/lit/ - Literature

>>14677428
All I can say is don't jump in like a fish into the water just because you have taken an interest in something Anon.

>>14677438
>don't jump in like a fish into the water
Where else can the fish go but the water?
>just because you have taken interest
Okay, so can you suggest where to start then?

>>14677428
complete and quality translations of the Vedas, Ramayana Mahabharata and Puranas are lacking, I suggest:
Bhagavad Gita to start, preferably with shankara's commentary

Be careful not to get misled by the resident Advaita cultist. He preys on threads like this and tries to swindle interested guys like you into becoming neovedantists and Guenonian theosophists like him. Remember to do your own research, and not trust answers from the internet as they'll almost always be given by zealots of some position you want to restrict your access to other interpretations. For some reason the local Advaita fag(s?) are the worst.

>>14677458
Shankara has a very late, crypto-buddhist and non-vedic interpretation of the Upanishads, see >>14677467

You should read him later, not to start

>>14677467
im not gu*nonfag but there is no denying that shankara is the foremost hindu philosopher, equivalent to Aquinas in Catholicism.

>>14677467
So where would you suggest I start, and with what translation?

>>14677428
Why are you interested in Hinduism OP? I ask because I too have become increasingly interested with it and have a hard time articulating why I find it so fulfilling.

>>14677532
I literally don't know. When I find something that I suddenly become interested in, it's more of an intuition thing than an ego thing, thereby harder to explain. I've been interested for awhile and now that I'm done with the other books I was reading I'm ready to start, I just need help on where, really.

>>14677438

This is dumb advice, if everyone followed as such nobody would do anything

someone post the "anatomy of a guenonfag post" pic

>>14677428
not that im versed in the texts you list, but i have to add to take a glance on sanskrit. for some reasons.

- mantras are everywhere in "hindu" thought(s). and pronouncing mantras correctly are super important
- to pronounce correctly you have to understand the phonology of sanskrit. forget about grammar at first cos this shit seems harder than latin and greek.
- anyway all the vedas HAVE to be pronounced correctly, if you even vocalize at them at all, and not satisfied in just translation. vedic sanskrit is tonal language with added little bit weird sandhi shit

just get basic glances at the language first. not much, but do not ever say any mantra without knowing any sanskrit. if u dont know what a retroflex is, do not even begin to vocalize

>>14678292
What are some good Vedic mantras and resources for Sanskrit? I'm definitely down to learn, albeit language isn't my most vigorous suit.

>>14677428
cont.
"hinduism" isnt a monolithic single thing, first you get to see and understand them in term of periods.

some notable examples; the very first era was the vedic, which were the vedas. think of greek gods. norse gods. think as such then think of a population of nomads that never made any building at all and doesnt leave anything EXCEPT words - their poetry, the vedas. polytheistic, 'materialistic' warring ritualheads. they are very much different than the what the word hindu might make you imagine.

then came upanishad period and this here is where (according to humble little knowledged me) you want to start. its the fountainhead of all the subsequent hindu thoughts. the previous warring ritualheads seemed to stone down into extremely instropective self-finding sages, which seemed very weird.

other starting point people often say is bhagavad gita, cos it seemed like a condensed, generalized and culmination of hindu thoughts.

so, my humble, very limited incomplete knowledges would give these choices;

- vedas, if u wanna read bards praising gods for material favors ENDLESSLY for pages, and to learn appreciating nature in polytheistic ways, to induce more poetic mind

- upanishads, if u wanna dive direct into the general core of "hinduism". talk endlessly of the deepest self and the deepest reality

- bhagavad gita if u like "software that just works" and if u dont mind things that feel kinda monotheistic, if you are "action over thoughts", if monasticism irks you somewhat

ask other people too!
i havent even read enough!

What's with Westerners and third world religion/philosophy? It seems like a trend, only a question of time until people go out to larp as tribesmen.

>>14678336
Thanks for your detailed reply. So, would you say the list of the Upanishads I have is a good order to read them in? (Those are just the 14 main ones I read about). Additionally, it appears I'd require to learn Sanskrit to read the Vedas, because the only good English translation that seems to be eminent costs 400 dollars, and I have trouble reading pdfs/ebooks. Thanks again for your input.

>>14678341
there is a subculture of westerners that shun anything abrahamic while also wanting to 'real' tradition. hinduism is the oldest valid tradition that has nothing to do with juice. it also has ties to indo-europeans.

>>14678317
just look around at wiki and omniglot first, and there are just basically 49 characters, but the point is you know how to pronounce, just understand the five places on the mouth and other things fall into place.

only need to learn how and where to form your tongue, and youll correctly do the mantras. i hoard various stuffs and read lots of sites myself, so none popped in mind particularly

basic mantras, the shanti
the purnamidam one
bija mantras, lots of them, recombine at will
om namah shivaya
om gam ganapataye namaha
dont mess with mantras for 'dangerous' deities like kali or smthg
people often recommend gayatri but i wouldnt cos theres extra sound in it people often didnt mention

>>14677428
https://discord.gg/CnGHv8u

>>14678369
>https://discord.gg/CnGHv8u
What's that?

>>14678388
Tranny recruitment.

>>14678345
order? i just read them haphazardly. bored i just go to others. they are like songs in metal album, they might have different lyrics but they all sound metal.

one thing i notice is brhadaranyaka tastes pretty different than all the other ones, cos its the oldest, the longest and closest to the age of vedas

just read the translation first with the vedas. fuck buying.. and that jamison translation is pdf somewhere online. only fuck with sanskrt if youre rly interested in it in the first place (most ppl dont. im interested in vedas but even i found it boring)

i just like talking things that interest me, and especially if i dont know them well

>>14678392
I joined, saw the word "shill", and immediately left.

>>14678396
What translation would you recommend for the Vedas? Also, how long would you say it generally takes to learn Sanskrit, at least enough to read the literature?

heres the translation
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=+Stephanie+jamison&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=author

>>14678413
i dont learn sanskrit, either shits fucking hard or im brainlet, likely both
just knowing how to sound it is enough for me

translation is above post
is it the best? hell if i know...

>>14677428
Greetings anon, I have been doing a deep dive through Hindu literature for the past several years as well. I hope that you enjoy what you have read as much as I have. A good place to begin is the Rene Guenon's (pbuh) book "Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines', it helps to clear away many misconceptions people may have about Hinduism. You can read it below.

https://archive.org/details/reneguenon/page/n4/mode/2up

After this you want to begin with reading the Upanishads, as they are the 'Sruti' or revealed texts which most Hindu sects consider to be the most important, and a lot of later Hindu writings are based. I recommend reading them with Shankara's commentaries, he is one of the most important and influential Hindu philosophers and his commentaries are a great joy to read, combining wonderful prose with awe-inspiring insight and logic. The Buddhists on this board hate him because he criticizes Buddhism in his writing, so just ignore all the spam by them about him being a 'crypto-Buddhist'. Shankara's Upanishad commentaries are the first set of major commentaries on the Upanishads by any Hindu thinker which we know of, the other later Vedanta school founders that came after Shankara either never wrote any Upanishad commentaries like Ramanuja or they wrote much less and they have not been translated. If you want a translation of the Upanishads to read without commentary Olivelle's are good. Below are links to 8 out of the 11 Upanishad commentaries Shankara wrote, you can try checking them out to see if you like them.

https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-Vol-1.pdf
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Eight-Upanisads-vol2.pdf

The Bhagavad-Gita can be read anytime but preferably after you've read at least a few Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras should be read only after you have already read all of the Mukhya (primary) Upanishads as it references them a lot. I would recommend reading the Vedas only after one has read a lot of other Hindu philosophy. A good Purana to begin with would be the Vishnu Purana or the Bhagavata Purana (translated as Srimad Bhagavata by Tapasyananda). Some other good/important texts worth reading The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Vivekachudamani, Adhyatma Ramayana, the Yoga Vasistha, and Jnanadeva's Bhavartha Deepika and Amritanubhava. There is a mountain of great literature just within the Vedanta and Yoga schools alone, and then on top of this there a lot of great writings/philosophy from Hindu Tantra also like Kashmir Shaivism.

>>14678491
please stop falseflagging, Advaita is actually a decently interesting sect of Vedanta despite Guenonfagging

>>14678573
I'm not falseflagging, I am Guenonfag and I adore both Advaita and Rene Guenon (pbuh). In any case my post was full of helpful information, lists of texts to read and links to online PDFs. It doesn't really matter whether I am false-flagging, pretending to be a Guenonposter ironically or believe 100% what I wrote as there isn't anything in my post that is factually wrong or misleading. The immense butthurt that Guenon-posting and Advaita-posting causes certain people is not a good reason to stop posting about either, in fact that's one of the main reasons why I do it!

>>14678341
Swastika was adopted from Hinduism you clueless retard

>>14677550

>>14677478
Indeed, I see a lot of divide and conquer going on

>>14678600
I have no idea on what you two are arguing about, can you give me a quick run down? Who exactly is Guenon and the Advaita? It says he's a Muslim on a quick google search.

>>14678923
Rene Guenon was a perennialist author who founded the Traditionalist school of thought and who converted to Islam to become a Sufi but who nevertheless said that the same truth is found in Sufism, Hinduism, Taoism, other religions etc. He has some good books on Hindu metaphysics, among other things; he mostly focuses on Advaita Vedanta in his writings on Hinduism.

Advaita Vedanta was the first school to arise in Hinduism historically that provided a comprehensive and consistent interpretation of the Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita and Brahma Sutras in the form of commentaries on all three explaining how they all contain the same spiritual teaching. Other previous schools like Yoga and Samhkya had claimed to be based on the Upanishads but we don't have any Upanishad commentaries by them which survive which explain word for word how the Upanishads teach their doctrine like the Advaita commentaries do. Other Vedanta schools were formalized after the emergence of Advaita Vedanta as a school, and from the 8th century onwards the various Vedanta schools become one of the most influential areas of Hindu philosophy, with the consequence that some of the other schools were eclipsed in influence and that today most Hindu sects base their metaphysics in one of the Vedanta schools.

Rene Guenon in his writings criticizes modernity, the worship of science (scientism), secularism, Protestantism, process philosophy, modern western philosophy in general, atheism, democracy, progressivism, egalitarianism, utilitarianism etc. Also, Adi Shankara (the main Advaita philospher) criticizes Buddhism in his writings. Because of how Rene Guenon is associated with Advaita Vedanta because of his writings on it, there is a weird confluence on /lit/ where a motley crew of atheists, leftists, Buddhists, materialists, people into process philosophy etc all combine to constantly complain and get upset about Guenon and/or Advaita.

Because the writings of Adi Shankara and Guenon are generally very logical and hard to argue against directly, it causes these people to resort to all sorts of distractions and ad-hominem attacks which allow them to try to smear and attack those things without actually addressing their ideas. With Advaita this takes the form of saying it stole from Buddhism (not true) and denying that it's an influential area of Hindu philosophy (not true) whereas with Guenon it takes the form of accusing everybody who ever posts about him of being this one Boogeyman named "Guenonfag", as soon as you invoke his name it is supposed to discredit the person posting about Guenon and end the discussion but instead of working as intended it became a meme that people laugh at and more people than ever are posting about Guenon. Any time you see someone complaining about 'Guenonfag' it is usually some miserable Buddhist, atheist, communist, tranny etc