The Vedic Corpus: A Referential Synthesis of Philosophy, Religion and Grand-Narratives

Abstract

This paper aims to address an age-old imperialistic problem of whether the whole of the Vedic corpus deals with mythical and religious issues only; or whether they have some other aspects as well that may satisfy the human intellectual and emotional need via their philosophical and grand narratives essential to beat the multiple forms of nihilism (Epistemic, ontic and existential). Presupposing that religion simply asks for positive faith, optimism, submission and sacrifice, while philosophy and grand narratives (metaphysics) creates a sense of wonder in us, we aim to depict that the Vedic corpus as a holistic system without any imposition of positive or negative emotions. Moreover, this paper aims to conclude that the hardcore Vedic corpus with certain lacunas (due to philosophical ambiguities and toughness in the interpretation) provides a holistic way of life, which is also an innovative application that modern materialistic and imperialistic world order often miscues in one way or other.