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Ardor
In a mediation on the wisdom of the Vedas, Roberto Calasso brings ritual and sacrifice to bear on the modern world
In this revelatory volume, Roberto Calasso, whom The Paris Review has called “a literary institution,” explores the ancient texts known as the Vedas. Little is known about the Vedic people who lived more than three thousand years ago in northern India: they left behind almost no objects, images, or ruins. They created no empires. Even the hallucinogenic plant the soma, which appears at the center of some of their rituals, has not been identified with any certainty. Only a “Parthenon of words” remains: verses and formulations suggesting a daring understanding of life.
“If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities,” writes Calasso, “they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture.” This is the ardor of the Vedic world, a burning intensity that is always present, both in the mind and in the cosmos.
With his signature erudition and profound sense of the past, Calasso explores the enigmatic web of ritual and myth that defines the Vedas. Often at odds with modern thought, these texts illuminate the nature of consciousness more than today’s neuroscientists have been able to do. Following the “hundred paths” of the Śatapatha Brāhmaņa, an impressive exegesis of Vedic ritual, Ardor indicates that it may be possible to reach what is closest by passing through that which is most remote, as “the whole of Vedic India was an attempt to think further.”
In this revelatory volume, Roberto Calasso, whom The Paris Review has called “a literary institution,” explores the ancient texts known as the Vedas. Little is known about the Vedic people who lived more than three thousand years ago in northern India: they left behind almost no objects, images, or ruins. They created no empires. Even the hallucinogenic plant the soma, which appears at the center of some of their rituals, has not been identified with any certainty. Only a “Parthenon of words” remains: verses and formulations suggesting a daring understanding of life.
“If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities,” writes Calasso, “they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture.” This is the ardor of the Vedic world, a burning intensity that is always present, both in the mind and in the cosmos.
With his signature erudition and profound sense of the past, Calasso explores the enigmatic web of ritual and myth that defines the Vedas. Often at odds with modern thought, these texts illuminate the nature of consciousness more than today’s neuroscientists have been able to do. Following the “hundred paths” of the Śatapatha Brāhmaņa, an impressive exegesis of Vedic ritual, Ardor indicates that it may be possible to reach what is closest by passing through that which is most remote, as “the whole of Vedic India was an attempt to think further.”
432 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2010
113 people are currently reading
1303 people want to read
About the author
Roberto Calasso
66 books673 followersRoberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian publisher and writer. He was born into a family of the local upper class, well connected with some of the great Italian intellectuals of their time. His maternal grandfather Giovanni Codignola was a professor of philosophy at Florence University. Codignola created a new publishing house called La Nuova Italia, in Florence, just like his friend Benedetto Croce had done in Bari with Laterza. His uncle Tristano Codignola, partigiano during the Resistenza, after the war joined the political life of the new republic, and was for a while Minister of Education. His mother Melisenda – who gave up a promising academic career to raise her three children – was a scholar of German literature, and had worked on Hölderlin’s translations of the Greek poet Pindar. His father Francesco was a law professor, first at Florence University and then in Rome, where he eventually became dean of his faculty. He has been working for Adelphi Edizioni since its founding in 1962 and became its Chairman in 1999. His books have from 1990 been translated into most European languages. After a successful career in publishing he has become a leading intellectual.[citation needed]
He is the author of a work in progress, that started with The Ruin of Kasch in 1983, a book welcome by Italo Calvino, dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand and to a reflection on the culture of modernity. This was followed in 1988 by The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, a book where the tale of Cadmus and his wife Harmonia becomes a pretext for re-writing the great tales of Greek mythology and reflect on the reception of Greek culture for a contemporary readership. The trend for portraying whole civilizations continues with Ka (where the subject of the re-writing is Hindu mythology). K. instead restricts the focus to one single author(Franz Kafka); this trend continues with Il rosa Tiepolo, inspired by an adjective used by Proust to describe a shade of pink used by Tiepolo in his paintings. With his latest book, La folie Baudelaire, Calasso goes back to the fresco of whole civilisations, this time re-writing the lives and works of the artists that revolutionised our artistic taste, the symbolist poets and impressionist painters.
His essaystic production is collected in a few books: I quarantanove gradini (The Forty-nine Steps, a collection of essays about major authors and thinkers in European modernity addressed to Pierre Klossowski and his wife). His Oxford lessons are collected in Literature and the Gods. In 2005 Calasso published La follia che viene dalle ninfe, a collection of essays on the influence of the nymph in literature, which is discussed through authors ranging from Plato to Nabokov.
He is the author of a work in progress, that started with The Ruin of Kasch in 1983, a book welcome by Italo Calvino, dedicated to the French statesman Talleyrand and to a reflection on the culture of modernity. This was followed in 1988 by The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, a book where the tale of Cadmus and his wife Harmonia becomes a pretext for re-writing the great tales of Greek mythology and reflect on the reception of Greek culture for a contemporary readership. The trend for portraying whole civilizations continues with Ka (where the subject of the re-writing is Hindu mythology). K. instead restricts the focus to one single author(Franz Kafka); this trend continues with Il rosa Tiepolo, inspired by an adjective used by Proust to describe a shade of pink used by Tiepolo in his paintings. With his latest book, La folie Baudelaire, Calasso goes back to the fresco of whole civilisations, this time re-writing the lives and works of the artists that revolutionised our artistic taste, the symbolist poets and impressionist painters.
His essaystic production is collected in a few books: I quarantanove gradini (The Forty-nine Steps, a collection of essays about major authors and thinkers in European modernity addressed to Pierre Klossowski and his wife). His Oxford lessons are collected in Literature and the Gods. In 2005 Calasso published La follia che viene dalle ninfe, a collection of essays on the influence of the nymph in literature, which is discussed through authors ranging from Plato to Nabokov.
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June 1, 2020
Before starting, in choosing to read Roberto Calasso’s Ardor, I was jumping into a something much deeper that was ever intended for a casual reader. If my analysis suggests that I am in over my head, that is likely. My first recommendation is that you do first, what I did last. Find out some things about Roberto Calassso. He is an Italian writer and has been the longtime director of Italy’s most prestigious publishing house Adelphi. Under his directions writers like Milos Kundera have reached a wide audience. I do not think he is an academic type scholar, but he has a passionate fascination for classic mythology. Still on the theme of me as an unprepared reader, my first recommendation is that you get a deeper understanding of the writer before you clear your head for what will be a deep and rich exploration.
Calasso’s Ardor writes in the tradition of academic analysis, but what comes though is not a dry, dispassionate step wise assembly of a scholastic argument. What blasts at you is his positive advocacy for his deeply held conviction that he has come to understand the Vedic People. In particular he advocates that his understanding of their rituals is a plain read of the Vedic cultural mind. The Vedic people lived in India about 3000 years ago. We get no exact map and almost nothing more about them except that they were nomadic or semi-nomadic and likely a warrior people. They left behind no cities, palaces, buildings, statuary, or much more than thousands of pages of the Vedas. Calasso draws us in with simple case that if we are to know these people this is all of the archeology there is. In the beginning there is the word and there is not going to be much else.
One of the reasons why there may have not been time or energy for anything else is that the Vedics practiced enormously elaborate, time consuming, indeed all-consuming rituals. Calasso references one that was intended to last 1000 years and a more earth bond short version of only three years. Later it is suggested that the 1000-year ritual was something of a minimal for the gods to perform but they had granted humans a dispensation to settle for the three-year version. Another ultimate import ritual was one that required 1000 horses. The presumption being that whoever held this ritual had the earthly power to assemble and lose this many animals. Exactly how many and what the time variations are between the various rituals is not given. Perhaps be because rituals varied across the history of these people. It may not be clear which ones were performed when or for how long. Calasso may not know or care, or I missed it. There is a vast importance of the ritual use of a plant called Soma. It is not known what this plant was or if supplies of it lasted the life of the Vedics . The horns and skin of the Black Antelope are also of great importance and Calasso thinks that this animal was virtually lost to the Vedics.
If I got it straight, the bulk of the book re-creates what a version of their rituals must have included. Each detail of this ritual is described and analyzed. Rarely is any of this entirely concrete and almost all depends on the authors certainty that his read and his research is correct. He has immersed himself in the scholarship that preceded him, but he has no hesitation in diverting from these earlier opinions. Initially I was put off by his positivism, but ultimately this is his version and he adamantly takes full ownership. You are in for the ride or put the book down.
Resisting the temptation to fumble around with my interpretation of the vastly involved and sophisticated philosophy and psychology of these rituals I will relate a few of my reactions that may help you to appreciate just how necessary are the 400 pages of this book. The Vedic universe origins mythology is not that far from many others. But after the opening similarities everything gets doubled over, layered and different. We are first introduced to the Sun god, not because he is first but because he gives us the Ardor (tapas), the heat, in particular the heat of the mind to think and convert thinking into doing. From here on will follow a flood of terms and names. All defined but never collected into a glossary -so difficult to reference in something like a book review.
As interesting are a flow of concepts are a detailed way of thinking. Sacrifices will become a frequent topic. For example, all animals started time walking on two legs, it was only as man began to seek out animal sacrifices that animals, in fear switched to four. The logic of this is that sacrifices (man, animal or plant) are murder. This killing is sinful and teh murder of the animal/plant and requires atonement. This kind of logic is a natural outcome of a belief system founded on questions and seeking to define ever smaller shades of differences. Speaking is more powerful than thinking because thinking is only a potential, speaking is a form of action. If the exact best item required for a ritual is absent, what is the sequence down through the third or the fifth choice that may still be acceptable?
As the book progresses it is manifest that the Vedic people had a lot of unique ways of thinking. Men come from untruth, ritual is a way to truth and so steps must be taken to separate humans from their state of being human. The gods must be tempted into participating a human ritual. All of their senses and appetites, include their sexual appetites must be tempted. The sacrifice must be particularly apportioned including a secret portion for a defeated god who must still be served.
Keeping in mind that all sacrifices, including plant sacrifices are considered killing. Calasso has a particular problem with human sacrifices. Among the Vedic the killing of a human is a very serious crime, yet there are Vedas rituals that call for human sacrifice. Calasso suggest that these were rare or abandoned but in this he is suddenly unsure.
Reading Ardor is as much an invitation to re-think your own attitudes and viewpoints as an effort to explain the thought processes of a long dead and, this is Calasso’s conclusion, a failed religion.
His conclusions are only in passing about the amount of influence the Vadas continue to have in India and Buddhism. He is more concerned with a modern world that has abandoned anything resembling classic religious belief. Like many who start from this perspective he is concerned with the loss to poetry and various needful community values, but does not answer how to enforce religious belief among those who have seen behind the curtain and are not going to be held to a need to pretend.
Calasso recognizes that mythology is not just stories about remote gods. A household, a neighborhood even a sports team can have its own mythology. Failure to recognize and respect these lessor gods is also an invitation to worldly problems.
