A large Soma on the rocks

I'm undertaking a pretty daunting task. It begins with these words:

agním īḷe puróhitaṃ
yajñásya devám r̥tvíjam
hótāraṃ ratnadhā́tamam

Read them out loud. Congratulations, you have just read something that was composed over three and a half thousand years ago, in a language from the Bronze Age. How does that make you feel? In the common tongue of today, they say:

I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest,
God, minister of sacrifice,
The hotar, lavishest of wealth.

Yep, I'm reading the Rig Veda. Specifically, I'm using Ralph T.H. Griffith's 1896 translation, simply because it’s well-organized and easy to find on Wikisource. If anyone knows a better version to refer to, well you can see the comments section below and know what to do.

This is not the first time I'm attempting to read the Vedas. I have read bits of them before, you know. I introduce myself on Twitter and other places with a rather lovely quote that describes, in equal measures, me or the creation of the universe:

Whence this creation has arisen
Perhaps it formed itself, perhaps it did not
The one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows
Or perhaps he does not.
- Mandala 10, Hymn 129, Verses 6 & 7

But these were nothing more than random excursions born out of passionate coitus between curiosity and boredom, and an interest in reading one of the oldest extant works of literature currently at our disposal. I’d browse through fragments of it while at work, largely to relieve the monotony of reading or, indeed writing, such Orwellian new-speak as: “It is important to holistically incorporate disparate elements of sustainable development into a single paradigm-altering framework that ratifies the goals committed to at Rio 1992 while also integrating current economic inputs to create a systematic agenda that can overcome North-South divides and accelerate consensus.”

This time, however, I've decided to incorporate my own paradigm-shifting methodology, and am reading the transliterated Sanskrit version alongside it. While many people will contest these claims, I know Hindi and Telugu; and theoretically, should be able to follow a few words here and there. The opening verse was encouraging as I could understand around 60% of the verse in Sanskrit

agním = Agni = God of fire, or fire itself
puróhitaṃ = Purohit = Priest
yajñásya = Yajna = Sacrifice, or generally speaking, a religious ritual
devám = Deva = God
ratnadhā́tamam = Ratna-something = Jewel-something

I think I need to clarify that this is not a precursor to a story involving me re-discovering my religious heritage and becoming a born-again Hindoo. My interest in the Vedas derive from my love for history and literature, and am treating them as an unique and exciting opportunity to read something that was first composed sometime between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago.

While it mostly consists of praises of Agni, Indra, and most importantly, of the Soma drink; there is the palpable presence of a story in the Rig Veda. The first 20-odd hymns of the first Mandala describe a journey away from their homelands, preparations for some sort of battle, and victory in the said battle. I have to say I am even more surprised at the pig-headedness of Out-of-India theorists now. If archaeological and linguistic evidence aren’t enough, there is evidence of a migration in the Vedas themselves. The landscape describes hills and mountains filled with gushing streams, ridges, and regions of aridity interspaced with lush, fertile pastures. Not much mention is made of agriculture so far, and one gets the distinct feeling that these people are a warrior race of heavy Soma-drinking, meat-eating, horse-riding, cattle grazers. When they praise the land, they praise qualities that would appeal to a nomadic culture rather than a sedentary one. But this is just the first 30 hymns. There are nearly a thousand in the Rig Veda alone.

"But why are you doing this?", my non-existent readership asks. Well, apart from the reasons mentioned above, what really motivates me is the prospect of figuring out what all those shlokas I had to listen to while being forced to sit at (and even conduct) religious rituals meant. The pandits at these rituals never answered my questions (“Do not ask such questions! Pour more ghee in the fire! Yes, the smoke is holy! Yes, I know the smoke’s burning your eyes; your tears please the Gods! Yes, they are vindictive bastards!”), and I have a well-formed hatred of religious people who took my parents money and ruined my holidays only to burn some wood, sacrifice some fruits, and eat a bunch of free food, before driving away in their 20-year old beaten-up Bajaj scooters. So it is time I take matters into my own hands. For all I know, the priest didn’t know what he was saying either. Perhaps he didn’t know that Verse 5, Hymn 29, Mandala 1:

sám indra gardabhám mr̥ṇa
nuvántam pāpáyāmuyā

Translates to:

Destroy this ass, O Indra,
Who in tones discordant brays to thee

Of course, Indra never did. Pity.

Aim for a Post-Scarcity Economy, we will achieve a Green one

Perhaps it is a consequence of living in a world where the pace of growth has accelerated to such an extent that technologies less than half a decade old are seen as irredeemably obsolete; but I believe that society has appeared to have lost its ability to plan for the long-term. Even those among us who are trying to prevent the catastrophes of climate change, bred from an almost cannibalistic avarice for economic "development", are looking for solutions that can be implemented in the next decade or so, and would be quite pleased if their impacts would continue for the next century. I would like to advocate something far more radical; and while it may be appear to be an almost impossible request, we must remember that the last century has been identified by the ability of humanity to achieve tasks that were considered impossible in the not-so-recent past.

One of my favorite books of all-time is the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. For the sake of brevity, I will try to contain the highly complex plot to a few, brief sentences. In the far future, humanity has spread itself across the galaxy. Sociology and economics reach their zenith under the care of Hari Seldon, creator of the science of "Psychohistory" (a sort of kinetic theory of gases for sociology). Using the principles of this science, he predicts the inevitable collapse of the millennia-spanning 'Galactic Empire', followed by an even longer period of anarchy and intellectual darkness, before a new system can evolve to restore order. To stem the societal rot and decay that would follow in the interregnum, Hari Seldon advocates a radical plan which (and this is the nub of the matter) would be executed over the span of a thousand years.

Now, I do not claim to have invented such a new science, nor do I have a thousand-year plan to address the problems of climate change and sustainable development. Instead, all I wish to advocate is the idea that we can have a grandiose, extremely long-term goal, and work together as a single society towards achieving it. And the goal should be, quite simply, eliminating scarcity of any kind. The ultimate green economy would be no economy; a singular human civilization, completely capable of sustaining itself, and devoid of any resource imbalance.

The Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev devised a handy scale with which we could measure the progress of our civilization, and chart our future path. According to this scale, humanity is currently a Type 0.7 civilization, which I think is pretty much the ceiling of growth that is possible using existing energy technology. In order to ascend to a Type I civilization, it would be essential for us to be able to harness renewable energy on a massive scale. These were not the goals in mind while the technology we use today, or have been using for the last few centuries, were being made. In order for humanity to be able to - in the imminent future - achieve energy self-sufficiency to the extent that we can advance to a Type I Kardashev Civilization; and in order for us to eventually eliminate all scarcity completely, it would require, from all stakeholders (i.e. governments, corporations, bilateral and multilateral institutions, and even us common folk), a change in the approach we take to development. The scope of technological, social, and economic progress must be global; we must learn to view ourselves as equal users of a single common resource - the Earth.

This would, of course, require a change in mindset that is unprecedented. Yet, almost everything that has happened within my lifetime has been unprecedented; thus, I do not believe these goals are too daunting a challenge.