The Rgveda Samhita: Vasanti Bhasya (Set of 3 Volumes)

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Rgveda, the oldest literary document of the world, is the transcendental language of prayers and hymns to glorify the elemental deities.

Basanta Kumar Ganguly has translated and annotated the entire Rgveda in the light of his own mature experience. He has evinced considerable originality by differing from the traditional commentary of Sayana. What makes the work unique is that it contains the huge Rgveda in Roman translation. This is particularly attractive to foreign scholars.

This is a work of author's Herculean effort to grasp the real sense of the rks and to take an integral view of the entire Rgveda where the rsis recorded their experiences of the pilgrimages from mortality to immortality.

Introductory part of this work is a real treasure. Here, he interprets Rgveda thematically in his expressive and lucid language and differs greatly from the annotations of the traditional commentators as well as the European scholars which opens a new threshold to the readers of philosophy and Indian antiquity.

Author's explanatory notes emerged from his unique philosophical concept of the mystical and abstruse words. The elucidation of Vedic symbolism will benefit a modern reader endowed with a rational bent of mind to be adequately equipped for understanding the hymns as well as to have a glimpse of the radiance of Vedic scripture.

Basanta Kumar Ganguly was born on 16th December, 1916 at Mahesh near Serampore in West Bengal in an intellectually inclined Bengali Brahmin family. He completed his schooling in the 1930s attending the village school. After securing a diploma in technology, he started his career as a draftsman in the Central Government services. In his mid - forties he developed a taste for philosophy and started studying the New Testament, and then gradually Upanisads, Bhagavadgita and the Vedas with the original Sanskrit text. After his superannuation on 1973, as Principal Scientific Officer of Ordnance Factories in the Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India, he devoted entirely to translate and explain the text in his own untraditional way. This unique book is an outcome of the author's twenty-four year's laborious and painstaking effort.

He passed away in 1999 leaving this only book where he remains and will remain ever present with all his outstanding individuality.

It is a privilege for me to place before the discerning readers in general and scholars of Indology in particular the English translation of The Rgveda Samhitä-Väsanti Bhasya with annotation and transliteration of Rks by Late Basanta Kumar Ganguly.

On an auspicious day in July 1971 a colleague left on my table two books on the Rgveda written by Sri Aurobinda, The Secret of the Veda and Hymns to Mystic Fire. Later in the day, when I met him, I thanked him for the books and told him that I know nothing about the Veda and I am not sure that I would read the books. He said that the books belonged to their library, Aurobinda Path Mandir, Rishi Bankim Street, Calcutta; and there was no demand for these books; I could keep these for as long as I wished.

**Contents and Sample Pages**