Modern Commentators of Veda (An Old and Rare Book)

The present book is a study of three Vedic interpretations, viz., of Max Muller, Dayanand and Aurobindo from the perspective of Sociology of knowledge. The perspective compares the interpretations and, instead of evaluating their merits, relates them with the cultural traditions of the commentators. This approach not only enables the exploration of specific cultural ideas but also brings to the surface objective findings on those, for which there is inter subjective agreement.

Those, interested in Vedic studies. Indology, Philosophy and Religion, will find a compilation of condensed interpretations, otherwise widely scattered and diffused, at one place. Even a layman can get some idea of the Vedas and their content which is widely ingrained in the modern man and his language.

The treatment of Max Muller's Historicism and its refutation by commentators of Indian tradition have made it inevitable to question some well accepted assumptions of Indian history, in which the students of history may feel interested.

This study of a Sociologist crossing the specialist's narrow boundaries of a discipline encompasses the points of interest for multiple

A.K. Pateria (born on March 30, 1946 at Bilaspur in M. P.) graduated with Science and Mathematics. He postgraduated in Sociology in 1969 and joined that very year as Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Ravi Shankar University where he is still continuing. He has written his Ph.D. dissertation in Industrial Sociology on 'The executive role in a large industrial organization'. Various research papers have been published in national and international journals to his credit.

He is keenly interested in music. literature, painting and dramatics. Some of his dramatic activities have been broadcast over A.I.R. He has been awarded First prize in story competition of "Soviet Nari".

To write a commentary on a classic like Veda is not easy. It is in itself creation of a classic. That is why the systematic Vedic commentaries are few in number and can be counted on finguers.

However, with the spread of Sanskrit learning in West some of the western scholars also joined the march. This provides us an opportunity to compare eastern and western perspectives in a comparable area of thought.

Thus the objective of the present study is to compare the modern commentators of Veda, eastern and western and to relate their cultural traditions.

The weltan schauung of East and West appear, at times, so categorically different that one finds it in tune with Rudyard Kipling's utterance:

East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.

In an average Indian layman's mind West is held to be materialistic. By materialism, of course, he does not mean its philosophical system; but a sheer involvement and content in day-to-day life with the sensory objects and world. Likewise there are ample evidences in the descriptions of western on lookers to hold the image of India as having mystical, other worldly and irrational orientations.

**Contents and Sample Pages**