Jagadish Chandra Chatterji > Quotes

“Yet the Vedas do not merely ask us to accept such conclusions. They even tell us that it is better to doubt them until we ourselves actually find them to be true. Rather the Vedas present their teachings as models of lines of examination for us to adapt into the circumstances of our own lives.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“Thus an examination of the Vedas remains central for anyone interested in the deeper spiritual inquiries of the human race.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“The Being as Atman is also feeling. Feeling is the very root and ground of our existence as conscious entities. And this feeling is joyousness (ananda); to live and to be is joy; suffering is only when we are not able to live and to be as we would. Suffering is not the essential nature of Being, but joy (ananda) is; it is joy that is the root of all love and peace and bliss.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, were but an air-image, our ME the only reality: and Nature, with its thousandfold production and destruction, but the reflex of our own inward Force, the “phantasy of our Dream.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“Ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kim ca jagatyam jagat”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“The great river of India spoken of in the Vedas—the Sarasvati—has recently been rediscovered and appears to have been the central homeland of the Indus Valley culture. This river, which flowed southwest in the region west of modern Delhi, roughly paralleling the Indus to the sea, contains hundreds of Indus culture sites positioned all along its dried banks. The Indus civilization, now renamed by many the “Sarasvati civilization,” came to an end with the drying up of the river around 1900 BC. As the Vedas speak of the Sarasvati River as having a wide course from the mountains to the sea, they must date from the period while the river was still flowing and must reflect the civilization located on it. This dates the Vedas well before 2000 BC, and makes them the oldest continuous religious and philosophical tradition in the world, contemporary with the pyramids of Egypt.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas

“Furthermore the ultimate Being is not an unconscious, unintelligent Being; on the contrary, the ultimate Being is Awareness (chit) itself.”
― Jagadish Chandra Chatterji, The Wisdom of the Vedas