniu. Runa - to tajne Obrazy zawierający ogromny zakres pradawnej wiedzy.

Ta stara forma pisma nie zniknęła w otchłani wieków tak, jak inne stare alfabety, takie jak
choćby bukwica, lecz nadal pozostaje podstawową formą pism u Kapłanów Staroruskiej
Cerkwi Inglistycznej. W czasach starożytnych h'Aryjskie runy stały się główną bazą dla
stworzenia uproszczonych form zapisu: starego Sanskrytu, pisma klinowego, Dewanagari,
germano-skandynawskiej runiki i liczny innych.

Dowiedz sie wiecej o runach I slowianskiej historii w tej niezwyklej publikacji.

*SPRAWDZ MOJA STRONE I POBIERZ JUZ TERAZ WYDANIE SLOWIANSKO-ARYJSKICH WED Z ZAPISEM RUNICZNYM!

In the context of Indian classical literature, the Upanishads (Upanisads) hold a particularly important place for both those within the Hindu tradition and for scholars of early Indian religious history and literature. For many Hindus, the Upanishads are viewed as the intellectual culmination of the Vedic sacrificial tradition that preceded them and become known as veda ̄nta (lit. “end of the Veda”), texts that serve as root texts for some of the classi-cal Indian philosophical schools (darshana [dars ́ana]) that developed several centuries later. From a historical perspective, the Upanishads mark a shift away from the ritual tradition of the Vedas when newly developed notions of karma, asceticism, mental training or yoga,and moksha (moksa, “liberation”) begin to coexist and then – along with devotional (bhakti)
trends – supplant the previously dominant sacrificial worldview. While many Hindus see a fundamental continuity in Vedic and Upanishadic thinking, religious and literary historians tend to see the Upanishads as having greater affinity with later Hinduism than with the earlier elite and technical ritual milieu. But even if we assume the position of the latter, it should always be remembered that the composers of the earliest Upanishads were of the same priestly families enacting and producing the Vedas; they assume its framework and validity. Along with an ideological shift, the emergence of the Upanishads also marks a significant material shift, reflecting the settling of formerly nomadic peoples in towns and cities along the Gangetic plain, where changes in material conditions can be seen in the texts themselves.

In the context of “world literature,” however, the Upanishads might – at least initially – seem to be something of an uncomfortable fit. Setting aside the fact that such designations often carry preconceived notions of ethnic origin and/or modern understandings of the nation-state, the Upanishads as literature – both individually and collectively as a genre – are an amalgam rather than a unity. This is not to say that there are not certain stylistic, linguistic, and especially thematic continuities across the Upanishads which give the broader contours of a genre. There are, as I will discuss below. But it is to say that there is no single style, character, author, theme, or narrative that any single text, let alone the genre, adheres to. Rather it is a series of overlapping concerns about the nature of the cosmos, the role of the human being both within and beyond that cosmos (i.e. transcendence or liberation), and especially various conceptual strategies through which to explore these concerns that can be seen as loosely constituting a genre. If we take “world literature” as primarily designating a type of literary production that is both novel in form and content and enduring in impact and importance (whether literary, social, or religious), then the Upanishads most certainly qualify as one of the most significant contributions from the ancient subcontinent.

This work is an attempt to approach the Vedic Knowledge in a systematic way, keeping in focus all the major aspects of the Vedic Vision, using the means created by the very system, taking Agni as the major point or the concept which can hold the system in a particular focus for all other aspects: gods and Godheads to come meaningfully into a play in terms of manifestation. We try to use the imagery of Agni to trace back all the major elements in their functionality, for it’s a very complex system of knowledge, which belongs to the prehistoric age.     

In this attempt to define the elements of the system of knowledge we try to follow the paths the Veda itself offers us, rather than our own preferences and concepts; we use in this attempt the guidance of Sri Aurobindo and his interpretation of the terms and concepts. We also consult all major translations of the Western and Eastern Rigvedology of Yaska, Sayana, Dayananda Saraswati, Griffith, Geldner, Elezarenkova, Gonda, Kapali Shastri and Sri Aurobindo etc.

Rajasuya is famous Yajnya in Vedic Sacrifice System , done by Emperors. This sacrifice is done by Chakravartin Kings i.e. Emperors only. Here we will review ancient mentions of this sacrifice in Vedic & Puranic Sanskrit texts and analyse its given negative impacts on the world .

This book is actually a collection of four books as follows:

1. Narashangsa and the Antim Rishi;
2. Kalki Avatar and Muhammad; and
3. Religious Unity in the Light of the Vedas.
4. Muhammad in the Vedas and the Mahabharata.

The first three of these books were originally written in Hindi as a Historical Research by Dr. Ved Prakash Upaddhay of the Prayag University of India. Then later Prof. Ashit Kumar Bandhopaddhay of the Sanskrit Academy, Howrah, India, translated the above first three books into Bengali, and he wrote the fourth book. Here all these books are combined and translated into English by Muhammad Alamgir  and given the name 'Muhammad in the Hindu Scriptures'.

India as well as the whole world is all ears about the coming of Kalki Avatar - the last great man. Various scriptures have mentioned him in various ways. Many identifications of this great man have been described. He has been mentioned in many places in the Vedas and the Puranas.

According to the research of the author, Dr. Ved Prakash Upaddhay, Muhammad has been described in the Vedas and the Puranas in four different ways.

• Firstly, as Narashangsa or 'the Praised'. This has been described as the meaning of the word Muhammad.

• secondly, as Antim Rishi - the Final Sage. The Qur'an also declares Muhammad as the Final Messenger.

• Thirdly, as Kalki Avatar, i.e he will be the sage for the last period. Muhammad has surely arrived in the present kalki period.

• Fourthly, Muhammad has been mentioned in the Vedas by name.

Therefore, from every angle, it is Muhammad, who is being pointed at, according to Dr. Ved Prakash Upaddhay and Prof. Ashit Kumar Bandhopaddhay.
Dr. Ved Prakash Upaddhay says in his introduction: "..It is a proven fact that Muhammad fits the description of Ultimate Sage (Kalki Avatar), whose coming has been prophesied in the Vedas, the Bible and the Buddhist scriptures. My heart was therefore aroused with the inspiration that TRUTH must be revealed, even though it could be distasteful to some people."

God Almighty said: ‘’And [recall, O People of the Scripture], when Allah took the covenant of the prophets, [saying], "Whatever I give you of the Scripture and wisdom and then there comes to you a messenger confirming what is with you, you [must] believe in him and support him." [ Allah ] said, "Have you acknowledged and taken upon that My commitment?" They said, "We have acknowledged it." He said, "Then bear witness, and I am with you among the witnesses." (Quran 3:81).

The Quranic verse quoted above implies this: "You people of the Book are bound by the Covenant of your own Prophets to believe in and help Muhammad (Allah's peace be upon him) for we entered into a covenant with every Prophet to the effect that they (and their followers by implication) must help every Prophet sent by Us for the preaching and the establishment of the way of life for which they had been appointed. Therefore you should not have any prejudice against him, nor consider religion as your own monopoly; you should not oppose the Truth but come under the banner of anyone who raises it for this purpose. 

God is One. Human nature is one. Human destiny is one. And God's message to humanity vis-a-vis that destiny is one. However, the rebellious element in man's nature has led him to disobey God on the one hand, and on the other, he has pushed on to distort the very message of God. But the message is never fully lost. It would be ludicrous and indeed heretical to think that the situation could have gone out of God’s control.

With every distortion, therefore, He has renewed the message to salvage humanity from self-ruin. More interesting than that is the fact that He has inserted in every message a Pointer to the Final Guide and the message he would be entrusted with; a Pointer which shows the true seeker where the un-corrupted message could be found – the message that no one would be able to distort any more. While the main body of the message has been corrupted, the Pointer contained within has not been destroyed. Muhammad in the Hindu Scriptures brings out the truth of this phenomenon.

In addition to the Vedas and the Puranas, the book has unearthed this Pointer in the Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and other Hindu scriptures. Each of these scriptures uses its own unique Pointer relevant to its own theological scheme and the religious mentality of its own people. Separately and jointly these Pointers lit up the road to Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him) exclusively, without any iota of doubt.