Like properly academic writers, Calasso writes with a lot of content and thought but also with a lot of emotion. Ideas are easier to grasp than hold. Ardor is rich in arguments in favor of living in very conscious ways but also to ask questions much deeper than one can find in most classic Western mythology. I am sure Ardor will need more than one read. I am sure I will want to read other Calasso books. I am not as sure that I will have the time to deeply ingest all that is in Ardor. Putting the book down, I wonder if Calasso is one of those Orientalists; guilty of interpreting this part of Asian history from a perspective tainted by his not being native to the children of the Vedics. Perhaps this cannot be known without there being a critical scholarship of Calasso. This man could become a reader’s career. And likely a reader could be the better for it.
Calasso’s Ardor writes in the tradition of academic analysis, but what comes though is not a dry, dispassionate step wise assembly of a scholastic argument. What blasts at you is his positive advocacy for his deeply held conviction that he has come to understand the Vedic People. In particular he advocates that his understanding of their rituals is a plain read of the Vedic cultural mind. The Vedic people lived in India about 3000 years ago. We get no exact map and almost nothing more about them except that they were nomadic or semi-nomadic and likely a warrior people. They left behind no cities, palaces, buildings, statuary, or much more than thousands of pages of the Vedas. Calasso draws us in with simple case that if we are to know these people this is all of the archeology there is. In the beginning there is the word and there is not going to be much else.
One of the reasons why there may have not been time or energy for anything else is that the Vedics practiced enormously elaborate, time consuming, indeed all-consuming rituals. Calasso references one that was intended to last 1000 years and a more earth bond short version of only three years. Later it is suggested that the 1000-year ritual was something of a minimal for the gods to perform but they had granted humans a dispensation to settle for the three-year version. Another ultimate import ritual was one that required 1000 horses. The presumption being that whoever held this ritual had the earthly power to assemble and lose this many animals. Exactly how many and what the time variations are between the various rituals is not given. Perhaps be because rituals varied across the history of these people. It may not be clear which ones were performed when or for how long. Calasso may not know or care, or I missed it. There is a vast importance of the ritual use of a plant called Soma. It is not known what this plant was or if supplies of it lasted the life of the Vedics . The horns and skin of the Black Antelope are also of great importance and Calasso thinks that this animal was virtually lost to the Vedics.
If I got it straight, the bulk of the book re-creates what a version of their rituals must have included. Each detail of this ritual is described and analyzed. Rarely is any of this entirely concrete and almost all depends on the authors certainty that his read and his research is correct. He has immersed himself in the scholarship that preceded him, but he has no hesitation in diverting from these earlier opinions. Initially I was put off by his positivism, but ultimately this is his version and he adamantly takes full ownership. You are in for the ride or put the book down.
Resisting the temptation to fumble around with my interpretation of the vastly involved and sophisticated philosophy and psychology of these rituals I will relate a few of my reactions that may help you to appreciate just how necessary are the 400 pages of this book. The Vedic universe origins mythology is not that far from many others. But after the opening similarities everything gets doubled over, layered and different. We are first introduced to the Sun god, not because he is first but because he gives us the Ardor (tapas), the heat, in particular the heat of the mind to think and convert thinking into doing. From here on will follow a flood of terms and names. All defined but never collected into a glossary -so difficult to reference in something like a book review.
As interesting are a flow of concepts are a detailed way of thinking. Sacrifices will become a frequent topic. For example, all animals started time walking on two legs, it was only as man began to seek out animal sacrifices that animals, in fear switched to four. The logic of this is that sacrifices (man, animal or plant) are murder. This killing is sinful and teh murder of the animal/plant and requires atonement. This kind of logic is a natural outcome of a belief system founded on questions and seeking to define ever smaller shades of differences. Speaking is more powerful than thinking because thinking is only a potential, speaking is a form of action. If the exact best item required for a ritual is absent, what is the sequence down through the third or the fifth choice that may still be acceptable?
As the book progresses it is manifest that the Vedic people had a lot of unique ways of thinking. Men come from untruth, ritual is a way to truth and so steps must be taken to separate humans from their state of being human. The gods must be tempted into participating a human ritual. All of their senses and appetites, include their sexual appetites must be tempted. The sacrifice must be particularly apportioned including a secret portion for a defeated god who must still be served.
Keeping in mind that all sacrifices, including plant sacrifices are considered killing. Calasso has a particular problem with human sacrifices. Among the Vedic the killing of a human is a very serious crime, yet there are Vedas rituals that call for human sacrifice. Calasso suggest that these were rare or abandoned but in this he is suddenly unsure.
Reading Ardor is as much an invitation to re-think your own attitudes and viewpoints as an effort to explain the thought processes of a long dead and, this is Calasso’s conclusion, a failed religion.
His conclusions are only in passing about the amount of influence the Vadas continue to have in India and Buddhism. He is more concerned with a modern world that has abandoned anything resembling classic religious belief. Like many who start from this perspective he is concerned with the loss to poetry and various needful community values, but does not answer how to enforce religious belief among those who have seen behind the curtain and are not going to be held to a need to pretend.
Calasso recognizes that mythology is not just stories about remote gods. A household, a neighborhood even a sports team can have its own mythology. Failure to recognize and respect these lessor gods is also an invitation to worldly problems.
Like properly academic writers, Calasso writes with a lot of content and thought but also with a lot of emotion. Ideas are easier to grasp than hold. Ardor is rich in arguments in favor of living in very conscious ways but also to ask questions much deeper than one can find in most classic Western mythology. I am sure Ardor will need more than one read. I am sure I will want to read other Calasso books. I am not as sure that I will have the time to deeply ingest all that is in Ardor. Putting the book down, I wonder if Calasso is one of those Orientalists; guilty of interpreting this part of Asian history from a perspective tainted by his not being native to the children of the Vedics. Perhaps this cannot be known without there being a critical scholarship of Calasso. This man could become a reader’s career. And likely a reader could be the better for it.
December 11, 2022
Mallarmé and Valéry, recalled at their most hieratic, held my hands for a while:
The Rgveda, after all, can also be read as the most magnificent - and also most persuasive - example of Symbolist poetry.
But Calasso wrote his own books of creation, not just annotations; he made a mythology, and you have to find him there. I love this image of mental solitude, which you could say is in a French Symbolist tradition, say Baudelaire’s abandonment by his mother:
Prajapati’s drama took place without witnesses and continued for a long time, before even the arrival of the gods. It was an autistic drama, which saw no respite nor the consolation of an external viewpoint that could emphasize or condemn - it didn’t matter which - but could at least play a part in what was happening. There was no way of distinguishing prodigies or disasters from mirages. And yet they were all Prajapati had. This had to be the source for what one day, after long reworking, would naively be called reality.
The Rgveda, after all, can also be read as the most magnificent - and also most persuasive - example of Symbolist poetry.
But Calasso wrote his own books of creation, not just annotations; he made a mythology, and you have to find him there. I love this image of mental solitude, which you could say is in a French Symbolist tradition, say Baudelaire’s abandonment by his mother:
Prajapati’s drama took place without witnesses and continued for a long time, before even the arrival of the gods. It was an autistic drama, which saw no respite nor the consolation of an external viewpoint that could emphasize or condemn - it didn’t matter which - but could at least play a part in what was happening. There was no way of distinguishing prodigies or disasters from mirages. And yet they were all Prajapati had. This had to be the source for what one day, after long reworking, would naively be called reality.
February 10, 2017
The gods sacrificed the sacrifice through the sacrifice.
~Rigveda 1.164.50
Vedic era was supposed to be existed in ancient India before the existence of all civilizations, before the evolution of all religions, before the birth of all Prophets, sometimes even before the inception of God. Vedic people left behind only texts, that too in an almost extinct language, Sanskrit. That is the biggest riddle. No other language is compatible to explain verses in Sanskrit. There are many authentic translations of Vedas and Upanişhads either by French, German or English researchers. Each adopted different approach. Though they have profound knowledge of language but they lack the heritage which lies deep rooted in the ethnic origin along with the true Indian mythical spirit which is very much necessary to understand the essence of these ancient Indian texts. The typical western approach by reason is not sufficient or may not be applicable here to interpret the contents. The uncertainty and deadlock situation lies not only in linguistic level but on philosophical context too. This disputes still continue unchallenged. Ultimately those translations remain incomplete and inadequate. Also, most of the Indian languages are impregnated with Sanskrit vocabulary and it is comparatively easy to conceive the ideas but unfortunately the lack of scholarly approach (there can be exceptions) to ‘discourse’, making this knowledge grossly still at large even within India. But why there are no major voice raised to correct or enrich these translations ? Answer is very interesting. For whom those texts were written 3000 years before, those people can still read, learn and practice it in the same language and in the same fashion without any difficulty and they are content. Who are they? Brahmin, descendant of early Aryas. They are the owners of those Vedic scripts. Those texts were not intended for the public when it was written and even now. Throughout India, even today, whatever written 3000 years back is followed/ practiced in its pure essence without any change and passing to coming generations but only among Brahminic society who practice Vedic procedures. So the original intention/purpose of the doctrine remain intact even after 30 centuries. Mastering a language may not be sufficient but the birth itself decides the kind of knowledge a person can attain. This is how they preserved the knowledge. Can we say it a beauty? or legacy? Or why can’t it be any other way even after many thousands of years?
Vedic doctrines are not self taught study materials. Veda is most probably the widest, most complex and most ramified area. Saņkalpa, Sraddhā, Smaranam are the keys for Vedic liturgy. Vedic knowledge has to be learned from a Guru, master at very early age of a novice to become an officiant or seer. A novice first listens the hundreds of thousands of mantras, slokas, formulas and interpretations then repeat the hymns infinite times himself for years before he start assisting his master in rites. At this stage he slowly start understanding the meaning of what he has learned. Its not over. For the complete grasp of the knowledge he has to feel it. All the Vedic procedures are for pleasing or pacifying Gods by homa. The officiant has to establish a communication channel with Gods by libation, oblation and sacrifice by offering substance in Agni along with chants and hymns . Here the substance can be milk or a goat or a human being. This entire procedure collectively called yajńá. That’s very crucial. The officiant is the middle man between earth and world of Gods. The assumption is Gods watch everything from above. The officiant has to bring them down and make them satisfy and send them back. The presence of God is visible only to him. He takes all the impurity and evil of this world by exhausting his vitality. Any flaw would cost his life or sanity. It takes sometimes an entire life time of a person to learn all these. He does it not for him or his family but for the well being of the world, entire mankind. A life long tyāga, renunciation is expected here. He is the true sacrificer. That’s how Vedic education goes. Conducting ritual acts or sacrifice and experience the celestial presence of Gods helps to get the true meaning of the texts, especially to grasp what a script or language cant explain. Here Westerners become helpless once again. They cant simulate it however they try.
Rigveda says the ultimate aim of all the formalities are for achieving immortality, to stop death, in other words to become God. Many centuries later Gautama Buddha achieved the same in a different way by stopping repeated rebirth. This is the main structural variation in the doctrines of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Rigveda is followed by other three Vedas and is considered as the most important text. Still certain things it didn’t answer. It says all the ritual procedures by man is for pleasing Gods and saving this world. But it also says Gods too doing the same rituals in cosmic world. But whom are they trying to please? Also it says : He is watching all these from beyond. Who is that person keeping eye on Gods and from where? Mysteriously Rigveda kept silence.
