Rating: 
Summary: What version to believe?
Review: 108 - is a number of great hindu religious significance. Seeing this number in the title, I picked this book up for enlightening myself. I was asked a question about vedas by my white friend and I was ashamed that he knew more about my culture than me. Hence, my search for a good book on vedas resulted in buying this book The Rig Veda: An anthology from a half-price bookstore.
I approached this book with higher anticipations because the publisher 'Penguin classics' has never let me down before. But now it has. The author is not to be blamed. A subject as complex as the vedas not only needs an in-depth knowledge about devanagiri (sanskrit) script, but also cultural, social and religious connections to the verses. A mere analytical translation with the help of previous (more complex) translations is not going to do any justice. That's what has been done in this book. The verses have been mis-interpreted, verses have been taken out of context and the end result is a very skewed vision of Rig veda.
I wouldn't recommend it to any of my hindu or non-hindu friends. If your quest is knowledge, I would advise you to learn sanskrit, go to the original text and interpret it yourself (which is what i intend to do). An easy alternative is to read a translation by an Indian scholar (preferably sanskrit pundit). A translation by an Indian scholar would put you in perspective if you don't mind the crudeness of the english.
Rating: 
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on A Notable Translation
Review: A few comments.
To begin with, the Amazon listing for this book contains a possibly confusing abundance of Wendys. Keeping it simple; Wendy Doniger used Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty on her earlier books, and uses Wendy Doniger for books published after her divorce; a few older printings of some of them have "Wendy O'Flaherty" on them somewhere. Hence the variants, which leave some works (like this one) in bibliographic purgatory. (To add to the possible confusion, she is now the University of Chicago's "Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions.")
Secondly, under any form of the name, Wendy Doniger is a distinguished interpreter and translator of Vedic and classical Sanskrit texts, and of Indian religions in general. Her books are often witty, and at times quite dense with detail. She fully appreciates the playfulness of many versions of Hindu stories of the gods.
In this volume she presents a selection of very ancient poems, in quite readable translations, and backs them up with detailed interpretive and bibliographic notes. It is a first-rate introduction to a very difficult body of literature, which, like the Bible and the Koran, is held sacred by a very large number of people.
Unfortunately, like the Koran, the Vedas are traditionally memorized, recited, cited, and sometimes explained, but not translated. Turning the mystical sounds of Sanskrit into readily intelligible words seems to strike some as sacrilege. At best, devotional readings are the only acceptable renderings. To the apparent distress of some true believers, Wendy Doniger tries to reconstruct what the poems meant when they were first recited (mainly, but not exclusively, to accompany rituals), not their meaning to present-day Hindus, over three thousand years later. (Which would be an interesting topic in itself.) This is exactly what critical scholarship is supposed to be about. Anyone who finds in it a specific bias against Hinduism might take a close look at an issue of, say, "The Journal of Biblical Literature" before complaining. This is what Christians and Jews having been doing with their own sacred texts for a couple of hundred years (actually, although sporadically, rather longer).
The main problem with the volume, as the translator would probably acknowledge, is that it will leave the reader hungry for more. She chose some of the most attractive poems, and presented them in language free of late-Victorian pseudo-Biblical idiom. Unfortunately, most of the other English versions, and all of the complete ones, belong to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and readers without Sanskrit, like me, can neither rely upon them nor easily find corrections for specific passages.
I *have* compared her versions of a number of famous hymns to earlier English translations, to relatively recent treatments of passages in academic journals, and to transliterated Sanskrit texts (and also citations and variants outside the Rig Veda, traced in the digital version of Bloomfield's "Vedic Concordance"), and even to the highly regarded German translation by Geldner (not a lot of help for me there...). Her renderings tend to be a bit sparse, or at least concise, compared to most, but she uses headnotes and end notes to fill up gaps by explaining implications, instead of interpolating extra words or phrases to make clear her understandings of passages.
