The Vision of the Vedic Poets

$15.30

$17.00

In stock

Free & Quick Delivery Worldwide

This book is primarily intended to be an investigation into the meaning and religious significance of the important Vedic term dhi, which has been variously and often inadequately translated. The author has tried to determine its central meaning or semantic nucleus from which the various contextual connotations were derived. This central meaning is "vision", not only in the literal sense (faculty of seeing), but in the Vedic texts mainly in the sense of "mental vision", supranormal vision establishing the contact with the transcendent sphere or world of the divine powers from which the poets obtained their inspiration and their insight into the higher supersensuous truth and reality which they endeavoured to express and formulate in their poems. The author elaborately describes the relevant processes and the activity of the poets (chapters II-IX) and adds chapters on related subjects, e.g., the heart as the organ of these mental processes, poetical inspiration in post-Vedic literature, contemplation and meditation, the Buddhist ideas on vision, as well as the term pratibha "flash of intuition".

ABOUT THE AUTHOR J Gonda

J. Gonda, born 1905, was professor of Sanskrit and Indology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 1932-76. he is the author of many books and articles on Sanskrit, Indian religion and literature, among them Aspects of Early Visnuism (2nd ed., Delhi, 1969); Sanskrit in Indonesia (2nd ed., Delhi, 1973); Die Religionen Indiens (two volumes, 1963 and 1987); The Duel Deities in the Religion of the Veda (Amsterdam, 1974), Triads in the Veda (Amsterdam, 1976); Vedic Literature (Wiesbaden, 1975); The Ritual Sutras (Wiesbaden, 1977); and Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit (Wiesbaden, 1977). He was honorary member of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute and other Indian Academies and Institutes of the Royal Asiatic Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc.