Thursday 18 October 2012

Ka, Kha & Roberto Calasso

Roberto Calasso- an Italian publisher who has recently learnt Sanskrit- wrote a silly book called 'Ka' which has been translated into Hindi and now Tamil.
Since Google did not exist when he was writing it, he did not know what the Chandogya has to say about the Rg Vedic 'Ka' (Who).
'Ka and Kha are both Brahman. Ka means sexual pleasure or joy. Kha means akasha or the Ether. They are one and the same.'
What light does this throw upon the war between the snakes and the birds in the Adi Parvan of the Mahabharata? Birds fly in the Ether, snakes enjoy sex. The two types of prognostication- viz bird augury and krait bit Prophetic frenzy- too are equivalent.
In this context what, if not that Indology is ignorant shite, does Calasso's Ka mean? What? Ka? Ka?

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