Rating:
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on A Notable Translation
Review: A few comments.To begin with, the Amazon listing for this book contains a confusing abundance of Wendys. Keeping it simple; Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty uses Wendy Doniger for books published after her divorce, which leaves earlier works (like this one) in bibliographic purgatory. Hence the variants (although I don't think that "Wendy O'Flaherty" was used by her or any of her publishers). Secondly, under either name, Wendy Doniger is a distinguished interpreter and translator of Vedic and classical Sanskrit texts, and of Indian religions in general. Her books are often witty, and at times quite dense with detail. She fully appreciates the playfulness of many versions of Hindu stories of the gods. In this volume she presents a selection of very ancient poems, in quite readable translations, and backs them up with detailed interpretive and bibliographic notes. It is a first-rate introduction to a very difficult body of literature, which, like the Bible and the Koran, is held sacred by a very large number of people. Unfortunately, like the Koran, the Vedas are traditionally memorized, recited, cited, and sometimes explained, but not translated. Turning the mystical sounds of Sanskrit into readily intelligible words seems to strike some as sacrilege. At best, devotional readings are the only acceptable renderings. To the apparent distress of some true believers, Wendy Doniger tries to reconstruct what the poems meant when they were first recited, not their meaning to present-day Hindus, over three thousand years later. (Which would be an interesting topic in itself.) This is exactly what critical scholarship is supposed to be about. Anyone who finds in it a specific bias against Hinduism might take a close look at an issue of, say, "The Journal of Biblical Literature" before complaining. This is what Christians and Jews having been doing with their own sacred texts for a couple of hundred years (actually, although sporadically, rather longer). The main problem with the volume, as the translator would probably acknowledge, is that it will leave the reader hungry for more. She chose some of the most attractive poems, and presented them in language free of late-Victorian pseudo-Biblical idiom. Unfortunately, most of the other English versions, and all of the complete ones, belong to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and readers without Sanskrit, like me, can neither rely upon them nor easily find corrections for specific passages.
Rating:
Summary: Unusual but representative selection of hymns
Review: Compared to other selections of Rig Vedic Hymns, this book is quite different. Most Indologists, esp. the Indian Vedic scholars, only select more "philosophically sophisticated" hymns. But this selection is more representative of the actual content of the Rig Veda.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Sanskrit hymns tell of earthly and divine concerns.
Review: Comprises 108 out of the 1,000 hymns of the Rig Veda, selected by the author. At about 300 pages no more are required. The book is presented in a way that allows you to read any hymn independenly, so the introduction does not attempt
to summarize deities or their relations to each other except within the footnotes (which I saw as a problem).
Since the footnotes appear at the end of each hymn, some page flipping is required (another problem).
The hymns praise the gods of the Aryans who invaded Inda in 2,000 BC (Agni, Indra and their favorite alchoholic drink, Soma) along with others. A classic that brings the
thoughts of ancient people to light, whose meanings may not always be clear, but are often candid. People wide-read in mythology may see similarities to other mythological traditions.
Rating:
Summary: A fair selection of a fascinating book.
Review: Don't pay any attention to the person below who thinks O'Flaherty should have translated the Rig Veda according to its "spiritual" meaning. As the oldest Hindu scripture, and as a book that contains a lot of symbol and mystery, people have been inclined for millenia to read things into this set of poems . . . caste, reincarnation, later ideas about God. O'Flaherty seems to be doing her best to offer an honest selection of what the authors really intended, to "get out" what they put in -- though of course following her own interests to some extent. In this selection, you find creation poems, a fair but managable set of poems on sacrifice (which I believe is the dominant theme of the larger work), poems to Agni, Soma, Inda, Veruna, and other gods, and some thematic choices, on death and women, for examples. The text is readable, though some of the footnoting seems a bit pedantic. As a Christian interested in comparative religion, I find the Rig Veda very interesting. J. N. Farqurhar argues, in The Crown of Hinduism, that the Veda is actually closer to Christianity than to modern Hinduism in some ways, in that 1) The early idea of Varuna, as Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, and identified with the Law, is more like Yahweh than the conception of Brahman that appears in the Upanishads. 2) The theme of sacrifice. 3) The Vedic idea of heaven. 4) The unambiguous assumption that the world is a good place. 5) More social and family freedom than was allowed in the more rigid caste system that followed. Some modern Indian Christians have said that the Vedic sacrificial ceremonies bare an uncanny resemblance to the death of Jesus on the cross. I found partial confirmation of some of these ideas here, though of course O'Flaherty did not select her poems to illustrate them! As for the person who gives the book low marks because it contains no Sanskrit, that seems rather selfish to me. It is not fair to condemn a writer who wants to reach a general audience and keep the price down, who has lavished so much loving scholarship on her work, on that score. author, Jesus and the Religions of Man d.marshall@sun.ac.jp
Rating:
Summary: A fair selection of a fascinating book.
