Book Review: Discovering the Vedas

What are the Vedas? Are they sacred messages from gods or expressions of nomads and tribal? What time period they came into existence? And where? What is unique in each of those four Vedas?

This book answers those questions by extracting concrete information from the oral tradition and archaeology. It sheds light on mantras and rituals that became bedrock of Hinduism and also contributed significantly to Buddhism. From this book I came to know that Gayatri Mantra we recite is one of the 1028 shloka's from Rigveda.

Author of this book, Frits Staal, came to India on a scholarship from Govt. of India to study Indian philosophy and Sanskrit at a university in Madras and he stuck to those subjects and they became his career.

This is a thoughtful and a remarkable book. It helps to understand the religious subject from historical perspective.