In this revelatory volume, Roberto Calasso, whom the Paris Review has called 'a literary institution', explores the ancient texts known as the Vedas. Little is known about the Vedic people who lived more than three thousand years ago in northern India: they left behind almost no objects, images, ruins. They created no empires. Even the hallucinogenic plant, the soma, which appears at the centre of some of their rituals, has not been identified with any certainty. Only a 'Parthenon of words' remains: verses and formulations suggesting a daring understanding of life.
'If the Vedic people had been asked why they did not build cities,' writes Calasso, 'they could have replied: we did not seek power, but rapture.' This is the ardor of the Vedic world, a burning intensity that is always present, both in the mind and in the cosmos. With his signature erudition and profound sense of the past, Calasso explores the enigmatic web of ritual and myth that define the Vedas. Often at odds with modern thought, he shows how these texts illuminate the nature of consciousness more than neuroscientists have been able to offer us up to now. Following the 'hundred paths' of the Satapatha Brahmana, an impressive exegesis of Vedic ritual, Ardor indicates that it may be possible to reach what is closest by passing through that which is most remote, as 'the whole of Vedic India was an attempt to think further'.
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Roberto Calasso [is] the most inquisitively suggestive literary critic in the world today (Thomas McGonigle The Los Angeles Times)
Born in Florence, Roberto Calasso lives in Milan, where he is publisher of Adelphi Edizioni. He is the author of an ongoing series of books which began with The Ruin of Kasch and includes The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Ka, K., Tiepolo Pink, La Folie Baudelaire, and Ardor.
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EUR 15,04
Da: Australia a: U.S.A.
Da: THE CROSS Art + Books, Sydney, NSW, Australia
24.0 x 15.5cms, 420pp, very good paperback & cover This is a history of the Vedic people, who lived in northern India c 1,000 BCE. Although, they left few objects, images, ruins or empires, their 'sublime texts illuminate the nature of consciousness'. They sought rapture over power, Codice articolo 196233
Quantità: 1 disponibili
Da: Caffrey Books, Oundle, Regno Unito
Hardcover. Condizione: Very Good. Codice articolo 009176
Quantità: 1 disponibili
Da: Uncle Peter's Books, Clunes, NSW, Australia
Hardcover. Condizione: Good. Condizione sovraccoperta: Good. First UK Edition. Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon. First UK edition. Hardback, with dust wrapper. Red boards with black lettering on the spine. Binding is neat and tidy. Whole book is tidy, with light thumbing on the page edges, free endpapers and pastedowns. Some discolouration on free endpapers, pastedowns and the occasional page, albeit light, otherwise this book is in good condition. Dustjacket is moderately thumbed. Small rubbed mark on the front cover. Spine rubbed a little, else in good condition. *We always describe the faults of our books meticulously but they usually present better than they sound. Codice articolo MYT016
Quantità: 1 disponibili
Da: suspiratio - online bücherstube, Basel, Svizzera
Hardcover. Condizione: Gut. umschlag lädiert, sonst gut, gebunden, 420 Seiten . Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon. First UK edition. Codice articolo A-770-FGzhg
Quantità: 1 disponibili