Rig Veda Best English Translation

[Bonny Battaglino]

Toget the English translation of all 4 Vedas by Dr Tulsi Ram, please go to the following link. Dr Tulsi Ram's translation is the best. By the way, the filenames are in Bengali, but the books are in English! So do not get confused.

These pdf files have an annoying yellow background colour. However, with any pdf editor (for example, PDF XChange editor) you can easily remove all background colour and can get pure white background! Otherwise, file qualities are excellent. Files are small and they do not have any watermark. Most importantly files are not protected, which means you can annotate these pdf files easily!

Linguistic approach: This is the approach used in Linguistics today. It is called the comparative-linguistics method. This is based on translating the meaning of the words based on what they might have meant in PIE(Proto-Indo-European) by reconstructing meanings based on the meaning in other Indo-European languages. As such it is completely speculative. It is also based on white supremacy politics, the that the Aryan people originated in the Russian steeps and then went around invading and spreading their culture throughout Indo-Europe. So it does not pay a lot of weight to the Sanskrit tradition itself, seeing Indo-Aryan languages as being much later than the languages in Europe. The translations available using this method are by Max Mueller and Ralpth Griffith.

Grammatical approach: This is based on translating the Sanskrit according to the Grammar approach of Panini and the etymology of the words in the Nirukta i.e., using traditional Sanskrit dictionaries. This method produces a more accurate translation, as the Rig Veda would have been translated by scholars in India. The translations which are available are those by the Arya Samaaj, founded by Swami Dayananda. Unfortunately, you do get a lot of grammatical gymnastics being done to give words meanings which are unlikely, like translating certain words to mean electricity, telegraph, airship, nuclear fusion. As the Arya Samaaj believe the Rig Veda is not a historical document, but an eternal document of knowledge revealed by god at the beginning of creation, they translate everything that literally is historical into something on physics.

The best translations I have read are both anthologies: Rig Veda for the Layman by Sujoy Ghosh and the Holy Vedas by Pandit Vidyalankar. You will also find, if you know a few words in Sanskrit yourself, that when you read the Rig Veda its meaning unlocks within you. The best way to read the Rig Veda is intuitively, but you need to have some grasp of Sanskrit first.

It is by the time of the Upanishads that Western scholars acknowledge a complete shift in the Vedic mentality - almost like a sudden transformation in the Vedic mind; going from obsession with ritual to philosophy and yoga; animal sacrifices to ahimsa and vegetarianism; belief in heaven to believe in samsara and transcendence. In particular they mark out book 1 and book 10 of the Rig Veda as being the latest, simply because there you find the famous suktas which are consistent with Upanishadic thinking.

Thus Western scholars treat the Rig Veda somewhat like the Old testimant of Hinduism. It the reflects time where people were more uncivilized, polytheistic and primitive. The Upanishads, Gita and Darsanas are considered like the New testimant of Hinduism.

Of course I know this is incorrect, because I find Upanishadic thinking throughout the Rig Veda in every book. The Western scholars have simply ignored this because it does not fit in with their anthropological reductionist model that sees all early cultures as being primitive and uncivilized. They read the Rig Veda through this prism, reading into it what they want from it.

Thank you Asuri. I do want opinions. I like seeing what different people have to say. Since I am not searching for anything I do not need to worry about the time and effort being wasted. My research is merely historical and intellectual. The lotus flower has blossomed many years ago.

He who knows the truth about the universe

And the knows the secret of the conscious soul

pervading all

Achieves equanimity

He is rewarded by the divine with intuition insight

And eternal glory

(Atharva 10.2.229)

Bless me with divine vision at morn,

At noon of day, at evening and night.

