[.ca] Penguin Classics Rig Veda (ISBN 0140444025)

The author does not quite understand the text itself:
The author does not quite undertand the text itself and comes through as being very biased. The author has wasted her efforts to put through incorrect views of her own, much better if she had researched some other texts perhaps the bible? However, knowing her knack for misinterpreting ancient texts I shudder to even think about it. In ending I think anyone who commented the following on the most sacred Indian text as follows should not have tried interpreting a religious text of the relgion that she is biased against: The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think," the good professor informed her audience. "Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviours such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book ; it justifies war." Prof. Doniger added for good measure : "I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars." (Philadelphia Inquirer of 19 November.)

This is not even a literal translation ...:
I must confess that I have read only portions of this book required for a class that I am taking. To qualify my evaluation..I am a Hindu and I do know Sanskrit (atleast well enough to note the discrepancies here). That said, the problem I have with her translation is *not* that she is scholarly and hence in some sense "disrespectful" to tradition (though that could rightly rile other Hindus) but that she *deliberately* leaves out words, takes tertiary (or even non-existent) meanings, or adds words to suit her own purposes. The words she leaves out are very significant in determining the meanings ..(And even if they weren't why leave them out?..especially given that she is translating into prose) The short Purusha Sukta hymn in itself shows at least 4 instances of such trickery (and again I am *not* talking about interpretative issues which differ from pious expositions) made towards substantiating her own thesis of this being the "Primal Sacrifice". These deliberate omissions/commisions are not even relegated to the footnotes. I wonder why...To see an example of someone who is scholarly and has yet done a very honest job (and differed at many places from traditional expositions), take the "Early Upanisads" by Olivelle. He has not let his own thesis about the fragmentary nature of these texts interfere with his translations (for the most part at least) That Doniger has as a very deep knowledge of Sanskrit is well known. For her to still make such "errors" only smacks of malice. I don't know if she retains the flavor of the original texts. It just left a bad taste in my mouth

The Indian Elephant:
Ms. Doniger seems to be biased against the Vedic religion (aka Hinduism) which can be easily gleaned by a careful reader of this work. The author also has hidden agenda in her portrayal of the Hindu religion by negative stereo-typing. 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 :-(

Ian Myles Slater on A Notable Translation:
A few comments. To begin with, the Amazon listing for this book contains a confusing abundance of Wendys. Keeping it simple; Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty uses Wendy Doniger for books published after her divorce, which leaves earlier works (like this one) in bibliographic purgatory. Hence the variants (although I don't think that "Wendy O'Flaherty" was used by her or any of her publishers). Secondly, under either name, Wendy Doniger is a distinguished interpreter and translator of Vedic and classical Sanskrit texts, and of Indian religions in general. Her books are often witty, and at times quite dense with detail. She fully appreciates the playfulness of many versions of Hindu stories of the gods. In this volume she presents a selection of very ancient poems, in quite readable translations, and backs them up with detailed interpretive and bibliographic notes. It is a first-rate introduction to a very difficult body of literature, which, like the Bible and the Koran, is held sacred by a very large number of people. Unfortunately, like the Koran, the Vedas are traditionally memorized, recited, cited, and sometimes explained, but not translated. Turning the mystical sounds of Sanskrit into readily intelligible words seems to strike some as sacrilege. At best, devotional readings are the only acceptable renderings. To the apparent distress of some true believers, Wendy Doniger tries to reconstruct what the poems meant when they were first recited, not their meaning to present-day Hindus, over three thousand years later. (Which would be an interesting topic in itself.) This is exactly what critical scholarship is supposed to be about. Anyone who finds in it a specific bias against Hinduism might take a close look at an issue of, say, "The Journal of Biblical Literature" before complaining. This is what Christians and Jews having been doing with their own sacred texts for a couple of hundred years (actually, although sporadically, rather longer). The main problem with the volume, as the translator would probably acknowledge, is that it will leave the reader hungry for more. She chose some of the most attractive poems, and presented them in language free of late-Victorian pseudo-Biblical idiom. Unfortunately, most of the other English versions, and all of the complete ones, belong to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and readers without Sanskrit, like me, can neither rely upon them nor easily find corrections for specific passages.

Difficult to grasp:
I know nothing about the Rig Veda outside this book so cannot comment on whether the hymns selected or the translation were appropriate. However, the lack of introductory material means that each hymn is followed by a lengthy notes section. Flipping backward and forward detracts from the fluidity and understanding of the text. The hymns are pregnant with symbolism but if it's introduced in the notes on an as-you-go basis it isn't absorbed. Some of the shorter hymns I found read quite well so the translation isn't all bad. Furthermore, it chooses to present some of the more "mundane" aspects of life during the time of the Rig Veda, which I found interesting. Overall, there are probably far better translations but this one isn't all bad.