By all accounts the Final Guru has been sent and the Last Testament is in our laps. Additionally, the existence of these Pointers in the earlier scriptures is yet another dimension of God’s mechanism to guide mankind to the infallible Truth. Upon reading the book, the theist, the atheist and the agnostic will find a lot to think about.

Let there be an awakening for true knowledge. May God give everyone the courage to accept the TRUTH without hesitation.

This is a brief introduction to the श्रीरुद्र महामन्त्र. Contains short introduction to Vedic literature as a whole, as well. Also includes explanations for the term शतरुद्रीय and the rituals like रुद्रैकादशिनी, महारुद्र, अतिरुद्र etc. A synoptic analysis of contents also is given. Discusses major commentaries on शतरुद्रीय.
In fact, it is the 'Introduction' to the "Rajalakshmi" commentary (in Malayalam) to the RUDRA MANTRA.

Después de algunas consideraciones sobre la presencia de la violencia en la historia de la humanidad, el artículo estudia la justificación de la violencia en el Rig Veda (la conquista de la India por los indo-europeos alrededor de 1500 a.C.) y en la Bhagavad Gītā (la lucha de Arjuna contra los Kauravas en la gran epopeya india, el Mahābhārata). Enseguida el artículo señala la importancia que la norma de la ahimsā (no-violencia) tiene en la ética budista, citando textos antiguos y modernos que condenan el acto violento. El Budismo no puede justificar ni la conquista de la India ni la lucha de Arjuna contra sus parientes por muy justa que sea. El acto de violencia es para el Budismo siempre un acto malo y, como tal, produce en todo caso consecuencias malas en la retribución post-mortem.

Abstract
Pt Madhusūdana Ojhā (1866-1939), a Maithili Brahman of great intellectual acumen, who was the chief pandit of the maharaja of Jaipur for almost four decades, is known today to a wide audience, especially in Rajasthan, as the author of an esoteric interpretation of the Veda. How did this happen is the question I address in this paper by presenting in their broader social contexts the Indian scholars, academics and journalists who since 1920 have helped build his legacy. I show how this disparate group of well-wishers endeavoured to make the pandit’s religious ideas available to readerships that given his belief in the restricted accessibility of the Veda he would never have contemplated addressing himself. The paper highlights that during the period under survey it became increasingly difficult for sanātana dharma supporters to keep the Veda out of reach for some Hindus on the ground of their birth.

Key words: India, Jaipur, Lahore, Benares; Hinduism, Ārya samāja, sanātana dharma; Veda, purāṇa; Sanskrit, Hindi; interpretation; pandit, academic, journalist; Rājasthāna Patrikā; Dayānanda Sarasvatī, Pt Giridhāra Śarmā Caturvedī, Pt Motilāla Śāstrī, Pt Mālavīya; Vāsudeva Śaraṇa Agravāla, Karpūra Cand Koṭhārī, A.S. Rāmanāthan, Ṛṣi Kumāra Miśrā.

The 31st passage (anuvāka)  of the first chapter (praśna) of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka deals with the rite Vaiśravaṇa yajna. There are some textual problems. So also, are some contradictions in the ritualistic interpretations. This paper, originally presented in the 16th World Sanskrit Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand, deals with these issues.
Besides, the identity of Vaiśravaṇa is discussed. Very often he is identified with Kubera. It seems that Vaiśravaṇa has a non-Vedic  non-Aryan origin. Originally he appears to be spirit or globin lying concealed in the hollows and clefts of the earth. Gradually he became comparatively a benevolent spirit. And he attained the status of the leadership of Guhyaka-s and Yakṣa-s, the lordship of treasures, and the guardianship of the Northern  Direction.
Various sources like different Vedic texts, epics and lexicons are discussed for analysing the identity of Vaiśravaṇa.

