Book Review: The Golden Book of Holy Vedas by A.A Macdonell

The history of Indian literature has been very rich, with so many different languages and scholars in India . Vedas, Upanishads, the epic sagas of Ramayan and Mahabhart are the part of Indian literary heritage .

The Golden Book of Holy Vedas primarily explains Rig veda. There are manily 4 Vedas, Rig Veda being the oldest. Rig veda is basically a collection of Hymns in Sanskrit. Hymns were passed down orally earlier from generation to generation, it was written much later with the development of the languages.

Rig Veda worships the strong forces of Nature. Sun, Earth, Wind, Fire etc  are considered gods in Rig veda. Every source of energy that helped human lives to survive is depicted as god in Rig veda.

The author  Macdonells has written a systematically organized book.The book starts with a detailed history of when the Vedas originated, How it developed and what significance it holds. Every god is given a brief introduction in the book along with their powers. A picture is also presented of the gods which matches with the given description,  I found this the the most interesting thing of the book. The pictures, it made the imagination easy.

There are 33 gods as per Rig Veda, this book explains most of it with clear explanation followed by few sholkas dedicated to it. The book first describes the god then it is followed by verse in Sanskrit language and then the Sanskrit stanza in English for those who can’t read Sanskrit and then its translation.

The book is so well organized and explains in a way that is easy perceive by the readers what the gods stand for.

I have always been interested in Mythology. I have grown up listening to the stories of Ramayan, Mahabharat, stories from the childhood of Lord Krishna and other mythological stories. There were several instances where I was able to relate few things from Rig Veda to those stories.

For example As per Rig Veda Maruts are Son of Rudra. As per Ramayan Maruti is the other name of Hanuman and hanuman is considered as the avatar of lord Shiva, Rudra being the other name of Shiva. There were few more instances where I tired to link. The fun part for me was trying to connect the gods of Rig Veda to the gods of Ramayan and Mahabharat.

To sum it up this book is a great source of information for starters. A person intending to do a deep study of the Vedas can start with this book because of its easy and incomplicated writing. It will give you an insight of that Vedas actually are. The book is not actually Rig Veda but the Authors understanding of the Veda.