Ardor by Roberto Calasso

Ardor by Roberto Calasso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In "Ardor," Roberto Calasso provides a unique and fascinating exploration of the Vedas, the ancient Indian texts that form the foundation of Hinduism. It is a gripping book that gets straight to the point with no meandering introduction or a convoluted preface/foreword by some authority claiming to be more knowledgeable than the author.
One of the key themes of is the idea of sacrifice, which is central to the Vedic worldview. The author explores the different types of sacrifice described in the Vedas, from the simplest offerings of food and drink to the more elaborate rituals involving the sacrifice of animals and even humans. He delves into the symbolic significance of these sacrifices, showing how they represent the giving up of one's own desires and attachments in order to attain a higher spiritual state. He even equates our present day ‘sacrifice’ with income-tax

It may be life, for the animal that is killed; or money, for the taxpayer who is invited to make “sacrifices” (in this case we are no longer talking about ritual, but the word continues to be used in a broader sense); or it may be a liquid, even just water; or a perfume, such as incense, which is dispersed…

Another important theme of the book is the idea of the divine as an infinite, incomprehensible force that underlies all of existence. The author draws on a range of Vedic texts to explore this idea, showing how it relates to other key concepts in Hinduism, such as karma, rebirth, and the search for liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
Throughout the book, Calasso also emphasizes the importance of the Vedas as a living tradition that continues to evolve and shape Indian culture and spirituality. He shows how the Vedas have been interpreted and reinterpreted over the centuries, and how they continue to inspire new generations of seekers and thinkers.
The writing style is erudite and dense, and readers will need to be patient and willing to engage with his complex ideas. However, for those who are willing to put in the effort, "Ardor" offers a rich and rewarding exploration of one of the world's most fascinating and influential spiritual traditions. By delving deeply into the texts and ideas of the Vedas, the text provides readers with a profound understanding of the spiritual and cultural heritage of India, and the enduring relevance of these ancient texts in the modern world. Besides Vedic philosophy and the complicated rituals, the author talks about the duality of nature atman/aham in the Vedic context, the quantum theory of superposition, the binary property of light, the binary code.
I picked up a significant fact – the use of the karil fruit Capparis decidua as a sacrificial item points to the arid milieu the Vedic nomads (aka the Aryans) settled in, after migrating from ice-bound hilly regions in search of the disappearing mysterious Soma. Wandering herds of black-buck Antilope cervicapra also used for sacrifice (as an euphemism for hunting) also points to the arid sere landscape of our Vedic ancestors.
Here are some memorable quotes form the book

The Veda moves in a state of panic … the hymns seemed to be not just composed in cold blood but frenetic works, produced in an atmosphere of oratorical jousting, where victory is gained by best formulating the mythical-ritual-based enigmas …
Then “one of the two became the devourer and the became food. Agni became the devourer and Soma the food. Down there is nothing else than devourer and devoured.” And there are these two poles in everything that happens, without exception and at every level. But Bhrgu discovered something else: the two poles were reversible. At a certain moment the positions will switch, indeed they will have to switch, because this is the order of the world. This explains why all that is said about Agni can also, at a certain moment, be said about Soma. And vice versa …

Here is a defence of vegetarianism – the prohibition on beef-consumption – from the third kanda of the Satpatha Brahmana.But see the last part for the dichotomy and conundrum that prevail in The Vedaskanda of the Satapta Brahmana

The gods said, “Certainly the cow and the ox support everything here; come, let us bestow on the cow and the ox whatever strength belongs to the other species!” It wasn’t therefore just the human hide that had been transferred to cattle. But strength in general, dispersed throughout nature. So cows became a concentration of everything. To kill them would have meant everything. “If someone were to eat an ox or a cow, it would be as if, so to speak, he were to eat everything or, so to speak, as if he were to destroy everything.” Already the insistence – twice in two lines – on the particle iva, “so to speak,” warns us that we are in a highly fraught and dangerous area. The tone is serious – and immediately afterward there is a resounding threat, one of the earliest formulations of the doctrine of reincarnation: “One [who acts} thus could be reborn as a strange being, as one of evil repute, as one of whom it is said: ‘He has caused a woman to abort’ or ‘He has committed a sin.’ So he must not eat (the meat of) an ox or cow.”
The words are short, abrupt, they do not seem to allow for any reply. But they are turned on their head in the next sentence: “Nonetheless Yājñavalkya said: ‘I, for my part, eat it, provided it is tender.’”