El Desarrollo que ha tenido Colombia en las ultimas décadas ha generado que la biodiversidad que se presenta en el territorio nacional se haya visto diezmada por distintas acciones, dentro de la cuales se encuentran la ampliación de la frontera agrícola y los cambios en el uso del suelo. Estos nuevos cambios que han diezmado las poblaciones naturales de muchas especies animales y vegetales, deben estar contrarestados con acciones de gestión que permitan la recuperación de las poblaciones de aquellos grupos que por algún grado de amenaza ó por su importancia dentro del ecosistema necesiten de condiciones de manejo puntuales con el fin de que sigan estando presentes. Uno de los instrumentos que se ha implementado en Colombia para proteger a estos grupos ha sido mediante el sistema de vedas de flora.
Dentro de las definiciones que se pueden encontrar sobre vedas están las siguientes: las vedas son el instrumento de restricción y regulación del uso de determinadas especies en tiempo y territorio, cuando existan evidencias o indicios que las mismas están siendo amenazadas por factores antropogénicos, causados por la caza, captura o extracción del medio natural, independientemente del fin que tengan los mismos, ó, también se definen como un acto administrativo, establecido por la autoridad competente, en que está prohibido capturar o extraer un recurso biológico en un área determinada por un espacio de tiempo. 
Este documento lo hizo el autor como parte de los productos a entregar a la Dirección de Ecosistemas del Ministerio de Ambiente en el 2011.

This is an article based on five  ancient Vedic Mantras that Dissuade Sati and Encourage Widow Remarriage! They five mantras are discussed In the light of 14th century Sāyaṇācārya's commentary. It is to be noted that of the five mantras discussed in the article – Mantra 1 found is also found in atharvaṇaveda saṃhitā  – (11.3.1) and Mantra 2 is found  in Ṛgvedasaṃhitā (10.018.008). Mantras 3-5 are unique to Taittirīya āraṇyaka (6.1).  Sāyaṇācārya whose commentary is used to explain these mantras is from 14th Century CE.

Link for the article: https://www.indictoday.com/long-reads/five-vedic-chants/

Sri Svāmī Sivananda:
“Il Maha-Mrityunjaya è un Mantra vivificante. In questi giorni, quando la vita è molto complessa, le avversità  sono un evento quotidiano. Questo Mantra allontana dalla morte per qualsiasi causa. Inoltre, ha un grande effetto curativo. inoltre, le malattie ritenute incurabili dai medici possono  curate da questo Mantra, quando cantato con sincerità, fede e devozione. È un'arma contro tutte le malattie. È un mantra per conquistare la morte. È anche un Mantra di liberazione...

This Maha-Mrityunjaya Mantra is a life-giving Mantra. In these days, when life is very complex, accidents are an everyday affair; this Mantra wards off deaths by snake-bites, lightning, motor-accidents, fire-accidents, cycle-accidents, water accidents, air-accidents and accidents of all descriptions. Besides, it has a great curative effect. Again, diseases pronounced incurable by doctors are cured by this Mantra, when chanted with sincerity, faith and devotion. It is a weapon against all diseases. It is a Mantra to conquer death. 2. It is also a Moksha-Mantra. ....

Translating a Sanskrit text is a highly challenging task. The difficulty only gets compounded if it is a Vedic text, because the Vedas use a Sanskrit that is quite different from the Sanskrit used in other literature. To translate the Rig Veda into English requires great patience and great scholarship. Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton have successfully achieved this mammoth task. The earlier English translation of Rig Veda by Ralph T. H. Griffith was done without taking into account the innumerable nuances of the tradition within which the Vedas originated. Jamison and Brereton make it clear that Griffith’s translation “conceals rather than reveals the wonders” of the Rig Veda (1.3).

