The Vedic Yajña: A Conduit for Transcending the Conditioned Consciousness
Evolutionist and anthropological frameworks of interpretation have belittled the Vedic mantra as well as the Vedic Yajña by categorizing the two as naïve and obscure religious expressions (e.g. through labels like hymns and rituals, respectively) of the early humans. This article highlights the consciousness-altering potential of the Vedic Yajña and the role of the Vedic mantra in it by positing that the Vedic Yajña is neither just a ritual nor merely a metaphor; rather it is a powerful performative element in its own right, which pervades the ‘conditioned consciousness’ of its performer and uplifts the same to ever higher planes of consciousness, thus revealing to the performer/practitioner subtler layers of reality on the way to the Truth.
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Eternal Words of the Vedas
In this excerpt, from Veda Mimansa, Volume I, Shri Anirvan discusses the notion of the eternality of the words of the Vedas. He discusses the age old debate between the Mimansakas and the rationalists, in which the Mimansakas claim that the very words of the Vedas are eternal and not just the meaning, and the rationalists consider only the meaning is eternal. In this brief excerpt, Shri Anirvan navigates through this debate and in the process interprets the origin of language and the importance of the Vedas.
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Ritual and Meaning in the Vedas
This is an excerpt from the Prologue of ‘Veda Mimansa – I’ by Shri Anirvan. This article talks about one of the most fundamental misconceptions about the Vedas; that the Vedic mantras have no meaning and are completely divorced from the Upanishadic philosophy. In this brief piece, Shri Anirvan clears all misconceptions about the problem.
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