Any Westerner wanting to know about the Rig veda is well advised to ignore this shananigan. The author suffers from the same syndrome as the 6 blind men trying to describe an elephant by just touching it.

Ms. Doniger would never understand as she has preconceived notions about other religions :-(


I have a better recommendation   April 19, 2003
 24 out of 31 found this review helpful

For this anthology, Dr. Doniger chose some of the more well-known hymns from the Rigveda, the ones that many Indian sages have commented on. In that sense, for those who are familiar with this subject, this book does not add anything new. This book also has many serious faults. For example, I find the translation of Purusha as Man (even with capital M) as disrespectful and improper. The RigVeda does NOT say that Man is his own creator. Of course, why would that bother Dr. Doniger?

If anyone wants to read a proper anthology of the RigVeda, I recommend the english rendition of a Sanskrit anthological (121 hymns) work of T.V. Kapali Sastry by Prof. R.L. Kashyap. This book is available in the US.


Gets lost in the foliage   May 4, 2002
 16 out of 20 found this review helpful

If the Rigveda is a tree with a grand plan, Wendy Doniger doesn't know it. Her translation has a Freudian slant that does violence to the vision of the Vedic hymnmakers.


The Vedas as a Revelation of Our Shared Humanity   March 14, 2001
 26 out of 38 found this review helpful

This is quite a good book, as far as it goes. Readers who would like to find a far fuller selection taken from the entire corpus of the Vedas, one that carries us beyond the merely scholarly into an approach which sees the Vedas as a revelation of our shared humanity, as "a disclosure of something that enriches the human experience," might care to take a look at Raimundo Panikkar's magisterial 'THE VEDIC EXPERIENCE - MANTRAMANJARI - AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE VEDAS FOR MODERN MAN AND CONTEMPORARY CELEBRATION' (ISBN 8120812808).

Pannikar's edition, at almost 1000 pages, with full introductions to each beautifully translated text, and with detailed annotations for those who are interested in precise sources and in the original Sanskrit terminology, must be one of the best bargains going. Even the most hard-boiled could open his edition at any page and immediately become enthralled. There is a freshness and purity to these songs and chants that is irresistible. It's like coming across a blossom-filled meadow in spring.

These vigorous and life-affirmative songs give us what men and women once were, and what we may yet become once again, for it is what deep down we still are though we have forgotten. Life, despite its hardships, is supposed to be joyous, something to be celebrated. And one is intensely grateful to anyone who undertakes the hard labor of devoting a book, of no matter what size, to a literature which can enrich us all.

Readers may also be interested to note that an abridgement of Pannikar's THE VEDIC EXPERIENCE has recently appeared as:

INITIATION TO THE VEDAS : AN ABRIDGED EDITION OF THE VEDIC EXPERIENCE - MANTRAMANJARI by Raimon Pannikar. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. 102 pp. Color Plates. ISBN: 8120829549.


A compelling echo of the primordial voice of man   March 4, 2001
 9 out of 14 found this review helpful

Wendy Doniger's translation of the Rig Veda is nothing less than spectacular. She manages to take this most ancient of texts and render it in a way that at once retains its voice from the very distant past, while still speaking with lively language that sounds completely fresh and startling. Contained herein are the elemental questions of mankind, contemplating the meaning of existence. Highly recommended for anyone who ponders these same questions! I first bought this book 17 years ago, and it changed my life. It continues to do so as I reread it today.

I am very concerned by certain reviewers who revile these books as untrue to some kind of fundamentalist doctrine. There is nothing in these translations to offend, but as other reviewers said, Ms. Doniger herself has no fundamental agenda in her translations. Rather, she lets the texts talk for themselves.