"George Derfer, Zhihe Wang and Michel Weber (eds.), The Roar of Awakening. A Whiteheadian Dialogue Between Western Psychotherapies and Eastern Worldviews, Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, ontos verlag, 2009. (251 p. ; ISBN: 978-3-86838-039-2 ; 89 €)
The primary goal of this volume is to describe the contemporary state of affairs in Western psychotherapy, and to do so in a Whiteheadian spirit: with genuine openness to the relative ways in which creativity, beauty, truth and peace manifest themselves in various cultural traditions. To do so, it chooses to explore afresh a cross-elucidatory path that was born with the field of history of religion (and Religionwissenschaft): what have we, and can we, learn from a dialogue with Eastern worldviews? In order to generate meaningful contrasts between these different systems of thought, all the papers address the following core issues. On the one hand, how does the given system understand the interaction of individuality, society, and nature (or cosmos)? Especially: what is its standpoint with regard to the nature of consciousness and with regard to the mind/body problem?; how far is it dualistic?; how are destiny and historicity assessed? On the other hand, what is the paradigm of all mal-adjustment (or pathology) and what is its typical tuning-in (or curative) pattern? What are furthermore the ins and outs of the diagnostic and therapeutic assessments involved? Wherever possible, some (meta)theoretical and clinical issues are addressed from the vantage point of selected material from abnormal psychology or psychiatry.
Table of contents
Contents
Contributors
Foreword — George Derfer, Zhihe Wang and Michel Weber
Introduction — Michel Weber
I. The View from the East
1. Consciousness: The Vedantic Approach to Life and Reality, Francis-Vincent Anthony
2. Dual-Aspect Framework for Consciousness, RamLakhan Pandey Vimal
3. The Paradoxes of Radical Asceticism: Jainism as a Therapeutic Paradigm, Jeffery D. Long
4. Yoga Therapeutics: Philosophical, Scientific and Humanistic Approaches, Ashok Kumar Malhotra
5. Can Indian spiritual practices be used in psychotherapy?, R L Kapur
II. Transcultural Dialogue
6. Ineradicable Frustration and Liberation in Tiantai Buddhism, Brook Ziporyn
7. An Exploration and Analysis into Chinese Traditional Psychotherapy Ideas—A Concurrent Comment on the Integrative point of view of Whitehead’s Organic Philosophy, Fengqiang Gao and Yingmin Chen
8. The Kyoto School and self-awareness in the field of the absolute nothingness —A comparison with Whitehead’s philosophy, Eiko Hanaoka
9. Jung and Hisamatsu Re-envisioning Religiosity: Jungian Psychotherapy and the Kyoto School, Tokiyuki Nobuhara
10. Reconstructing the Meaning of Being Human: A Postmodern Reinterpretation of Frankl in the Framework of Whitehead’s Philosophy, Yoshihiro Hayashi
11. The Development of Binswanger’s Daseinsanalysis, Shoji Muramoto
12. The Intercultural and Daseinsanalytical Psychiatry of Kimura Bin, Bernard Stevens
13. A Certain Form of Psychotherapy (Kenosis, Prajna, Jung, and Hillman), David T. Bradford
14. Vedanta, Process and Psychotherapy, Joseph Grange
15. On Zen Buddhism, Clive Sherlock
"

Con questo breve intervento, destinato soprattutto ai lettori italiani, riportiamo uno stralcio in bozza tratta dal testo, in corso di redazione:
Dall’Uno della Tradizione ai Sistemi Aperti, Patañjali Yogasūtra. Il “punto di vista” dello Yoga Vol I -Yama e Niyama, delle astensioni e delle osservanze.


Yoga-terapia e Āyurveda आयुर्वेद
Parlare di Yoga-terapia è impossibile senza fare un riferimento all’Āyurveda , scienza complementare allo Yoga. Entrambi costituiscono frutti specifici della stessa pianta, i Veda. Non a caso l’Āyurveda  è considerato da alcuni autori autorevoli come estensione (upāṅga) dell’Atharvaveda, “il quinto Veda ”. Entrambi hanno come elemento centrale d’indagine la stessa triade; i tre Guṇa: Sattva, Rajas e Tamas nell’Āyurveda assumono caratteristiche al contempo specifiche ed analoghe nei Doṣa: Vata, Pitta, Kapha.
L’approccio olistico dello Yoga è identico a quello dell’Āyurveda. La loro complementarietà è evidente, così come la loro genesi nell’ambito della Tradizione Vedica. Per questo l’utilizzo degli strumenti e metodologie messi a disposizione dallo Yoga da parte dell’Āyurveda è semplice ed armonico.

A word-by-word explanation of the translation of the so-called creation hymn of Rigveda. The translation is very different from traditional ones.

As I demonstrate, the hymn has been completely misunderstood by previous translators.

The hymn has nothing to do with the origin or creation of the Universe. It is in fact, simply a prayer to God.

