Glimpses of Vedic Literature

by Kireet Joshi

Vedic Literature is a most precious treasure of Indian wisdom. The literature is vast, and includes not only the four Vedas but also Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. As a part of the history of India, this literature constitutes a source material for understanding various aspects of Indian culture as it has grown and developed over millennia. For every lover of India, therefore, it becomes essential to turn to the portals of the Vedic literature.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Anmol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was recommended to read this as some secondary reading before tackling Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of the pre-Upanishadic Vedic scriptures in his Secret of the Veda and Hymns to the Mystic Fire which I should be reading in spring 2022. As someone who (until recently) shared the common assumption of Western scholarship that the Upanishads marked a revolution in Indian thought, the first turn towards the philosophical as opposed to the ritual barring rare Rigvedic hyms like the Nasadiya Sukta, it is quite fascinating to get a glimpse of Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of Vedic hymns here. However, I also think that Joshi's book itself tries to go into too many areas, going into none in adequate detail. It did provide me some helpful descriptive knowledge about Vedic literature though.

[VJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided my a high level overview of the different texts in Vedas , touching upon key slokas (shlokas) but not going into depths of the vedas itself (which was fine for me)