In this excellent Italian book Roberto Calasso prepares us for a Vedic mission. Here he quote, correct, contradict, struggle and resolve against existing works of many distinguished Western Vedic scholars to clarify the misconceptions. Still this enigmatic knowledge remains undistilled. He guides us through the intricate labyrinth of the lost era to grasp the vastness of the mammoth knowledge before you read Vedas, Upanişhads, Purāņas, Samhitās, Sūtras or Vendāntas. This one is a perfect book as a prerequisite. Here you can start your Vedic expedition.
April 24, 2021
Coming from a Hindu household of a joint family where my Grandmother was the presiding matriarch, there were daily 'pujas' at the family puja-room done by someone - one of the many young women in the house. This was generally not attended by everyone.And there were the special puja days where a particular deity's idol would be prayed to on the designated day, the puja being conducted by a priest. There were certain rules which had to be followed and people didnt really know why. When asked the answer would invariably be -otherwise something bad would happen. Calasso's book cleared up for me, why we did certain rituals, in certain ways. For instance, all the fire offerings - whether after a wedding, a birth, or death, had to be floated away in the river or any waterbody. Calasso explains in detail, citing the Satpatha Brahmana, the myth and the philosophy behind it. I found it infinitely fascinating. This is just one example of the many elucidations he has given, without being at all condescending towards a'childish, barbaric' religion which is the general tone of older intellectuals. It is a difficult book to summarise, as others too have noted. The composers of the Vedas have not left behind any architecture or sculpture, unlike the greeks or the egyptians. But those monuments have no relevance at all to the people who exist there now whereas the texts which the vedic people left behind still lives on in the Indian subcontinent, resonating in our evryday lives, our culture and behaviour, in our ethos.
September 3, 2017
O ardor, de Roberto Calasso, é, não necessariamente nessa ordem:
I - Uma baita análise do pensamento védico, em seus pressupostos, constituição e consequências.
II - Uma ambiciosa tentativa de elaborar uma "grande narrativa" sobre o mundo contemporâneo, a partir do conceito de sacrifício.
III - Um livro indispensável para quem se interessa por questões relacionadas a ritual, mitologia e pensamento religioso.
IV - Um ótimo texto para se ler junto com Twin Peaks, pensando nos nexos entre as duas obras.
V - Uma fonte rica de referências para pensar questões como: a natureza dividida da consciência; a relação da antropologia e da filosofia com pensamentos "exóticos"; as implicações e de escolhas e práticas de caráter espiritual; etc.
VI - Um primor de escrita e paixão pelo objeto.
VII - Muitas coisas mais, que eu poderia tentar elencar aqui como um ritualista védico, mas que deixo para serem descobertas na experiência de leitura, ou ditas mais tarde.
I - Uma baita análise do pensamento védico, em seus pressupostos, constituição e consequências.
II - Uma ambiciosa tentativa de elaborar uma "grande narrativa" sobre o mundo contemporâneo, a partir do conceito de sacrifício.
III - Um livro indispensável para quem se interessa por questões relacionadas a ritual, mitologia e pensamento religioso.
IV - Um ótimo texto para se ler junto com Twin Peaks, pensando nos nexos entre as duas obras.
V - Uma fonte rica de referências para pensar questões como: a natureza dividida da consciência; a relação da antropologia e da filosofia com pensamentos "exóticos"; as implicações e de escolhas e práticas de caráter espiritual; etc.
VI - Um primor de escrita e paixão pelo objeto.
VII - Muitas coisas mais, que eu poderia tentar elencar aqui como um ritualista védico, mas que deixo para serem descobertas na experiência de leitura, ou ditas mais tarde.
May 31, 2022
"If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities, they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture."
Calasso's incandescent exegesis of the rituals of the mysterious ancient Vedic people (whom some call the Aryans) becomes a means of deconstructing certain myths underpinning Western 'civilization'. In painstaking detail and with great clarity he interprets the "meticulously codified ritual acts" of the Vedic people, with a focus on elaborate ceremonies of sacrifice. What emerges is a picture of ritual per se as a means of shaping a positive metaphysics of the necessary fact of violence, confronting the enigma of man's place amid the grand psychoses of the universe.
Calasso's incandescent exegesis of the rituals of the mysterious ancient Vedic people (whom some call the Aryans) becomes a means of deconstructing certain myths underpinning Western 'civilization'. In painstaking detail and with great clarity he interprets the "meticulously codified ritual acts" of the Vedic people, with a focus on elaborate ceremonies of sacrifice. What emerges is a picture of ritual per se as a means of shaping a positive metaphysics of the necessary fact of violence, confronting the enigma of man's place amid the grand psychoses of the universe.
May 7, 2023
Soberbio, monumental e inabarcable. Estilo poético, ensayístico, rizomatico, enigmático. Y, sin embargo, accesible y adictivo.
Es el contenido, la fisura de sentido que se derrama entre sus párrafos e imágenes (míticas, retóricas), lo que la hacen tan compleja. Una metatesis doctoral no apta para los que no tengan un mínimo de bagaje histórico, mítico o antropologico porque, así lo creo, a más conocimientos previos, más se saborea la revolución calassiana.
Sin duda, la hibridación de fuentes, estilos y evocaciones logra lo que ni Mauss, ni Bataille ni Girard (pese a su genio) lograron descifrar. ¿Qué es el sacrificio? [¿Y el sujeto? ¿Y el deseo?]
Es el contenido, la fisura de sentido que se derrama entre sus párrafos e imágenes (míticas, retóricas), lo que la hacen tan compleja. Una metatesis doctoral no apta para los que no tengan un mínimo de bagaje histórico, mítico o antropologico porque, así lo creo, a más conocimientos previos, más se saborea la revolución calassiana.
Sin duda, la hibridación de fuentes, estilos y evocaciones logra lo que ni Mauss, ni Bataille ni Girard (pese a su genio) lograron descifrar. ¿Qué es el sacrificio? [¿Y el sujeto? ¿Y el deseo?]
September 5, 2018
"L'ardore" è un meraviglioso testo di antropologia culturale. Calasso ci guida in un viaggio incredibile, alla scoperta di terre e forme di pensiero lontanissime dal nostro Occidente capitalistico, tanto nel tempo quanto nello spazio. Una qualche conoscenza preliminare del pensiero indiano rende la lettura più semplice, ma non è indispensabile; lo stile di Calasso è snello, ricco ma non ridondante, tecnico ma non paternalistico. Lettira altamente consigliata a chiunque provi interesse per filosofia, antropologia e storia delle religioni.
August 17, 2015
An interior introduction to Hinduism and to religion as such. Subtle and demanding.
November 26, 2016
First off, this book is a MUST if you enjoyed Roberto Calasso's previous work "Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India" (much like what "Atlas Shrugged" is to "The Fountainhead".)
Few people on the planet have the appetite for reading something very abstract/abstruse like "satapatha brahmana" much less write a commentary on it fathoming the depths of ancient thought. This work is a rare feat of delivering the essence of it (just like how the soma plant is pressed to get its essence) in an accessible way for the layman. This work truly proves that "vedic thought"is astrally very far from modern day "secularists" and indologists alike.
Its an opinionated work (treats Brahmanas much the same way algebraists treat grassman algebra which is to say its a self contained system and does not need to make sense outside of it).Once you bite this axiom of self-containedness you get some very beautiful results like "eating ida violence" (where ida loosely translates to is). It is not for the faint of the heart and not meant for everyone's consumption but caters to a certain palate that wants to "think further". If you love philosophy this work is a true tour de farce and Calasso truly qualifies for "ya evam veda" (he who knows thus)
Few people on the planet have the appetite for reading something very abstract/abstruse like "satapatha brahmana" much less write a commentary on it fathoming the depths of ancient thought. This work is a rare feat of delivering the essence of it (just like how the soma plant is pressed to get its essence) in an accessible way for the layman. This work truly proves that "vedic thought"is astrally very far from modern day "secularists" and indologists alike.
Its an opinionated work (treats Brahmanas much the same way algebraists treat grassman algebra which is to say its a self contained system and does not need to make sense outside of it).Once you bite this axiom of self-containedness you get some very beautiful results like "eating ida violence" (where ida loosely translates to is). It is not for the faint of the heart and not meant for everyone's consumption but caters to a certain palate that wants to "think further". If you love philosophy this work is a true tour de farce and Calasso truly qualifies for "ya evam veda" (he who knows thus)
July 13, 2019
Maravilloso y necesario.
August 29, 2022
sacrifice as the anti capitalist mode of exchange when????
April 28, 2025
Sometimes while reading this I thought that it is a little too dense, too obscure, too rich with Sanskrit terminology that I found hard to penetrate. But it is filled with so many moments of insight and brilliance that I can't help but look upon this book with awe. The concluding chapter, in particular, does a lot to make this otherwise wide-ranging book feel more comprehensible. What stands out for me the most is this notion, which Calasso attributes to the Vedic sages, that sacrifice is an inexorable part of existence because all life depends upon the exchange of energies. Whether it is the air we breath in, or an animal we kill and consume, something must be destroyed and transformed in order to maintain life. Paradoxically, to ease the guilt invoked by these acts, further killing is often required...and so the Vedic peoples developed a system of ritual actions which could subsume all of existence.
April 30, 2023
In "Ardor," Roberto Calasso provides a unique and fascinating exploration of the Vedas, the ancient Indian texts that form the foundation of Hinduism. It is a gripping book that gets straight to the point with no meandering introduction or a convoluted preface/foreword by some authority claiming to be more knowledgeable than the author.
One of the key themes of is the idea of sacrifice, which is central to the Vedic worldview. The author explores the different types of sacrifice described in the Vedas, from the simplest offerings of food and drink to the more elaborate rituals involving the sacrifice of animals and even humans. He delves into the symbolic significance of these sacrifices, showing how they represent the giving up of one's own desires and attachments in order to attain a higher spiritual state. He even equates our present day ‘sacrifice’ with income-tax
Throughout the book, Calasso also emphasizes the importance of the Vedas as a living tradition that continues to evolve and shape Indian culture and spirituality. He shows how the Vedas have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries, and how they continue to inspire new generations of seekers and thinkers.
The writing style is erudite and dense, and readers will need to be patient and willing to engage with his complex ideas. However, for those who are willing to put in the effort, "Ardor" offers a rich and rewarding exploration of one of the world's most fascinating and influential spiritual traditions. By delving deeply into the texts and ideas of the Vedas, the text provides readers with a profound understanding of the spiritual and cultural heritage of India, and the enduring relevance of these ancient texts in the modern world. Besides Vedic philosophy and the complicated rituals, the author talks about the duality of nature atman/aham in the Vedic context, the quantum theory of superposition, the binary property of light, the binary code.