In recent studies we have found that the early date – before Pāṇini (ca. 350 B.C.E.) – and the oral nature of the word-by-word or pada-pāṭha version of major Vedic texts, are well established on account of textual, inscriptional, and script-historical evidence. The Vedic pada-pāṭha, which marks the division into words and analyses the mutual phonetic influence of these words, appears to be a competitive alternative, within a strictly oral memory culture, that exhibits important qualities inherent in the text transmission in cultures of writing in syllabic or near-alphabetic scripts. Familiarity of “western” vaidikas, directly or through their Iranian (Avestan) neighbours, with a script such as ancient Aramaic is possible from the eighth century B.C.E. and inescapable from the sixth, when cuneiform old Persian came also into use in the Persian empire. Knowledge of these scripts implies first a confrontation with and next a familiarity with the marking (a) of the division of the linguistic chain into words, and, (b) of phonetic features of these words.
This provides a partial explanation for a remarkable solidity of the Vedic tradition from ca. the sixth century B.C.E., since an alphabetic or consistently syllabic nature of the still not yet convincingly deciphered Indus script seems now quite unlikely. The fixity provided by the resulting pada-plus-saṃhitā transmission of texts was, as technical requirement, at the basis of the transition from a family and clan oriented parallel transmission of Vedic texts and rituals into an amalgamation of family traditions and a simultaneous functional and geographic diversification into Vedas and further into Śākhās. Before the major landmark of the adoption of the pada-plus-saṃhitā transmission – unique for the Vedic tradition because the Avesta has only pada-pāṭha like characteristics for which it is more likely that they derive directly from early attempts to write down the main texts in a syllabic or near-alphabetic script – we have to assume, first, that the Vedic tradition was somewhat more flexible and receptive, horizontally, between branches and more appreciative of change, vertically, over time, against the background of a continuity over the generations of the art of poetic creation (a situation which corresponds with the self-image of Vedic poets as found in Vedic hymns), and, second, that other factors contributed to its continuity, especially the robustness of the ritual.
From geographical references in the oldest of the Vedic texts, the Rgveda, and especially from its references to rivers and mountains, it is clear that the poets associated with its hymns are to be located, long before our landmark of pada-plus-saṃhitā transmission (tentatively, the sixth century B.C.E.), in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, in an area that corresponds to large parts of current day Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-west India. The Rgveda and the Yajurvedic texts and the ritual system they presuppose are thoroughly agro-pastoral in character. Since agro-pastoralism is basically expansive in character and requires an ecological environment which it tends to transform in the course of time, these two data provide us with important chronological and geographical parameters that can be matched not only with dispersed textual testimonies but also with paleoecological findings on the historical and pre-historical presence of forests and cultivated areas and on population ratios in the entire northern part of the Indian subcontinent, from Afghanistan via Kurukṣetra to the Gangatic plains and Magadha. Some evidence is already available, and feasible investigations can be defined that can be expected to provide further crucial (paleoecological) evidence.
The next major stage is the development of Jainism and Buddhism in the sixth – fifth century B.C.E., which presuppose an already transformed, agricultural and largely urbanized environment in (Greater) Magadha. The early development of the last of the major Vedic divisions to become independent, the Atharvavedic branches – which, unlike their Yajurvedic and Sāmavedic predecessors, do not get a chance to develop completely before they are almost entirely swept away by new ecological and religious developments – lays in between these two, and shows not only evidence of a largely agricultural environment, but also of a general resource crunch: Brahmins who have given up an earlier semi-nomadic life-style in favour of a more settled one are experiencing increased difficulties to find stable niches for survival. In several other cases judgements can be made on the chronological relation between (a) a node of differentiation in the development from a unified collection – with fuzzy edges – of (pre-) “Rg-vedic” hymns for different families, to the four Vedas and their canonized branches, (b) major historical textual landmarks (such as: the adoption of a pada-plus-saṁhitā from ca. the sixth century B.C.E.; testimonies in Pāṇini’s work and that of his commentators; the – relatively late – shift to writing, etc.), and (c) major, in principle tangible, landmarks in the ecological and economical history of South Asia. The new perspective developed here has implications for understanding the texts and for the principles to be followed in editing them.