Review: Don't pay any attention to the person below who thinks O'Flaherty should have translated the Rig Veda according to its "spiritual" meaning. As the oldest Hindu scripture, and as a book that contains a lot of symbol and mystery, people have been inclined for millenia to read things into this set of poems . . . caste, reincarnation, later ideas about God. O'Flaherty seems to be doing her best to offer an honest selection of what the authors really intended, to "get out" what they put in -- though of course following her own interests to some extent. In this selection, you find creation poems, a fair but managable set of poems on sacrifice (which I believe is the dominant theme of the larger work), poems to Agni, Soma, Inda, Veruna, and other gods, and some thematic choices, on death and women, for examples. The text is readable, though some of the footnoting seems a bit pedantic. As a Christian interested in comparative religion, I find the Rig Veda very interesting. J. N. Farqurhar argues, in The Crown of Hinduism, that the Veda is actually closer to Christianity than to modern Hinduism in some ways, in that 1) The early idea of Varuna, as Creator, Sustainer, Ruler, and identified with the Law, is more like Yahweh than the conception of Brahman that appears in the Upanishads. 2) The theme of sacrifice. 3) The Vedic idea of heaven. 4) The unambiguous assumption that the world is a good place. 5) More social and family freedom than was allowed in the more rigid caste system that followed. Some modern Indian Christians have said that the Vedic sacrificial ceremonies bare an uncanny resemblance to the death of Jesus on the cross. I found partial confirmation of some of these ideas here, though of course O'Flaherty did not select her poems to illustrate them! As for the person who gives the book low marks because it contains no Sanskrit, that seems rather selfish to me. It is not fair to condemn a writer who wants to reach a general audience and keep the price down, who has lavished so much loving scholarship on her work, on that score. author, Jesus and the Religions of Man d.marshall@sun.ac.jp
Rating: 
Summary: I have a better recommendation
Review: For this anthology, Dr. Doniger chose some of the more well-known hymns from the Rigveda, the ones that many Indian sages have commented on. In that sense, for those who are familiar with this subject, this book does not add anything new. This book also has many serious faults. For example, I find the translation of Purusha as Man (even with capital M) as disrespectful and improper. The RigVeda does NOT say that Man is his own creator. Of course, why would that bother Dr. Doniger? If anyone wants to read a proper anthology of the RigVeda, I recommend the english rendition of a Sanskrit anthological (121 hymns) work of T.V. Kapali Sastry by Prof. R.L. Kashyap. This book is available in the US.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been much better
Review: I believe, this book could have been much much better if Wendy had included the original sanskrit hymns along with translations. This would have given readers knowing sanskrit an opportunity to interpret things on their own. As she herself says, this book is not for the scholar or the scholar to be! Books for the Rig Veda are rare not to mention good books.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult to grasp
Review: I know nothing about the Rig Veda outside this book so cannot comment on whether the hymns selected or the translation were appropriate. However, the lack of introductory material means that each hymn is followed by a lengthy notes section. Flipping backward and forward detracts from the fluidity and understanding of the text. The hymns are pregnant with symbolism but if it's introduced in the notes on an as-you-go basis it isn't absorbed. Some of the shorter hymns I found read quite well so the translation isn't all bad. Furthermore, it chooses to present some of the more "mundane" aspects of life during the time of the Rig Veda, which I found interesting. Overall, there are probably far better translations but this one isn't all bad.
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