I picked up a significant fact – the use of the karil fruit Capparis decidua as a sacrificial item points to the arid milieu the Vedic nomads (aka the Aryans) settled in, after migrating from ice-bound hilly regions in search of the disappearing mysterious Soma. Wandering herds of black-buck Antilope cervicapra also used for sacrifice (as an euphemism for hunting) also points to the arid sere landscape of our Vedic ancestors.
Here are some memorable quotes form the book
The polygamous nature of Kunti can be possibly justified by this
One of the key themes of is the idea of sacrifice, which is central to the Vedic worldview. The author explores the different types of sacrifice described in the Vedas, from the simplest offerings of food and drink to the more elaborate rituals involving the sacrifice of animals and even humans. He delves into the symbolic significance of these sacrifices, showing how they represent the giving up of one's own desires and attachments in order to attain a higher spiritual state. He even equates our present day ‘sacrifice’ with income-tax
It may be life, for the animal that is killed; or money, for the taxpayer who is invited to make “sacrifices” (in this case we are no longer talking about ritual, but the word continues to be used in a broader sense); or it may be a liquid, even just water; or a perfume, such as incense, which is dispersed…Another important theme of the book is the idea of the divine as an infinite, incomprehensible force that underlies all of existence. The author draws on a range of Vedic texts to explore this idea, showing how it relates to other key concepts in Hinduism, such as karma, rebirth, and the search for liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
Throughout the book, Calasso also emphasizes the importance of the Vedas as a living tradition that continues to evolve and shape Indian culture and spirituality. He shows how the Vedas have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries, and how they continue to inspire new generations of seekers and thinkers.
The writing style is erudite and dense, and readers will need to be patient and willing to engage with his complex ideas. However, for those who are willing to put in the effort, "Ardor" offers a rich and rewarding exploration of one of the world's most fascinating and influential spiritual traditions. By delving deeply into the texts and ideas of the Vedas, the text provides readers with a profound understanding of the spiritual and cultural heritage of India, and the enduring relevance of these ancient texts in the modern world. Besides Vedic philosophy and the complicated rituals, the author talks about the duality of nature atman/aham in the Vedic context, the quantum theory of superposition, the binary property of light, the binary code.
I picked up a significant fact – the use of the karil fruit Capparis decidua as a sacrificial item points to the arid milieu the Vedic nomads (aka the Aryans) settled in, after migrating from ice-bound hilly regions in search of the disappearing mysterious Soma. Wandering herds of black-buck Antilope cervicapra also used for sacrifice (as an euphemism for hunting) also points to the arid sere landscape of our Vedic ancestors.
Here are some memorable quotes form the book
The Veda moves in a state of panic … the hymns seemed to be not just composed in cold blood but frenetic works, produced in an atmosphere of oratorical jousting, where victory is gained by best formulating the mythical-ritual-based enigmas …Here is a defence of vegetarianism – the prohibition on beef-consumption – from the third kanda of the Satpatha Brahmana.But see the last part for the dichotomy and conundrum that prevail in The Vedaskanda of the Satapta Brahmana
Then “one of the two became the devourer and the became food. Agni became the devourer and Soma the food. Down there is nothing else than devourer and devoured.” And there are these two poles in everything that happens, without exception and at every level. But Bhrgu discovered something else: the two poles were reversible. At a certain moment the positions will switch, indeed they will have to switch, because this is the order of the world. This explains why all that is said about Agni can also, at a certain moment, be said about Soma. And vice versa …
The gods said, “Certainly the cow and the ox support everything here; come, let us bestow on the cow and the ox whatever strength belongs to the other species!” It wasn’t therefore just the human hide that had been transferred to cattle. But strength in general, dispersed throughout nature. So cows became a concentration of everything. To kill them would have meant everything. “If someone were to eat an ox or a cow, it would be as if, so to speak, he were to eat everything or, so to speak, as if he were to destroy everything.” Already the insistence – twice in two lines – on the particle iva, “so to speak,” warns us that we are in a highly fraught and dangerous area. The tone is serious – and immediately afterward there is a resounding threat, one of the earliest formulations of the doctrine of reincarnation: “One [who acts} thus could be reborn as a strange being, as one of evil repute, as one of whom it is said: ‘He has caused a woman to abort’ or ‘He has committed a sin.’ So he must not eat (the meat of) an ox or cow.”More memorable quotes
The words are short, abrupt, they do not seem to allow for any reply. But they are turned on their head in the next sentence: “Nonetheless Yājñavalkya said: ‘I, for my part, eat it, provided it is tender.’”
Compared with every monotheistic god, and with all other plural deities, Prajapati is more intimate and more remote, more elusive and more familiar …A case of superposition?
But something in the very nature of the risis was an epistemological scandal: they alone were allowed to belong to the unmanifest and at the same time take part in the events of everyday life, which they secretly ruled.
From the Rigveda to the Bhagwad Gita a way or reasoning is developed that never acknowledges a single subject, but rather presupposes a dual subject. This is because the constitution of the mind is dual: consisting of a gaze that perceives (eats) the world and of a gaze that contemplates the gaze directed at the world. The dual constitution of the mind implies that two birds dwell within each of us: the Self, atman, and the I, aham… similar and opposing powers, the one - aham - intrusive yet insubstantial, the other - atman - supreme and untarnishable, yet difficult to coax out from its habitual hiding place.The maya or enigma of God
Meanwhile, in parallel, the inner world expanded and accommodated the essential parts of everything: worlds, gods, Vedas, the vital breaths. “Let him know this: ‘All the worlds I have place within my Self, and my Self I have placed in all the worlds; all the gods I have placed within my Self, and my Self I have placed in all the gods; all the Vedas I have placed in myself, and my Self I have placed within all the Vedas; all the vital breaths I have placed within my Self, and my Self I have placed within all the vital breaths.’ For imperishable, in fact, are the worlds, imperishable the gods, imperishable the Vedas, imperishable the breaths imperishable in all this: and in truth anyone who knows this passes from imperishable to imperishable, conquers recurring death and reaches the full measure of life.”So what is life, what is truth – puzzle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a paradox, wrapped in a conundrum and so ad inifitum?
The Vedic ritualists, instead, seemed perversely attracted paradoxes in general. In them they say the very substance of enigmas, And enigmas formed the bedrock of what they expressed, in their hymns and in their commentaries on ritual.The esoteric essence of Man
“In truth, O Gautama, a man is Agni: words are the logs, breath is the smoke, the tongue the flame, the eye the embers, the ear the sparks.” As for the woman, her correspondence with the fire was entirely sexual: “Logs are her womb, her attraction to the smoke the smoke, the embers coitus, the sparks pleasure.” An erotic compendium.The brazen patriarchal attitude that persists today. And such a pitiable end of puny humans!
…death. Man is conceived, then “lives so longs as he lives. When he dies, he is placed on the fire. His fire is Agni, the logs the logs, the smoke the smoke, the flame the flame, the embers the embers, the sparks the sparks.”
The polygamous nature of Kunti can be possibly justified by this
…this must encourage the husband to be humble. Even though he will be the first to touch his bride’s body, he will be her fourth lover: “Soma had her first, the Gandharva had her second, her third husband was Agni, the fourth the son of man {approximate analogy being respectively Kunti’s lovers: Sun (Karna), Dharma (Yudhister), Indra (Arjun) and Vayu (Bhim)Carrying on
the verses of the gayatri, the fundamental meter, have to be recited, one by one, without an intake of breath. This creates a tiny, impregnable cell of continuity in the boundless expanse of discontinuity. And so the gayatri meter one day became the bird Gayatri and had the strength to fly high into the sky to conquer Soma, that intoxicating and all-enveloping fluid in which the officiant recognized the supreme expansion of continuum …An example of quantum entanglement
ॐ । पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ खं ब्रह्म । खं पुराणम्; वायुरं खम् इति ह स्माह कौरव्यायणीपुत्रः; वेदो'यं ब्राह्मणा विदुः; वेदैनेन यद्वेदितव्यम् ॥ १ ॥
इति प्रथमं ब्राह्मणम् ॥
Om. That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.
Om is the ether-Brahman—the eternal ether. ‘The ether containing air,’ says the son of Kauravyāyaṇī. It is the Veda, (so) the Brāhmaṇas (knowers of Brahman) know; (for) through it one knows what is to be known
This game in which each element, each entity that has a name, is and at the same time is not another entity, to which it is tied by a kinship, by a bond, by a connection is the very game of Vedic thought.And, finally
Nature, for urban man, is a barometric variation and a few leafy islands scattered across the urban fabric. Apart form this, it is raw material for manufacture and a scenario for leisure. For Vedic man, nature was the place where the powers were manifest and where exchanges between powers took place. Vedis society was a cautious attempt at becoming a part of those exchanges, without disturbing them too much and without being annihilated by them.A book that requires rereading and savouring the mystical mysterious world of the Vedas.
August 7, 2020
Very lucid, wonderful book. My first introduction to Vedic beliefs and religion in general: this book is a great introduction to the overall atmosphere of the time.
I am primarily writing this review to clear up some of the concepts in my head and do apologize for any mischaracterisations or simplifications.
The Vedics were an ancient people- living in and around Northern South Asia around 3000 years ago. They called themselves the 'Aryas' or the nobles (from where we get the word Aryan from). Their religion is revealed in groups of texts called the Vedas- Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaceda. The Vedas mix hymns, mantras, direction for rituals, thoughts of various ascetics, metaphysics and ethics. They are held to be 'sruti' or heard(i.e. divinely inspired by the sounds of the universe'). Other famous Hindu texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata are 'smriti' or remembered, and not held to be divinely inspired.
The Vedics believed that the whole universe had a set moral and natural order called 'Sat'(compare Zoroastrian: 'Asha') and constant attention was needed to prevent it from devolving into 'Asat' or Chaos (compare Zoroastrian: Druj). This attention was held through constant rituals and sacrifice, the minutest details of which were recorded in the Vedas.
A part of this Sat or Cosmic Order is the caste system or 'varnas'(meaning: colour). Brahmins(the priests), Kshatriyas(the warriors), Vaishyas (the businessmen) and Shudras (the working class). Below this were the Dalits('oppressed') or 'untouchables' who were not part of any caste at all.
The three most frequently mentioned Gods are: Indra, Agni and Soma. Indra is the king of the gods, god of the warriors, lightning and the sky(compare PIE Dyeus Pitar, Roman Jupiter). Agni is the god of fire, the devourer. He is the one who conquers while men merely follow. The frequent sacrifices into a fire invoke Agni's protection and wrath against enemies. Soma, is the seldom personified god of the intoxicating hallucinogenic plant Soma, which the Vedics were very fond of, and frequently had rapturous experiences with it. (After Indra's attempt to rob Soma from the other Gods, the kshatriyas were forbidden to drink it except at the express behest of a Brahman).
The primordial god was Prajapati('Lord of all creatures') who created the universe through a process of self-differentiation and thus faded in the process. His consort was Vac or speech.
The gods managed to kill Vrtra, the primordial monster and got Soma from his rotting carcass.