Bless me that the seeds of intelligence ever flourish

In the warmth of thy love

as plants flourish bathed in the rays of the rising sun

(Atharva 6.108.5)

He who knows the first vital string

binding all things formed in shape, colour and words

Knows only the physical form of the universe, and knows

very little

But he who goes deeper and perceives the string, the thin

web binding the universe with cords of unity

Knows the ultimate reality

(Atharva 10.8.3

O citizens of the world

Live in harmony and concord

Be organized and co-operative

Speak with one voice

And make your resolutions with one mind

As our ancient saints and seers

Leader and preceptors

Have performed their duties righteously

Similarly, may you not falter to exercise

your duties

(Rig 10.191.2)

O man, work with vigour and vitality

Drive away the demons of poverty and disease.

May your honest earnings support the people,

Engaged in benevolent deeds

For the welfare of society

(Atharva 6.81.1)

Human life is like a turbulent stream, strewn with

rocks and pebbles; the brave step into it; for by sitting

on the shore and enumerating hurdles, you will never get across.

Leave behind the burden of your fears, guilts, weaknesses and

attachments. Thus freed from all negative forces, may you cross

the stream.

(Atharva 12.2.26)

Nevertheless, I risk saying that more important than coming up with a single best-fit-all translation for it we should make sure to whenever translating it from the original in EBTs do it in a way that those reading it get at least motivated to seek to fulfill themselves as well the ennobling task of fully comprehending what dukkha is.

"Now what, friends, is the noble truth of dukkha?

Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

"And what is birth? Whatever birth, taking birth, descent, coming-to-be, coming-forth, appearance of aggregates, & acquisition of [sense] spheres of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called birth.

"And what is aging? Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called aging.

"And what is death? Whatever deceasing, passing away, breaking up, disappearance, dying, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, casting off of the body, interruption in the life faculty of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called death.

"And what is lamentation? Whatever crying, grieving, lamenting, weeping, wailing, lamentation of anyone suffering from misfortune, touched by a painful thing, that is called lamentation.

"And what are the five clinging-aggregates that, in short, are stressful? The clinging-aggregate of form, the clinging-aggregate of feeling, the clinging-aggregate of perception, the clinging-aggregate of fabrications, the clinging-aggregate of consciousness: These are called the five clinging-aggregates that, in short, are stressful.

The ancient Chinese/Indo European parallels are difficult too. I think one of the reasons is that writing in China only got going in the Zhou Dynasty and in ancient India the passing of knowledge was oral of course and the Indo-Europeans also had no writing.

There is a lot of chariot-related similies in early Buddhism, but not a lot of metaphor, simile, or connection between specifically the axis/wheel and suffering in the sense of an off or on-centre axis, at least that I know of.

The mother then carries the embryo in her womb for nine or ten months with much anxiety, as a heavy burden. Then, at the end of nine or ten months, the mother gives birth with much anxiety, as a heavy burden. MN 38

What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbāna-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbāna-element with residue left. Iti 44

In the context of the Three Characteristics (SN 22.59), referring to an inherent characteristic of both (impermanent) material & mental things, which appear unrelated to suffering itself but can be object of suffering when attached to.

It seems the Buddha ended all adhesion (clinging) with he was 35 years old but continued to live life for another 45 years without adhesion. Thus it seems life is not adhesion but something different from adhesion.

However, you appear to be asserting the sense spheres & clinging are the same thing. How can this be when suttas such as MN 38 & Iti 44 describe liberation occurring with the sense spheres still operating, i.e., alive?

Vedas are śruti ("what is heard"),[16] distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called smr̥ti ("what is remembered"). Hindus consider the Vedas to be apauruṣeya, which means "not of a man, superhuman"[17] and "impersonal, authorless",[18][19][20] revelations of sacred sounds and texts heard by ancient sages after intense meditation.[21][22]

The Vedas have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE with the help of elaborate mnemonic techniques.[23][24][25] The mantras, the oldest part of the Vedas, are recited in the modern age for their phonology rather than the semantics, and are considered to be "primordial rhythms of creation", preceding the forms to which they refer.[26] By reciting them the cosmos is regenerated, "by enlivening and nourishing the forms of creation at their base."[26]

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