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 nor
thern India: they left behind almost no objects, images, ruins. Only a 'Partheno
n of words' remains: verses and formulations suggesting a daring understanding o
f life.
'If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities,' writ
es 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, bot
h 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 define
the Vedas. Often at odds with modern thought, he shows how these texts illuminat
e the nature of consciousness more than neuroscientists have been able to offer
us up to now.