Prajapati or Ka, created the world by desiring to exist. He was an amalgam of the Seven Rishis, Saptarshis. with Vac he created 33 deities- the Vasus, the Adityas, The Visvadevahs.
Prajapati also defeated Mrityu(Death) yet is also him in later myths, and the fight is constant. Prajapati is the background noise of existence.
Rituals are primarily in the form of libations, or pouring liquid onto a fire. This agnihotra can be basic (as done by the family Patriarch) twice a day or more and more complex, until some rites lasting months or years were stunning in their complexity. The libation is a way of connecting with the gods.
Unlike in the Judaeo-Christian world, where human supremacy over animals were taken for granted and guaranteed by God, in the Vedic age it was more ritualized to free them of guilt at killing another creature. Every animal walked on two legs at first, but the gods put the vajra, or thunderbolt, or sacrifical post and they then gave in and stood on four legs. This made man into the sacrificer and the animal into the sacrificed. Through imitation and mimesis, man learnt the use of tools and became the sacrificer. Rituals are a way to expiate the guilt of that. It exhalts the guilt such, that the animal 'consents'. Man is not superior, as much as animals are fallen beings.
Now, why does man wear clothes unlike every other creature? Well, the Gods flayed man and put his skin on the cow to prevent the cow being cold or endure the weather. Therefore, man alone wears a robe- and must never appear naked before a cow, else the cow will think that the man has come back for his skin and will run away. Man is like an open sore, and anointing is therefore needed. This also explains his physical weakness. As man is the only creature, that needs a robe- this is the clearest indicator of his artificiality. Naturalness is a temporary state for man, artifice the norm. Rituals also fall under this artifice, to maintain the Order.
The fear of death is a later invention, the whole concept of it in the Hindu religion is seemingly totally at odds with Christianity. The soul is reborn again and again in different lives and depending on its karma(actions) is either born higher or lower than its previous life. The prime motive of life is to escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth and the Atman to become a part of Brahman (not to eke out another existence in an extraterrestrial world).
A constant sense of impermeable mysteries pervades the Vedas- about that which we will not know anything. The anirukta- indistinctness, the limitless explicit, murmured during rituals.
The concept of Residue also permeates, through the cyclical nature of the world.
The Sannyasin was an proto-artist, proto-individual, cultivating his tapas, his ardor deep in the forest. Tapas or Ardor cannot be translated as mere penance- it is like a burning fire inside an individual which purifies and brings someone closer to achieving moksha (liberation). Just like Prajapati channeled his Tapas to bring the world into existence, so does the hermit channel it to achieve spiritual purification and be closer to Atman.
Tyaga or spiritual detachment is needed: 'from the fruits of one's actions' to achieve knowledge of the atman. Does not refer to ascetic renunciation of the world, but renunciation of selfishness and desire. 'Make use of the world, as if not using it' to meditate and concentrate on the atman.
The sacrifice is impure and needs to be purified. It is a repentance for the guilt of killing. Sacrifice brings together debt and desire. Sacrifice is an open sore, that needs to be healed through ritual purification (baths etc).
Philosophy can be replaced by Anthropology and there are no primitive peoples. A unity of doctrines and doctrinal complexity shows itself across the world- The cosmological Maori beliefs are just as complex as the Vedic beliefs and have similar themes. There is a unity of cosmological themes throughout all ancient cosmologies. Myth and ritual cannot precede each other- but are mutual supports. Myth adapts itself for institutions too. The sacred is Society itself. (inspired by Durkheim).
Soma helps us get a Dionysian joy, feeling of grand cosmic unity. Power of the gods is due to Soma.
Encyclopedia Britannica has a good article summarizing Hindu theology (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hind...)
Philosophy:
The individual human is made up of three parts- the physical body, a mind (which is actually part of the body, not a separate Res Cogitans) and pure consciousness( Atman).
The mind also has three divisions, using the analogy of a chariot. The Senses are the horses, the Mind is the driver and the rider is Pure Consciousness or Atman. Atman is the difference between being asleep and awake, it is the pure sense of Being in the world (equivalent of Heidegger's Dasein perhaps?).
The world has three layers of knowledge- the Apparent world(of senses, unreality), the pragmatic world(that allows to see things hermeneutically, e.g. see a green sharp-edged thing as a leaf) and Absolute Reality(Brahman). The Atman is a part of the Brahman, and we can become aware of its existence through meditation. This wordless awareness is to produce Ananda or happiness.
The mind, Atman as a part of Brahman came before Speech. Unlike the Logos of the Greeks and Jews. Venerate it.
Discarding the I, ego, Aham, the Cartesian Cogito is seen as the prime motive of meditation- because it leads to a false perception of existence. The I needs to be surpassed for the Atman to be discovered. The end process of 'enlightenment' is encapsulated in the famous saying: 'Tat Tvam Asi'( That art Thou). This asserts the equivalence of the individual Atman to the whole of existence, that the Atman is a part of Brahman.
Comparative Analysis of our society:
-In Vedic world, everything was a symbol. Unlike ours where only some things are.
-Sacrifice constantly exists. Much as we blanch at the horrors of the ancients, our lab animals are equivalent- we all 'sacrifice for the greater good'. We do it for medicine and research, the Vedics did it for communion with the Gods and maintenance of health and cosmic order.
-Ancient religions imply that nature has meaning, while science denies it all meaning.
-Veda is more willing to entertain doubts as the Ego can never know Brahman, even more than scientific empiricism with its claims to knowing about reality and absolute Truth.
-Secular society got rid of duties to God, gods. But we are still just as bound to transcendentals- like the Religion of Society as Durkheim characterizes it. Nazis were also religious, as they believed In a transcendental of the superior Aryan Race. Durkheim's 'MORAL BEING' -we create a Transcendental to justify ethics. This is Society, for us. E.g. politicians makes speeches about 'sacrifice', suicide killing is still common, we still have rituals like annual speeches, traditions, holidays. Countless human beings have become victims because of our devotion to Society.
-'myths of today' is incorrect. Because to have myths you need a grand tree. This is why Faust or Don Giovanni seem so odd for instance, because they are one isolated branch. We have long since lost the tree. So we can still appreciate the beauty of the Vedas, as a coherent tree.
I am primarily writing this review to clear up some of the concepts in my head and do apologize for any mischaracterisations or simplifications.
The Vedics were an ancient people- living in and around Northern South Asia around 3000 years ago. They called themselves the 'Aryas' or the nobles (from where we get the word Aryan from). Their religion is revealed in groups of texts called the Vedas- Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaceda. The Vedas mix hymns, mantras, direction for rituals, thoughts of various ascetics, metaphysics and ethics. They are held to be 'sruti' or heard(i.e. divinely inspired by the sounds of the universe'). Other famous Hindu texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata are 'smriti' or remembered, and not held to be divinely inspired.
The Vedics believed that the whole universe had a set moral and natural order called 'Sat'(compare Zoroastrian: 'Asha') and constant attention was needed to prevent it from devolving into 'Asat' or Chaos (compare Zoroastrian: Druj). This attention was held through constant rituals and sacrifice, the minutest details of which were recorded in the Vedas.
A part of this Sat or Cosmic Order is the caste system or 'varnas'(meaning: colour). Brahmins(the priests), Kshatriyas(the warriors), Vaishyas (the businessmen) and Shudras (the working class). Below this were the Dalits('oppressed') or 'untouchables' who were not part of any caste at all.
The three most frequently mentioned Gods are: Indra, Agni and Soma. Indra is the king of the gods, god of the warriors, lightning and the sky(compare PIE Dyeus Pitar, Roman Jupiter). Agni is the god of fire, the devourer. He is the one who conquers while men merely follow. The frequent sacrifices into a fire invoke Agni's protection and wrath against enemies. Soma, is the seldom personified god of the intoxicating hallucinogenic plant Soma, which the Vedics were very fond of, and frequently had rapturous experiences with it. (After Indra's attempt to rob Soma from the other Gods, the kshatriyas were forbidden to drink it except at the express behest of a Brahman).
The primordial god was Prajapati('Lord of all creatures') who created the universe through a process of self-differentiation and thus faded in the process. His consort was Vac or speech.
The gods managed to kill Vrtra, the primordial monster and got Soma from his rotting carcass.
Prajapati or Ka, created the world by desiring to exist. He was an amalgam of the Seven Rishis, Saptarshis. with Vac he created 33 deities- the Vasus, the Adityas, The Visvadevahs.
Prajapati also defeated Mrityu(Death) yet is also him in later myths, and the fight is constant. Prajapati is the background noise of existence.
Rituals are primarily in the form of libations, or pouring liquid onto a fire. This agnihotra can be basic (as done by the family Patriarch) twice a day or more and more complex, until some rites lasting months or years were stunning in their complexity. The libation is a way of connecting with the gods.
Unlike in the Judaeo-Christian world, where human supremacy over animals were taken for granted and guaranteed by God, in the Vedic age it was more ritualized to free them of guilt at killing another creature. Every animal walked on two legs at first, but the gods put the vajra, or thunderbolt, or sacrifical post and they then gave in and stood on four legs. This made man into the sacrificer and the animal into the sacrificed. Through imitation and mimesis, man learnt the use of tools and became the sacrificer. Rituals are a way to expiate the guilt of that. It exhalts the guilt such, that the animal 'consents'. Man is not superior, as much as animals are fallen beings.
Now, why does man wear clothes unlike every other creature? Well, the Gods flayed man and put his skin on the cow to prevent the cow being cold or endure the weather. Therefore, man alone wears a robe- and must never appear naked before a cow, else the cow will think that the man has come back for his skin and will run away. Man is like an open sore, and anointing is therefore needed. This also explains his physical weakness. As man is the only creature, that needs a robe- this is the clearest indicator of his artificiality. Naturalness is a temporary state for man, artifice the norm. Rituals also fall under this artifice, to maintain the Order.
The fear of death is a later invention, the whole concept of it in the Hindu religion is seemingly totally at odds with Christianity. The soul is reborn again and again in different lives and depending on its karma(actions) is either born higher or lower than its previous life. The prime motive of life is to escape from the cycle of birth and rebirth and the Atman to become a part of Brahman (not to eke out another existence in an extraterrestrial world).
A constant sense of impermeable mysteries pervades the Vedas- about that which we will not know anything. The anirukta- indistinctness, the limitless explicit, murmured during rituals.
The concept of Residue also permeates, through the cyclical nature of the world.
The Sannyasin was an proto-artist, proto-individual, cultivating his tapas, his ardor deep in the forest. Tapas or Ardor cannot be translated as mere penance- it is like a burning fire inside an individual which purifies and brings someone closer to achieving moksha (liberation). Just like Prajapati channeled his Tapas to bring the world into existence, so does the hermit channel it to achieve spiritual purification and be closer to Atman.
Tyaga or spiritual detachment is needed: 'from the fruits of one's actions' to achieve knowledge of the atman. Does not refer to ascetic renunciation of the world, but renunciation of selfishness and desire. 'Make use of the world, as if not using it' to meditate and concentrate on the atman.
The sacrifice is impure and needs to be purified. It is a repentance for the guilt of killing. Sacrifice brings together debt and desire. Sacrifice is an open sore, that needs to be healed through ritual purification (baths etc).
Philosophy can be replaced by Anthropology and there are no primitive peoples. A unity of doctrines and doctrinal complexity shows itself across the world- The cosmological Maori beliefs are just as complex as the Vedic beliefs and have similar themes. There is a unity of cosmological themes throughout all ancient cosmologies. Myth and ritual cannot precede each other- but are mutual supports. Myth adapts itself for institutions too. The sacred is Society itself. (inspired by Durkheim).
Soma helps us get a Dionysian joy, feeling of grand cosmic unity. Power of the gods is due to Soma.
Encyclopedia Britannica has a good article summarizing Hindu theology (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hind...)
Philosophy:
The individual human is made up of three parts- the physical body, a mind (which is actually part of the body, not a separate Res Cogitans) and pure consciousness( Atman).
The mind also has three divisions, using the analogy of a chariot. The Senses are the horses, the Mind is the driver and the rider is Pure Consciousness or Atman. Atman is the difference between being asleep and awake, it is the pure sense of Being in the world (equivalent of Heidegger's Dasein perhaps?).
The world has three layers of knowledge- the Apparent world(of senses, unreality), the pragmatic world(that allows to see things hermeneutically, e.g. see a green sharp-edged thing as a leaf) and Absolute Reality(Brahman). The Atman is a part of the Brahman, and we can become aware of its existence through meditation. This wordless awareness is to produce Ananda or happiness.
The mind, Atman as a part of Brahman came before Speech. Unlike the Logos of the Greeks and Jews. Venerate it.
Discarding the I, ego, Aham, the Cartesian Cogito is seen as the prime motive of meditation- because it leads to a false perception of existence. The I needs to be surpassed for the Atman to be discovered. The end process of 'enlightenment' is encapsulated in the famous saying: 'Tat Tvam Asi'( That art Thou). This asserts the equivalence of the individual Atman to the whole of existence, that the Atman is a part of Brahman.
Comparative Analysis of our society:
-In Vedic world, everything was a symbol. Unlike ours where only some things are.
-Sacrifice constantly exists. Much as we blanch at the horrors of the ancients, our lab animals are equivalent- we all 'sacrifice for the greater good'. We do it for medicine and research, the Vedics did it for communion with the Gods and maintenance of health and cosmic order.
-Ancient religions imply that nature has meaning, while science denies it all meaning.
-Veda is more willing to entertain doubts as the Ego can never know Brahman, even more than scientific empiricism with its claims to knowing about reality and absolute Truth.
-Secular society got rid of duties to God, gods. But we are still just as bound to transcendentals- like the Religion of Society as Durkheim characterizes it. Nazis were also religious, as they believed In a transcendental of the superior Aryan Race. Durkheim's 'MORAL BEING' -we create a Transcendental to justify ethics. This is Society, for us. E.g. politicians makes speeches about 'sacrifice', suicide killing is still common, we still have rituals like annual speeches, traditions, holidays. Countless human beings have become victims because of our devotion to Society.
-'myths of today' is incorrect. Because to have myths you need a grand tree. This is why Faust or Don Giovanni seem so odd for instance, because they are one isolated branch. We have long since lost the tree. So we can still appreciate the beauty of the Vedas, as a coherent tree.
August 4, 2018
Ardor es uno de los significados de la palabra en sánscrito tapas. Uno de los tres elementos del yoga de la acción (ver yogasutra de Patanjali II.1). Este libro es un extenso comentario del Sataphata Brahmana, texto védico que como escribe Calasso en su conclusión: "Es como meterse en el centro irradiante de la India. Pero no era a esto a lo que aspiraba la idea -abandonada más tarde- del comentario. Al contrario, era un intento de salir de toda coordenada geográfica y temporal para volver a observar en su carácter elemental, ciertos gestos, advertidos o no, que nos acompañan siempre y sin los cuales no existiríamos: los actos de respirar, tragar, copular, cortar, matar, evacuar, hablar, quemar, verter, pensar, soñar, mirar, y algunos otros." (p. 458).
Consideren leer la conclusión del libro titulada 'Antecedentes y consecuentes' también al iniciar el libro.
Consideren leer la conclusión del libro titulada 'Antecedentes y consecuentes' también al iniciar el libro.
July 19, 2025
Todo aquele que se considera um leitor deve, em algum momento, ter se encantando pelas mitologias. Criaturas lendárias, heróis e batalhas míticas que compõe o imaginário de civilizações antigas, além de um combustível para jovens leitores ávidos por aventura, são mitos fundadores e foram sistemas de pensamento completos hoje defasados e perdidos no cemitério das lendas.
O material para quem gosta desse tipo de leitura é vasto e é muito fácil encontrar textos em domínio público de tudo quanto é tipo de mitologia. Quem gosta desse tipo de leitura, já deve ter lidado com um certo cansaço ao ler coletâneas de mitos: diferente de romances de de fantasia ou poemas épicos, eles não tem um compromisso narrativo, muitas vezes são apenas eventos surreais que se sobrepõe sem muito sentido, simbolizando tabus, morais ou são simplesmente estranhos mesmo. Mas para além de contos de fada, o que os mitos dizem sobre aqueles que os conceberam?
O leitor que põe a mão numa coletânea de mitos — tomemos a mitologia nórdica por exemplo — antes de se maravilhar com as aventuras de Thor ou as trapaças de Loki, já se perguntou como aquelas pessoas reagiam e interpretavam a realidade? Os mitos não são apenas contos da carochinha ou aspirações poéticas, eles são de fato uma tentativa de explicar o mundo, cada mito ou lenda é uma interpretação direta da realidade. Em O Ardor, Roberto Calasso mergulha na mitologia dos Vedas tentando entender quem foi esse povo que não deixou marcas históricas senão os seus textos — que estão entre os mais antigos textos humanos que se tem registro!
Quem foram aqueles que não construíram nada, não deixaram ruínas, não demarcaram fronteiras, não desenharam mapas, ou construíram objetos que constituíssem uma memorabília? A única coisa que restou dos povos védicos foram textos sagrados — oriundos de uma tradição oral que pode anteceder em milênios os próprios textos — com regras minuciosas orientado rituais e sacrifícios. Calasso, cuja obra é reconhecida pelas divagações sobre o papel do mito no mundo moderno, tece esse ensaio literário à respeito desses textos. Num tipo de engenharia reversa, Calasso usa os Vedas para tentar entender como a Civilização Védica via o mundo.
A escrita de Calasso é bastante hermética e um tanto confusa. O leitor de O Ardor não irá encontrar uma coletânea de mitos, mas será lançado diretamente numa discussão prolixa repleta de inferências filosóficas. Complexo, mas é essa a maneira que o autor encontra para discutir uma filosofia que não mais existe e que sequer foi registrada — senão em mitos "sem sentido". Mitos que lançam areia no caldo do progresso, outro mito por si só, que encerra a ideia de que temos hoje, uma percepção do mundo superior à das civilizações antigas.
"Se se perguntasse aos homens védicos porque não fundaram cidades, nem reinos, nem impérios, poderiam ter respondido que não buscavam o poder, mas sim a embriaguez."
Se no princípio parece estranho um povo ser tão dedicado ao sacrifício em detrimento da construção de uma memória, é durante o lodaçal verborrágico de Calasso, que vamos percebendo que seu pensamento estava muito alinhado com as noções do mundo moderno, mas com foco no espírito e na natureza da consciência.
Regras sobre o sacrifício e a relação dos homens com os outros animais, por exemplo, evocam a evolução e ecoam a eterna inquietação de nos sentirmos tão apartados do mundo real. Os védicos creram que os animais em algum momento andaram sobre duas patas como nós, mas se renderam à forma quadrúpede como submissão ao sacrifício — ficavam sobre quatro patas quando presos à estaca sacrificial. Num outro mito, a pele do homem foi colocada na vaca para que ela pudesse suportar a chuva, o frio e o calor, e por conta disso o homem agora precisa usar roupas para substituir a proteção que perdeu. Estórias que a princípio parecem ingênuas, encerram explicações para dilemas ainda hoje insolúveis.
Uma outra crença que sugere a existência de dois pássaros, um que come o mundo e outro que apenas observa e que compõe a mente (são o Ãtman (Si) e o Aham (Eu)), já sugerem, desde aqueles tempos, uma visão de que a consciência não seria uma unidade indivisível.
"(Purusa) Olhando ao redor não viu nada além de Si. E como primeira coisa disse: Eu sou."
Essa entidade, a pupila, sendo observada de volta quando olha para dentro de si mesma é a consciência divisível e que surge após ser nomeada por uma palavra, uma visão filosófica bastante moderna. A própria importância da linguagem para a consciência, tema tão recorrente no pensamento ocidental, também tem seu lugar nos Vedas, já que a Vãc (palavra) e Manas (mente) são deuses fundadores da realidade e que disputam a primazia, sobre quem antecedeu quem. Nos Vedas, na maioria das vezes, Manas é primordial à Vãc, mas na cultura ocidental essa ordem se inverte. Os védicos não ficariam para trás numa conversa com Kant, Nietsche ou Freud. Para os védicos praticamente tudo se resume ao ritual, modo de pensar que já detém em si uma visão entrópica da natureza — com toda uma mitologia a respeito dos resíduos criados pelo sacrifício e o que é sacrificial ou não é — resultado de uma inquietação ética e moral universal.
O Ardor é complexo, já que o autor não é bom em explicar mas sim em discorrer sobre os mais variados assuntos. A organização do livro também é relativamente confusa, já que dois capítulos em especial concluem a obra, mas não são sequenciais. É no capítulo Tiki, que Calasso propõe aquilo que seria uma conclusão para O Ardor. Num dos únicos capítulos que não falam sobre os Vedas o autor relembra o pensamento de Marcel Mauss e seu grande impacto na mudança de paradigma da antropologia no século XX: quando a visão progressista, segundo a qual civilizações primitivas evoluiriam gradualmente e os mitos e crenças seriam equívocos do indivíduo, foi substituída pela ideia de que os mitos não se originam mais no indivíduo, mas sim nas interações sociais. Sob essa óptica não existem civilizações primitivas, apenas diferentes propostas para explicar o mundo.
Na conclusão do livro, Calasso traz a sua, sempre presente, crítica ao mundo moderno: nós, indivíduos da sociedade secular, nos afastamos dos pensamento mitológicos, mas nunca deixamos de produzir mitos — parece que é impossível para o cérebro humano considerar a realidade de outra forma — então continuamos produzindo símbolos e mitos mas perdemos a conexão com o significado. Nós, habitantes do mundo moderno, eliminamos o Telos das narrativas, mas ainda perseguimos um sentido em tudo o que produzimos.
Um livro difícil de ler — ainda mais porque o autor não deixa claro o que está discutindo, nem com base em quê — mas que resgata a visão de mundo dos védicos e de como lidavam com a realidade. Numa hipotética encruzilhada sobre o modo de pesar, a maioria das civilizações desenvolveram pensamentos utilitaristas e uma profunda preocupação com o mundo físico, tentando à todo custo se perpetuar através de objetos e símbolos. Os védicos por outro lado se voltaram para o mundo interior, para a natureza da consciência, buscando um meio de se perderem dentro de si mesmos e ("talvez") se fundir com uma consciência coletiva, eles buscavam a embriaguez!
O material para quem gosta desse tipo de leitura é vasto e é muito fácil encontrar textos em domínio público de tudo quanto é tipo de mitologia. Quem gosta desse tipo de leitura, já deve ter lidado com um certo cansaço ao ler coletâneas de mitos: diferente de romances de de fantasia ou poemas épicos, eles não tem um compromisso narrativo, muitas vezes são apenas eventos surreais que se sobrepõe sem muito sentido, simbolizando tabus, morais ou são simplesmente estranhos mesmo. Mas para além de contos de fada, o que os mitos dizem sobre aqueles que os conceberam?
O leitor que põe a mão numa coletânea de mitos — tomemos a mitologia nórdica por exemplo — antes de se maravilhar com as aventuras de Thor ou as trapaças de Loki, já se perguntou como aquelas pessoas reagiam e interpretavam a realidade? Os mitos não são apenas contos da carochinha ou aspirações poéticas, eles são de fato uma tentativa de explicar o mundo, cada mito ou lenda é uma interpretação direta da realidade. Em O Ardor, Roberto Calasso mergulha na mitologia dos Vedas tentando entender quem foi esse povo que não deixou marcas históricas senão os seus textos — que estão entre os mais antigos textos humanos que se tem registro!
Quem foram aqueles que não construíram nada, não deixaram ruínas, não demarcaram fronteiras, não desenharam mapas, ou construíram objetos que constituíssem uma memorabília? A única coisa que restou dos povos védicos foram textos sagrados — oriundos de uma tradição oral que pode anteceder em milênios os próprios textos — com regras minuciosas orientado rituais e sacrifícios. Calasso, cuja obra é reconhecida pelas divagações sobre o papel do mito no mundo moderno, tece esse ensaio literário à respeito desses textos. Num tipo de engenharia reversa, Calasso usa os Vedas para tentar entender como a Civilização Védica via o mundo.
A escrita de Calasso é bastante hermética e um tanto confusa. O leitor de O Ardor não irá encontrar uma coletânea de mitos, mas será lançado diretamente numa discussão prolixa repleta de inferências filosóficas. Complexo, mas é essa a maneira que o autor encontra para discutir uma filosofia que não mais existe e que sequer foi registrada — senão em mitos "sem sentido". Mitos que lançam areia no caldo do progresso, outro mito por si só, que encerra a ideia de que temos hoje, uma percepção do mundo superior à das civilizações antigas.
"Se se perguntasse aos homens védicos porque não fundaram cidades, nem reinos, nem impérios, poderiam ter respondido que não buscavam o poder, mas sim a embriaguez."
Se no princípio parece estranho um povo ser tão dedicado ao sacrifício em detrimento da construção de uma memória, é durante o lodaçal verborrágico de Calasso, que vamos percebendo que seu pensamento estava muito alinhado com as noções do mundo moderno, mas com foco no espírito e na natureza da consciência.
Regras sobre o sacrifício e a relação dos homens com os outros animais, por exemplo, evocam a evolução e ecoam a eterna inquietação de nos sentirmos tão apartados do mundo real. Os védicos creram que os animais em algum momento andaram sobre duas patas como nós, mas se renderam à forma quadrúpede como submissão ao sacrifício — ficavam sobre quatro patas quando presos à estaca sacrificial. Num outro mito, a pele do homem foi colocada na vaca para que ela pudesse suportar a chuva, o frio e o calor, e por conta disso o homem agora precisa usar roupas para substituir a proteção que perdeu. Estórias que a princípio parecem ingênuas, encerram explicações para dilemas ainda hoje insolúveis.
Uma outra crença que sugere a existência de dois pássaros, um que come o mundo e outro que apenas observa e que compõe a mente (são o Ãtman (Si) e o Aham (Eu)), já sugerem, desde aqueles tempos, uma visão de que a consciência não seria uma unidade indivisível.
"(Purusa) Olhando ao redor não viu nada além de Si. E como primeira coisa disse: Eu sou."
Essa entidade, a pupila, sendo observada de volta quando olha para dentro de si mesma é a consciência divisível e que surge após ser nomeada por uma palavra, uma visão filosófica bastante moderna. A própria importância da linguagem para a consciência, tema tão recorrente no pensamento ocidental, também tem seu lugar nos Vedas, já que a Vãc (palavra) e Manas (mente) são deuses fundadores da realidade e que disputam a primazia, sobre quem antecedeu quem. Nos Vedas, na maioria das vezes, Manas é primordial à Vãc, mas na cultura ocidental essa ordem se inverte. Os védicos não ficariam para trás numa conversa com Kant, Nietsche ou Freud. Para os védicos praticamente tudo se resume ao ritual, modo de pensar que já detém em si uma visão entrópica da natureza — com toda uma mitologia a respeito dos resíduos criados pelo sacrifício e o que é sacrificial ou não é — resultado de uma inquietação ética e moral universal.
O Ardor é complexo, já que o autor não é bom em explicar mas sim em discorrer sobre os mais variados assuntos. A organização do livro também é relativamente confusa, já que dois capítulos em especial concluem a obra, mas não são sequenciais. É no capítulo Tiki, que Calasso propõe aquilo que seria uma conclusão para O Ardor. Num dos únicos capítulos que não falam sobre os Vedas o autor relembra o pensamento de Marcel Mauss e seu grande impacto na mudança de paradigma da antropologia no século XX: quando a visão progressista, segundo a qual civilizações primitivas evoluiriam gradualmente e os mitos e crenças seriam equívocos do indivíduo, foi substituída pela ideia de que os mitos não se originam mais no indivíduo, mas sim nas interações sociais. Sob essa óptica não existem civilizações primitivas, apenas diferentes propostas para explicar o mundo.
Na conclusão do livro, Calasso traz a sua, sempre presente, crítica ao mundo moderno: nós, indivíduos da sociedade secular, nos afastamos dos pensamento mitológicos, mas nunca deixamos de produzir mitos — parece que é impossível para o cérebro humano considerar a realidade de outra forma — então continuamos produzindo símbolos e mitos mas perdemos a conexão com o significado. Nós, habitantes do mundo moderno, eliminamos o Telos das narrativas, mas ainda perseguimos um sentido em tudo o que produzimos.
Um livro difícil de ler — ainda mais porque o autor não deixa claro o que está discutindo, nem com base em quê — mas que resgata a visão de mundo dos védicos e de como lidavam com a realidade. Numa hipotética encruzilhada sobre o modo de pesar, a maioria das civilizações desenvolveram pensamentos utilitaristas e uma profunda preocupação com o mundo físico, tentando à todo custo se perpetuar através de objetos e símbolos. Os védicos por outro lado se voltaram para o mundo interior, para a natureza da consciência, buscando um meio de se perderem dentro de si mesmos e ("talvez") se fundir com uma consciência coletiva, eles buscavam a embriaguez!
October 21, 2020
This is a book about the Vedic people. The funny thing about the Vedic people (also referred to as the Indo-Aryans) is they left next to no archaeological traces within their cultural horizon in India. Basically nothing is known bout them. It can't even be determined exactly when they came into existence (their ancestors crossed the Hindu Kush somewhere around 1500 bc, give or take a handful of centuries). But they did leave one thing, what can probably be considered the foundational texts of Hinduism: the Vedas.
Calasso finds the Vedics were a culturally distinct and historically unique people whose thought, as expressed in their holy texts, is "difficult to find parallels in other civilizations." In its "sometimes unfathomable eccentricity, [it] had this peculiarity: it always posed crucial questions, in the face of which all thinking going back to the Enlightenment shows itself to be clumsy and inadequate." And furthermore, "the [Vedic] ritualists did not offer solutions, but they knew how to isolate and contemplate the knots that cannot be undone. It is by no means certain that thought can do much more."
So why Ardor? It is an attempt to translate an essentially untranslatable Sanskrit word, tapas, as something like an impulse or generation of energy that is behind human drives such as creativity or desire ("ardor precedes desire," as Calasso puts it). And according to Calasso tapas, or ardor, is the force that drives the action in the Vedas.
What do the Vedas give us? A clear model of consciousness:
A model of consciousness (just as a side note) that I find the mirror image of Zizek's renewal of Dialectical Materialism in Absolute Recoil:
This book was a full meal. One for the ages, in my opinion. Especially when what emerges is a very insightful rumination of society:
Calasso finds the Vedics were a culturally distinct and historically unique people whose thought, as expressed in their holy texts, is "difficult to find parallels in other civilizations." In its "sometimes unfathomable eccentricity, [it] had this peculiarity: it always posed crucial questions, in the face of which all thinking going back to the Enlightenment shows itself to be clumsy and inadequate." And furthermore, "the [Vedic] ritualists did not offer solutions, but they knew how to isolate and contemplate the knots that cannot be undone. It is by no means certain that thought can do much more."
So why Ardor? It is an attempt to translate an essentially untranslatable Sanskrit word, tapas, as something like an impulse or generation of energy that is behind human drives such as creativity or desire ("ardor precedes desire," as Calasso puts it). And according to Calasso tapas, or ardor, is the force that drives the action in the Vedas.
What do the Vedas give us? A clear model of consciousness:
Relations between the Self, atman, and the I, aham, are tortuous, fragile, ambiguous. And it couldn't be otherwise. Everything goes back to the beginning, when there was only the Self, in the form of a "person," purusa: "Looking around, he saw nothing other than his Self. And the first thing he said was: 'I am.' And so was born the name 'I.'" It is the primal scene of consciousness, which reveals the precedence of a reflexive pronoun—atman, one's Self. Thinking about one's self precedes thought. And thinking about one's Self takes the form of a person, purusa: it has a physiognomy, an outline. This is immediately indicated with another pronoun: I, aham. In that moment a new entity appears, which has the name I and is superimposed point by point on the Self, from which it is born. From then on—until knowledge, veda, flashes forth—the I will be indistinguishable from the Self. They look like identical twins. They have the same outline, the same sense of omnipotence and centrality. After all, at the moment when the I appeared, there was still nothing else in the world. And so the first to fall into the delusion of the I was the Self. After the creatures were created, the Self, as a result of its many erotic metamorphoses, looked at the world and realized that it had created it. And it said: "Indeed I (aham) am creation," already forgetting that this I was only the first of his creatures.
