Vedic scholars … will find this concise but rather discursive study of much interest; but it is of greater importance to the historians of Indian thought and to the anthropologist. Copious illustrations of the early Aryans’ expressions of their belief in ‘power-substantives’ will be certain to stimulate responses in both spheres…. We are taken on a tour of the power-substances, and incidentally given helpful information … and other key expressions of Vedic sociological as well as religious vocabulary…. The essay contains shrewd remarks on primitive but constant Indian ideas … and is adorned with comparisons with Semitic and other foreign usages…" Extracted from the Book Review by J.D.M.D., published in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
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.
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