Kalicharan’s Veda

The author graduated as Mechanical Engineer from Bhagalpur College of Engineering in 2006. Since then he has been working as a Design Engineer for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in Bangalore

Kalicharan's Veda lends a cogent and sensible understanding to the Rig-Veda and unearths comprehensively the superstructure of the system of thought encoded therein. The material is developed linearly in a fabric of fine arguments rendered with extreme care: therefore, it is only near the end of the book that the full glory of the underlying beauty is uncovered. An attempt, though, is made here to outline the chapter-wise progression, avoiding at the same time the pitfall of trivialisation.

1. Rig- Veda: A general Introduction
Here, a short fact-file about the Rig-Veda is included for the benefit of a general reader.

2. Chapter 0: Start
An outline of the purport, methods and assumptions of the book is presented. However, this chapter doesn't represent, by any means, the gist of the chapters to follow.

3. Chapter 1: Truth, Love, Beauty
Building upon the previous chapter, a basic yet potent tool is developed as the guiding principle of all thought-ventures undertaken in the subsequent chapters.

4. Chapter 2: Pusan
The ground-work of the previous chapter lands the reader directly into the thick of the Vedic truths, although hymns are selected pedagogically to ensure that the initiation is short, smooth and easy.

5. Chapter 3: Soma
Here, the concept of Triple Heaven is developed as a twin-counterpart to the concept of Triple Earth. Finally, Heaven-Earth is understood as a single system.

6. Chapter 4: Sapta (Seven) Chakra
The material developed so far is compared and validated against the time-tested spiritual techniques in the practice of Yoga.

7. Chapter 5: Asoini Kumar
We march ahead confidently. In the process, the important but long-forgotten "Principle of Node" is discovered which firmly establishes the Veda on a superlative pedestal.

8. Chapter 6: Agl1i
Agni is the key to the understanding of the Veda. The treasure-box is unlocked; the objective and the subjective begin to melt into each other, and it is here that we begin to sense that we have truly arrived.

9. Chapter 7: Savitar
Next, Agni leads us to Savitar, who represents a realm inhabited by the three ecumenical Goddesses, The concept of Universal Mother is also elaborated,

10. Chapter 8: Brahntanaspaii
We delve into the deepest of the mysteries - the mystery of Time, of the Absolute.

11. Chapter 9: Yama- Yami
The lost truth of Siva-lingam is rediscovered. The other methods for the expression of the same idea in the Veda are also explained.

12. Chapter 10: Aruaman
Aryaman, finally, completes the journey by furnishing just the right amount of symmetry required to settle the map of Reality.

13. Chapter 11: Aditi
The complete Reality, the whole picture, the Alia and Omega, are all known by a single word" Aditi" in the Veda. Aditi is clearly seen, in any context, as reigning supreme, and as a living sum of all truths.

14. Chapter 12: The Sacred Thread
The Secrets coded within the mechanisms of the Sacred Thread and the Gayatri Mantra are revealed by making good use of the insight developed so far. Moreover, it is shown how these two were absolutely essential - and were purposely made so for the recovery of the truth of the Veda.

15. Chapter 13: Rbhus
The inescapable conclusions about the nature of the Vedic Society are discussed - even as we remain within the perimeter of the scope and purpose of the book.

16. Chapter 14: Veda unleashed
Here, the most enigmatic of the hymns are selected and explained. No new material is developed, but it becomes evident that ours is not a mere interpretation; after all, the Veda uses a variety of expressions to explain the same truths, the truths of which we are aware by now.

17. Chapter 15: End
The philosophical systems such as Vedanta, the belief-systems and cults such as Durga and Dasavatara, and other systems not covered in the earlier chapters are discussed here and shown to be various derivatives and projections of the same superstructure of the Veda. A short mention of the String Theory (of Physics) is also made.

18. Appendices
The "References" have not been mentioned here, not that the author didn't consult other works: the Veda indeed is a subject which has been gone into by innumerable historians, philologists, archaeologists, Indologists, nationalists, and if one may add apologists, of all hues - who in their analyses made use of all the tools that their disciplines provided at their disposal. Therefore there is a rich corpus of literature for any student to delve into this subject as deep as he wishes to, but as one discovers pretty soon, all that these literatures provide is debate on peripheral issues like the questions of antiquity, AIT, IE linguistics, comparative mythology, and so on - while the substantive part, the Thought-body of the Rig-Veda, which should have been the foremost priority all along has been treated very plainly and oftentimes dismissively.

The only reference made is that of the English translation of the Veda by T. H. Griffith: arguably the most reputed and popular work of its kind, and more importantly, readily available on the Internet as it is out of copyright.

The discussions in this book are short, lucid and direct, which use jargons developed primarily from within the Rig- Veda:-so that something highly intelligent is communicated to a general reader in an equally highly intelligible fashion. No doubt, the intention is to present an interesting, creative, enjoyable illustrated book which can be used by all as an alternative to the highly complicated and coded real Veda. Originally, the author meant to create a sketch-book of Vedic gods and truths which he then decided to expand into a book. This book, therefore, can very well be considered a book of illustrations. The pen-name Kalicharan Tuvij is partly meant to be suggestive of a particular spiritual experience, and partly as a means of protecting the author's own carefree, but normal, way of life and living.

The Rig-Veda is India's oldest and most important literary monument and source of thought. The exact period when it was written is still being conjectured, though increasingly thought today as dating before 2000 BCE about when the river Sarasvati, mentioned in Rig-Veda, dried up.

Rig-Veda, too sacred to be reduced to writing, was finally composed by the ancients, under compelling circumstances, as Rig-Veda the book - consisting of some 1,028 hymns under ten chapters, a form in which we know it today. The chapters follow more or less a chronological order, chapter ten thus being the latest addition as evidenced by a rather mythological treatment of the body of ideas, as also by the extent of deviations and corruptions.

The hymns composed in the language Sanskrit by the Rsis (seers and their schools) have their names mentioned. Each hymn contains on average ten stanzas which consist of lines that follow the meter strictly, that is, each line has exactly a standard number of syllables.

No less significant is the mythological and spiritual legacy in which Rig-Veda is almost fantastically seen as the carryover from'; lost civilisation: a belief, no doubt, but curiously paralleled by the utter incomprehension with which Rig-Veda was met by the later texts such as the other Vedas and the Upanishads.