3 ms·

Sure you can. The parts of Veda I’ve learned were in the traditional with rigour in recitation but no attempt at understanding the meaning. But because I went

Sure you can. The parts of Veda I’ve learned were in the traditional with rigour in recitation but no attempt at understanding the meaning. But because I went on to study vyakarana and Kayvas etc. where meaning is emphasized I can understand most of the mantras without the commentaries. But a good commentary does help and more importantly it is the accepted academic style just as footnotes, APA formatting etc. are Western academic conventions. You always have to know context because language can always be stretched. People write poetry in Perl for goodness sake!

fooker 4y ago
Interestingly Rigveda is comparatively easy to understand compared to the newer texts. Perhaps because it’s written in more flowery, loose Sanskrit with words and idioms made up when the situation called for it. Compared to that everything newer is a bit weird to interpret because some random phrase would be taken from some other contemporary text, the reader is assumed to understand and appreciate the cryptic reference. Funnily enough this reminds me of Rick and Morty/South Park kind of media nowadays, where the inner joke is usually a pop culture reference.
- rand0mx1 4y ago
  do you find mandala 10 easier than other mandalas?
  - fooker 4y ago
    The opposite, actually. The last one feels like it was tacked on later and contains contemporary creation myths and practical philosophy. That is things which someone presumably got tired of answering again and again and just added as an appendix. Also the language is provable to have been a later iteration of Sanskrit.
- danans 4y ago
  > Interestingly Rigveda is comparatively easy to understand compared to the newer texts. I've found this to be the case also, despite the free-wheeling and less regular grammatical style - because the Rigvedic hymns usually have pretty concrete subject matter - like getting motivated to steal (or perhaps "free") some cows held by an adversary. Of course any number of other more abstract or esoteric interpretations can be read into the hymns, but I prefer the simpler and more earthly interpretation.

fooker 4y ago

Interestingly Rigveda is comparatively easy to understand compared to the newer texts. Perhaps because it’s written in more flowery, loose Sanskrit with words and idioms made up when the situation called for it. Compared to that everything newer is a bit weird to interpret because some random phrase would be taken from some other contemporary text, the reader is assumed to understand and appreciate the cryptic reference. Funnily enough this reminds me of Rick and Morty/South Park kind of media nowadays, where the inner joke is usually a pop culture reference.

rand0mx1 4y ago
do you find mandala 10 easier than other mandalas?
- fooker 4y ago
  The opposite, actually. The last one feels like it was tacked on later and contains contemporary creation myths and practical philosophy. That is things which someone presumably got tired of answering again and again and just added as an appendix. Also the language is provable to have been a later iteration of Sanskrit.
danans 4y ago
> Interestingly Rigveda is comparatively easy to understand compared to the newer texts. I've found this to be the case also, despite the free-wheeling and less regular grammatical style - because the Rigvedic hymns usually have pretty concrete subject matter - like getting motivated to steal (or perhaps "free") some cows held by an adversary. Of course any number of other more abstract or esoteric interpretations can be read into the hymns, but I prefer the simpler and more earthly interpretation.