Ardor

In a mediation on the wisdom of the Vedas, Roberto Calasso brings ritual and sacrifice to bear on the modern world. 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, or ruins. They created no empires. Even the hallucinogenic plant the soma, which appears at the center 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 eruditio...

Author: Calasso Roberto
Year of publication: 2014
Genre: Modern prose
Number of pages: 446
Reading time: 7 h. 26 min.
Formats: FB2, EPUB, PDF
Language: english
Requests: read online, download without registration, e-book