Kabbalah

  • The Rigveda’s 19th Sukta

    Namaste, my brother in Christ, and welcome (or welcome back) to my latest adhyayana posting. We’ve come to the Rigveda’s 19th Sukta, which, for the past 4,000 years, has been misperceived as a hymn calling upon Agni to invite the Maruts to the the yajna ritual. As established in our previous discussions 1) Agni is the…

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  • The Rigveda’s 6th Sukta (part 1)

    About a year ago, my husband and I were shopping at our favorite Indian market — something we used to do once a month or so to restock the larder. While we were perusing the frozen-food cases on the final aisle, an elderly Indian gentleman stopped his cart behind us. “Do you like Indian food?”…

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  • The Rigveda’s 3rd Sukta

    The Rigveda’s 3rd Sukta

    I first drafted this post back in February 2024, after taking a few weeks off from blogging. Why the break? Mainly because I felt no compulsion to carry on. In hindsight, I can see that my lack of motivation was tied to my reluctance to continue translating the Rigveda. Who am I, after all, to…

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  • The Ten Shining Handmaids

    The Ten Shining Handmaids

    Instead of rushing ahead to the Rigveda’s third Sukta, I want to spend more time on the ten risha (female rishis) referenced in the second Rik. In my last post, I equated those “shining handmaids” with the Mahedivyas or “great wisdom” goddesses of Hinduism, the Sefirot of Jewish mysticism, the lampstands in the Temple of…

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