Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

berausche die götter

A package of books came in the mail yesterday, all the way from København: Geldner’s translation of the Rigveda. (There’s a small bookseller’s plate on the inside front cover: Ejnar Munksgaard, Nørregade 6, København.) I know I could have bought it cheaper in paperback from Harvard Press, but I’ve always liked the heft and feel of the hard cover, four volume edition. Any way you look at it, it’s going to be fun comparing the original Sanskrit (Indian reprint of the Max Müller-edited edition) and that funny English version (Griffith).

Also, yesterday when I was making a shingle to hang outside my office (so people wouldn’t mistake me for my ever-absent officemate), I needed a quick and free devanagari word processor to do my various Hindu names. I didn’t want to take the time to download TeX, get it installed and running on a Windoze machine, and then search out the fonts and transliteration programs. So, intead I went to this website and decided to download the Baraha program. It does Sanskrit and Hindi devanagari, as well as Tamil, Kannada, and Telegu.

Fließe, um Labsal, Stärkung, Roß, Rind (zu gewinnen); schaffe weites Licht, berausche die Götter! Denn all das ist für dich leicht zu erzwingen; o Pavamāna Soma, du verdrängst die Feinde.

[Karl Friedrich Geldner. Der Rig-veda, dritter Teil, hymn ix.94.5]