A model of consciousness (just as a side note) that I find the mirror image of Zizek's renewal of Dialectical Materialism in Absolute Recoil:
Recall the joke from Lubitsch's Ninotchka: '"Waiter! Get me a cup of coffee without cream!' (I'm sorry, sir, we have no cream, but I can get you a coffee without milk!)" This is a joke about the objet a—but where is the objet a here? We have to ask a simple question: why do we add milk or cream to coffee? Because there is something missing in straight coffee, and it is this void in coffee—the non-identity of coffee with itself—that we try to fill with a series of supplements. What this means (among other things) is that there is no full self-identical "plain coffee," that every "plain coffee" is already a "coffee without." And it is here that the objet a is located: coffee is in itself not One but a One plus something. This reflexive logic of filling in the void is at work even (and especially) when we are offered a product in its pure, authentic state, with nothing added, like "plain coffee," any addition to which would just ruin the taste. In this case, the object (coffee) is not just directly itself, but is redoubled, functioning as its own supplement—it itself fills the void its mere existence creates: "this coffee is... just simple coffee."
This book was a full meal. One for the ages, in my opinion. Especially when what emerges is a very insightful rumination of society:
Paradox: the totally secular society is one that turns out to be less secular than any other, because secularity, as soon as it extends to everything, assumes within itself those hallucinatory, phantasmal, and delirious characteristics that Durkheim had identified in religion in general. And this is what Durkheim was talking about, without meaning to and without recognizing it, when he wrote: "Thus there is one region of nature where the formula of idealism is applicable almost to the letter: this is the social kingdom." The "formula of idealism" was an antiquated way of suggesting what, a little earlier, Durkheim had described, more perspicuously, as a "fabric of hallucinations." But the crucial point was another: it was all in that "almost to the letter." Life continues from then on, and forever more, within a "social kingdom" where hallucinations have to be understood "almost to the letter."
July 25, 2025
Academics are a pathetic preoccupation. How can they bear the energy, the chaotic energy, the confusions, the cacophonous debates, the halfhearted resolutions of the late Vedic world of Shathapatha Brahmana? - Where Yajnavalkya pronounces on sacrifice, on language, and sound. Where cows run from men. Where the Devas eat the body of Brahma. Calasso is the Vedic seer walking on a 20th century earth. Do not think for a moment that you have understood the Sanskrit mind without reading him. After a long long time I felt Tejas in me with this reading. Like I had become Soma. Pick this book. Turn into Soma.
March 8, 2018
Fascinante la forma en que Calasso nos lleva a la India de los Vedas. Desmenuza rituales y enfatiza el sacrificio desde su origen hasta la actualidad mientras expone las diferentes interpretaciones y estudios que se han hecho sobre el tema a lo largo de la historia. Lo mejor es la conclusión.
February 13, 2024
Finally finished this epic dissection of the Vedic myths - I have only one complaint, my brain hurts! I’m no expert but it seems that almost everyone that has reviewed this book has also given it 5*.
It’s incredibly difficult for me to do justice to this absolutely mind blowing text - almost as mind blowing as the Soma plant so beloved of the Vedic culture. For a while there Calasso almost lost me, there were so many gods and Brahmins and rituals. At the core of everything were the sacrificial rituals that the Vedas prescribed, but which have disappeared from modern society.
After 21 chapters of detailed analysis of the Vedic culture, the author’s own conclusion is a rather damning indictment on modern secular society:
“The totally secular society is one that turns out to be less secular than any other, because secularity, as soon as it extends to everything, assumes within itself those hallucinatory, phantasmal and delirious characteristics, that were associated with religion in general”
He refers to the important work done by Emile Durkheim, which dealt with the transformation of society into a religion of itself.
This is only one part of Calasso’s magnificent series of books, which focus on many different subjects - Kafka, Baudelaire, Greek mythology, the Bible - and my only regret is that I didn’t read this before my trip to India last year. Having said that, the Vedic people left behind nothing except their words, and so are among the most mysterious of ancient cultures.
This is now the 6th book I’ve read by this unique writer, and I’ve still got three more on my shelf. Right now though, my brain needs a rest. Time for something less challenging.
It’s incredibly difficult for me to do justice to this absolutely mind blowing text - almost as mind blowing as the Soma plant so beloved of the Vedic culture. For a while there Calasso almost lost me, there were so many gods and Brahmins and rituals. At the core of everything were the sacrificial rituals that the Vedas prescribed, but which have disappeared from modern society.
After 21 chapters of detailed analysis of the Vedic culture, the author’s own conclusion is a rather damning indictment on modern secular society:
“The totally secular society is one that turns out to be less secular than any other, because secularity, as soon as it extends to everything, assumes within itself those hallucinatory, phantasmal and delirious characteristics, that were associated with religion in general”
He refers to the important work done by Emile Durkheim, which dealt with the transformation of society into a religion of itself.
This is only one part of Calasso’s magnificent series of books, which focus on many different subjects - Kafka, Baudelaire, Greek mythology, the Bible - and my only regret is that I didn’t read this before my trip to India last year. Having said that, the Vedic people left behind nothing except their words, and so are among the most mysterious of ancient cultures.
This is now the 6th book I’ve read by this unique writer, and I’ve still got three more on my shelf. Right now though, my brain needs a rest. Time for something less challenging.
August 3, 2025
4.5 stars, rounding up. Dense! Some parts nearly impenetrable, some parts very beautiful. For the first several chapters I wondered: what is this _about_? But then I started to see some themes emerging, and in discussing the book with others at the yoga shala we found powerful insights. Definitely a book worth studying.
One favorite passage:
"Among the most memorable metaphysical disputations was the one in which the problem was whether the sacrifice is a curled-up dog. ...For some time the ritualists had been troubled by certain questions: 'What is the beginning, what is the end of the sacrifice, what is its narrowest part, what is its broadest part?' ...
One day a group of [theologians] were arguing these matters. 'Then they came across a curled-up dog. They said: May there be in this dog what will decide who wins. ...Then Vasistha Caikitaneya spoke: In the same way as [the sacrificer] lies there joining the twenty-first verse of the yajnayajniya to the nine verses of the bahispavamana, so the dog lies there curled up, joining its two extremes. In this position the dog is the same as the sacrifice.
This is how the most difficult questions are tackled: they come across a curled-up dog or any ordinary thing -- and they decide that the answer must be there. If the answer isn't in any ordinary thing then it won't be anywhere else."
One favorite passage:
"Among the most memorable metaphysical disputations was the one in which the problem was whether the sacrifice is a curled-up dog. ...For some time the ritualists had been troubled by certain questions: 'What is the beginning, what is the end of the sacrifice, what is its narrowest part, what is its broadest part?' ...
One day a group of [theologians] were arguing these matters. 'Then they came across a curled-up dog. They said: May there be in this dog what will decide who wins. ...Then Vasistha Caikitaneya spoke: In the same way as [the sacrificer] lies there joining the twenty-first verse of the yajnayajniya to the nine verses of the bahispavamana, so the dog lies there curled up, joining its two extremes. In this position the dog is the same as the sacrifice.
This is how the most difficult questions are tackled: they come across a curled-up dog or any ordinary thing -- and they decide that the answer must be there. If the answer isn't in any ordinary thing then it won't be anywhere else."
October 13, 2025
Another amazing work by Calasso. This work explains in great detail, both intellectually and metaphysical, the psychological basis and nature of Ritual in Vedic Hinduism and the mysterious, beautiful and strange work of the tapestry of the Hindu gods. I had previously read ‘Ka’ by this author, a work about Prajapati or the creator god primarily. And although Ardor had less of a focus on a singular deity, which I did enjoy about ‘Ka’, I did appreciate how ‘Ardor’ covers more of the ancient Hindu world in similar depth. Although at times this work can feel heavy and claustrophobic, there are many moments of brilliant insight into why rituals matter, and why they mattered to the Vedics, which in turn we still
have residue of today in daily modern life.
I especially enjoyed the last chapters on the meaning of the loss of symbolic ritual in modern society, replace by secular ‘procedures’ as he discusses.
Would recommend this to any lover of Mythology and Psychological Spiritualism, for the ancient Hindus were truly a one of a kind faith, centered not in the external, but in the laws of the ‘absolutism of the mind.’
have residue of today in daily modern life.
I especially enjoyed the last chapters on the meaning of the loss of symbolic ritual in modern society, replace by secular ‘procedures’ as he discusses.
Would recommend this to any lover of Mythology and Psychological Spiritualism, for the ancient Hindus were truly a one of a kind faith, centered not in the external, but in the laws of the ‘absolutism of the mind.’
January 15, 2023
Es increíble la capacidad que tiene Calasso para extraerte de tu propia realidad y ubicarte en un mundo completamente ajeno al tuyo propio para, sin el menor aviso, zarandearte con respecto a los aspectos mas cotidianos de tu vida. Es una lectura que entiendo que puede resultar cansada o tediosa, pero a mi me atrapaba cada frase en la que Calasso me contaba como alguien, en algún momento, sobre este mismo planeta, habitaba una realidad completamente distinta simplemente por la relación que mantenía con potencias invisibles. Realmente este autor es ya algo indispensable para mi y ha transformado mi forma de ver el mundo.
June 6, 2020
A non-academic but highly documented approach to the India of the Vedas. We perceive that it is the work and passion of a lifetime. I started to consult it in search of very specific things, useful for my next book and then I couldn't resist reading it from top to bottom. I share Calasso's considerations on our current society, less some notes on Judaism and Christianity, but both his and mine are opinions :-). The author is also the owner of Adelphi, in my opinion one of the best Italian publishers.
June 26, 2022
La raffinatezza impagabile di Calasso riempie questo libro dalla prima all’ultima pagina. Nel suo modo delicato e profondo, l’autore spazia dalla filosofia indiana a quella greca, fino ad un’analisi profonda dei giorni nostri, mostrando come l’ideologia del sacrificio sia sempre stata alla base di tutte le società, cambiando nome e aspetto, ma restando sempre indispensabile per unire e nutrire la vita delle collettività. Un testo meraviglioso, sotto ogni punto di vista.
July 10, 2025
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Once again we can see Vedic open-mindedness: to practice tapas we don't have to cross our legs or subject ourselves to those 'mortifications' that some regard as the very meaning of the word tapas. No, even luxe, calme et volupté may help—or at least not hinder. It is enough that the fervor of the mind runs without respite, and burns 'up to the tips of the fingernails.'
Once again we can see Vedic open-mindedness: to practice tapas we don't have to cross our legs or subject ourselves to those 'mortifications' that some regard as the very meaning of the word tapas. No, even luxe, calme et volupté may help—or at least not hinder. It is enough that the fervor of the mind runs without respite, and burns 'up to the tips of the fingernails.'
December 4, 2018
It's not my usual fodder but I am glad I managed to make it through this one. I'll admit I found it hard going at first; perhaps the unfamiliarity of the names and words, more likely the content itself being a bit of a challenge.
Intriguing. More than worth the effort.
Intriguing. More than worth the effort.
June 16, 2019
A very erudite and wonderfully written examination of and commentary on the Vedas. Too much for me, but for someone with a deeper interest in ancient Indian culture than I possess it would be excellent.
July 28, 2017
Especially enjoyed the connections between Vedic and Western philosophers and Calasso's insights into contemporary significance. A must-read for a yoga teacher interested in Vedic history.
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