More memorable quotes

Compared with every monotheistic god, and with all other plural deities, Prajapati is more intimate and more remote, more elusive and more familiar …
But something in the very nature of the risis was an epistemological scandal: they alone were allowed to belong to the unmanifest and at the same time take part in the events of everyday life, which they secretly ruled.

A case of superposition?

From the Rigveda to the Bhagwad Gita a way or reasoning is developed that never acknowledges a single subject, but rather presupposes a dual subject. This is because the constitution of the mind is dual: consisting of a gaze that perceives (eats) the world and of a gaze that contemplates the gaze directed at the world. The dual constitution of the mind implies that two birds dwell within each of us: the Self, atman, and the I, aham… similar and opposing powers, the one - aham - intrusive yet insubstantial, the other - atman - supreme and untarnishable, yet difficult to coax out from its habitual hiding place.

The maya or enigma of God

Meanwhile, in parallel, the inner world expanded and accommodated the essential parts of everything: worlds, gods, Vedas, the vital breaths. “Let him know this: ‘All the worlds I have place within my Self, and my Self I have placed in all the worlds; all the gods I have placed within my Self, and my Self I have placed in all the gods; all the Vedas I have placed in myself, and my Self I have placed within all the Vedas; all the vital breaths I have placed within my Self, and my Self I have placed within all the vital breaths.’ For imperishable, in fact, are the worlds, imperishable the gods, imperishable the Vedas, imperishable the breaths imperishable in all this: and in truth anyone who knows this passes from imperishable to imperishable, conquers recurring death and reaches the full measure of life.”

So what is life, what is truth – puzzle wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a paradox, wrapped in a conundrum and so ad inifitum?

The Vedic ritualists, instead, seemed perversely attracted paradoxes in general. In them they say the very substance of enigmas, And enigmas formed the bedrock of what they expressed, in their hymns and in their commentaries on ritual.

The esoteric essence of Man

“In truth, O Gautama, a man is Agni: words are the logs, breath is the smoke, the tongue the flame, the eye the embers, the ear the sparks.” As for the woman, her correspondence with the fire was entirely sexual: “Logs are her womb, her attraction to the smoke the smoke, the embers coitus, the sparks pleasure.” An erotic compendium.
…death. Man is conceived, then “lives so longs as he lives. When he dies, he is placed on the fire. His fire is Agni, the logs the logs, the smoke the smoke, the flame the flame, the embers the embers, the sparks the sparks.”

The brazen patriarchal attitude that persists today. And such a pitiable end of puny humans!
The polygamous nature of Kunti can be possibly justified by this

…this must encourage the husband to be humble. Even though he will be the first to touch his bride’s body, he will be her fourth lover: “Soma had her first, the Gandharva had her second, her third husband was Agni, the fourth the son of man {approximate analogy being respectively Kunti’s lovers: Sun (Karna), Dharma (Yudhister), Indra (Arjun) and Vayu (Bhim)

Carrying on

the verses of the gayatri, the fundamental meter, have to be recited, one by one, without an intake of breath. This creates a tiny, impregnable cell of continuity in the boundless expanse of discontinuity. And so the gayatri meter one day became the bird Gayatri and had the strength to fly high into the sky to conquer Soma, that intoxicating and all-enveloping fluid in which the officiant recognized the supreme expansion of continuum …
ॐ । पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते ।
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ खं ब्रह्म । खं पुराणम्; वायुरं खम् इति ह स्माह कौरव्यायणीपुत्रः; वेदो'यं ब्राह्मणा विदुः; वेदैनेन यद्वेदितव्यम् ॥ १ ॥
इति प्रथमं ब्राह्मणम् ॥
Om. That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.
Om is the ether-Brahman—the eternal ether. ‘The ether containing air,’ says the son of Kauravyāyaṇī. It is the Veda, (so) the Brāhmaṇas (knowers of Brahman) know; (for) through it one knows what is to be known

An example of quantum entanglement

This game in which each element, each entity that has a name, is and at the same time is not another entity, to which it is tied by a kinship, by a bond, by a connection is the very game of Vedic thought.

And, finally

Nature, for urban man, is a barometric variation and a few leafy islands scattered across the urban fabric. Apart form this, it is raw material for manufacture and a scenario for leisure. For Vedic man, nature was the place where the powers were manifest and where exchanges between powers took place. Vedis society was a cautious attempt at becoming a part of those exchanges, without disturbing them too much and without being annihilated by them.

A book that requires rereading and savouring the mystical mysterious world of the Vedas.

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