Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

this is the second time i have purchased this book, i wore my original copy out! it is entertaining and educating. if you are not familiar with Hindu gods, it is a great jumping off point for a wonderful enlightenment.

I have read "Ka" twice and still not come close to absorbing the wisdom in this very fine book. It is a study and retelling of some of the great Vedic Hindu myths; and the myths come alive in full depth in Roberto Calasso's writing. Shiva and Daksha and Usha and Rohini and Prajapati have never been so subtly understood and explained to the modern reader..A truly great work.

Great book for those interested in diving into the mythologies of India. For yoga teachers, yoga students, or anyone interested in mythologies. Calasso's style of writing is engaging and never felt I was trudging through a text book. By the end I wanted to go back and reread from the start. It's set up as individual chapters that are self-contained stories (as opposed to a full novel narrative), and yet the entire book is connected via references of common figures/characters in the mythos.

Roberto Calasso was an Italian polymath who wrote on the history of world culture until his death last year at the age of eighty. Widely regarded in literary and intellectual circles, he hasn’t achieved his deserved recognition in the States despite favorable reviews in popular publications like the New York Times and the Atlantic Monthly.I am slowly making my way through his corpus and chose to read this account of Indian scripture. It’s an achievement. Personally conversant in Sanskrit, he brings the Rig Veda, Mahabharata and tales of the Buddha to life. I’ve read translations of the Rig Veda and various Buddhist texts and can verify that Calasso’s version, without losing the otherness of these distant cultural epochs, provides a much better introduction than self-study.Particularly with the Rig Veda you get a sense of a time when theology, philosophy, astronomy, mythology, grammatology and ritual were not distinct subjects. Many prominent Western ideas are, albeit in a somewhat primitive form, presaged by the Rig Veda. Kant’s question of whether the mind creates phenomena or noumena creates the mind, ritual as restoring cosmic order, Hesiod’s theogony of the gods…all this and more were known to the Vedic authors over three thousand years ago.There’s good reason for this. DNA testing has revealed that Europeans and the Vedic peoples are both descendants of the same tribe that lived by the Black Sea over five thousand years ago. Exegetes of Homer can detect many of the same legends underpinning the Vedas and the Greek epics.So while this is certainly not a book everyone must read, for those wanting to appreciate an increasingly multicultural world, it’s the best introduction I’ve read to Vedic literature. Perhaps the highest recommendation I can give is that I plan on reading more of Calasso, in particular his other work on South Asian peoples.

The author writes beautifully and he can keep your attention for awhile, especially in the first few chapters. He weaves the stories of the Indian culture together beautifully but being Indian, I have heard these stories told to me by my family. The author has changed certain stories so he can better make the story flow but the changes frustrated me and I would stop reading for a few days only to pick it up back again. I haven't finished it and I doubt I will. If you have some knowledge of these stories you will appreciate this book by being able to recognize the changes.

Makes mythology really come alive. As it should. The stories are gems. His commentary thought provoking. It did take me a while to read it all but well worth it.

One of the best critics, essayists, philosophers alive today. This is part of a series on religion unlike anything else available. This one is about Hinduism. He's also written on Greece, Baudelaire, art history, Tiepolo, and numerous critical essays on a variety of topics. Superb writer. (This portion of review repeats for other books.) This is a companion volume to Ardor (q.v.), also Hinduism but more in his usual narrative fashion.

Having read the reviews that have already been posted, it is clear to me that there is no more to be said other than this work is phenomenal. I am grateful to Roberto Calasso for writing it and Tim Parks for translating it so beautifully.

Book appears to be pirated…Cover is of low quality material and low resolution.Contents are fine.