to ken-ji and kenneth-ji and all poetry lovers!

[Guest guest]

--- adi_shakthi16 <adi_shakthi16 wrote:

> ken-ji,

>

> is this the poem you are referring to by Alfred

> Tennyson?

>

Namaste,

 

Indeed it is. You could hardly wish for a more

perfect summary of our topic.

And thank you for your favourites.

But...

The Rgveda.....

It brings another dimension. It connects with heart

and intellect and embraces the reader or listener.

It has chhandas, it has Siksha. It communicates with

power at all three levels, dissolving their boundaries

but few understand.

We are generally using Griffith's translation and

although he has poetry in his words at times even he

could not avoid the Western arrogance of his time. In

his introduction to the RgVeda saMhIta he writes:

'I must beg my European readers not to expect to find

in these hymns and songs the sublime poetry that they

meet with in Isaiah or Job, or the Psalms of David.

“To me,” says Professor Wilson, “the verses of the

Veda, except in their rhythm, and in a few rare

passages, appear singularly prosaic for so early an

era as that of their probable composition, and at any

rate their chief value lies not in their fancy but in

their facts, social and religious.” Professor Cowell,

also, says “The poetry of the Rgveda is singularly

deficient in that simplicity and natural pathos or

sublimity which we naturally look for in the songs of

an early period of civilisation. The language and

style of most of the hymns is singularly artificial. .

.. . Occasionally we meet with fine outbursts of

poetry, especially in the hymns addressed to the dawn,

but these are never long sustained, and as a rule we

find few grand similes or metaphors?’ The worst fault

of all, in the Collection regarded as a whole, is the

intolerable monotony of a great number of the hymns, a

monotony which reaches its climax in the ninth Book

which consists almost entirely of invocations of Soma

Pavamana, or the deified Somajuice in process of

straining and purification. The great interest of the

Rgveda is, in fact, historical rather than poetical. '

 

Maybe we should invent new hearing aids!!!!

 

Have a good weekend,

 

Ken Knight

 

 

 

=====

‘From this Supreme Self are all these, indeed, breathed forth.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

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