Contents

Dedication

List of Illustrations and Tables

Preface

Transliteration of Sanskrit

PART I: ORIGINS AND BACKGROUNDS
One or Many?

  1. Geography of the Vedas and their Language

The Rigveda and the Indus Civilization • Mitanni Vedic and Indic Genetics • Geography and Indo-European • The Iranian Wedge and the BMAC • The Tarim Mummies

  1. Archaeology and the Oral Tradition

Diversities of Reliability • Carts, Chariots and the Mind • Indic Representations of Spoke-Wheeled Chariots • Sintashta • Attested Locations on the Way to India • Note on Aryan and Race

PART II: THE VEDAS
Constructing an Edifice

  1. Civilization and Society

Absence of Caste in the Vedas • Vedic Evidence and Scholarly Discussions • Varying Terminologies and the first ‘Vedic Villages’ • Rathakāra and a Note on Women

  1. The Four Vedas

Early Vedic • Middle Vedic • Late Vedic • The Apotheosis of Schools

  1. Rigveda

Gods, Composers and Metres • Agni • Indra • Soma • A Speculative Poem • The Scientific Study of the Veda

  1. Sāmaveda

Singing in Villages and Forests

  1. Yajurveda

The Role of the Yajurveda • The Ritual Arena • Yajurveda Mantras and Brāhmaṇas

  1. Atharvaveda

The Thesis of Kautsa

  1. Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas

Villages, Forests and the Ecology • Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas • Locating Obscurities, Esotericisms and Irrationalities

  1. Upaniads

Generalities • Karma, Rebirth and Life after Death • Karma, Jñāna and Bhakti • ‘In That Way You Are’ • Dhyāna, Meditation and the End of the Vedas • The Two Main Contributions of the Upaniṣads

PART III: ANALYSING THE VEDAS
How to Discover

  1. Mantras

The Meaninglessness of Mantras • Language, Syntax and Recursiveness • Steps Beyond Kautsa • Pragmatics, Speech Acts and Bird Song • The Gāyatrī Mantra

  1. Ritual

Mantra and Kalpa • The Exclusion of Śrauta from Anthropology in English • Self-Embedding and Other Animals • How the Priests Work Together • Human Sacrifice

  1. Secrets of the Sadas

Soma Sequences • Moving South and East • Never Seeing Eye to Eye • Facing All Directions • Epilogue

PART IV: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE VEDAS?
Analysis and Discovery

  1. Sūtra: Vedic Sciences

The Concept of Science and its Ancient History • The Traditional List and the Concept of Sūtra • The Science of Ritual • Geometry • Numbers and Infinity • ‘Vedic Mathematics’ • The Prātiśākhyas and the Padapāha • The Sound Pattern of Language • Notations and Artificial Languages • Astronomy and Astrology

  1. Vedic Insights

Towards Universality • The Powers of Language • The Limitations of Language • Conclusions

PART V: BUDDHISM AND THE VEDAS
After the Vedas

  1. Buddhism

Why Buddhism? • History, Geography and an Inkling of Nirvṇa • About the Vedas and Buddhism • Entering the Order, Women and Sexualities • Ahiṃsā and the Public Domain • Eschatology and Karmic Arithmetic • Conceptual Problems • Dharma and Cakra • The First University and Buddhist Logic • Final Conclusions

Illustrations

Footnotes

List of Illustrations

Fourteen: Sūtra: Vedic Sciences

Appendix I. Liu Hui’s Proof of Baudhāyana’s Theorem

Appendix II. Euclid’s Proof of Baudhāyana’s Theorem

Readings

Source Notes

Bibliography

Copyright Page

For
Saraswathy,
Parvati Jeannette
and
Frederik Nanoo Staal