The Rig Veda: First Mandala

David R. Slavitt

Jan. 2015 · Anaphora Literary Press

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The Vedas are ancient books of hymns. There are four—the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda—and they are the primary texts of Hinduism. They had an enormous influence also on Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. According to Hindus, the text of the Vedas is as old as the universe itself. Scholars have determined that the Rig Veda, the oldest of the four, was composed sometime between 1700 and 1100 B.C.E., codified about 600 B.C.E., and was finally committed to writing around 300 B.C.E. The Rig Veda, composed of ten books, or Mandalas, each of which is a collection of hymns (s?ktas), is one of these “great books,” but most people—even the well-educated—have never read it. It is very long and the previous translations are unsatisfactory. This book is an attempt to offer a succinct, accurate and readable translation.

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David R. Slavitt: educated at Andover, Yale, and Columbia, is the author of more than 115 books—novels, poetry, reportage, and translations. He was the movie reviewer for Newsweek in the sixties and was co-editor of the Johns Hopkins Complete Roman Drama as well as the Penn Complete Greek Drama. Among his recent publications: The Sonnets and Short Poems of Francesco Petrarch (2012, Harvard University Press), Civil Wars (2013, Louisiana State University Press), The Four Other Plays of Sophocles (2013 Johns Hopkins University Press), and The Crooning Wind: Three Greenlandic Poets (New American Press 2013), and Shiksa (C&L Press). His version of The Mahabharata will be published in the spring by Northwestern University Press.