Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights.

• Author: Thompson George
• Position: Book review

Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights. By FRITS STAAL. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2008. Pp. xxxvi + 419.

This charming book consists of rive parts, divided into sixteen chapters, plus two brief mathematical appendices. Part I, two chapters, focuses on the Indo-European and Central Asian origins and background of the Vedas. Part II, eight chapters, is the heart of the book: a fairly detailed outline of the Vedic compositions and the culture that is reflected in them, in 136 pages. Part III, "Analysing the Vedas," offers in three chapters useful overviews of Staal's most significant contributions to the study of Vedic mantras and Vedic ritual, as well as interesting new evidence for the migrations of Vedic culture into and within the Indian subcontinent. Part IV, "What We Can Learn from the Vedas," introduces the notion of "Vedic sciences"--not those pseudo-sciences celebrated in the popular press, but rather topics like the function of lists, the concept of the sutra, the principles of Vedic geometry, and the remarkably sophisticated Vedic traditions of linguistic analysis that inspired Paninian grammar, as well as other Asian traditions regarding phonology and scripts. The section on "Vedic Insights" concludes with an overview of Staal's reflections on the powers and limitations of language within the context of Vedic mantras and rituals. Pari V, "The Vedas and Buddhism," discusses the issues that distinguish the philosophy of early Buddhism and Jainism from the Vedas. The book has a frontispiece with an excellent map, twenty-six illustrations, three tables, source notes, bibliography and index, and a list of errata which will be expanded in future reprintings.

A former President of the American Oriental Society, Frits Staal needs no introduction to the readers of this journal. Although it was written by a Vedicist, this book is not intended only for Vedicists. Staal's intention is to speak to the larger community of scholars and intellectuals about the significance of the Vedic tradition. He summarizes and extends his previous work on the Vedic sciences, with enlightening comparisons to early Greek, Chinese, and Babylonian sciences. He adds provocative remarks about the early development of the use of artificial languages within India, as well as many asides in many other directions. All of these matters are discussed valuably and with great wit and gusto. It is a remarkable fact, as Staal insists, that the early Vedic...