inde

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa: Les Sauveurs de l'humanité

13 Avril 2025 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Bharat, #Hindouisme, #Inde, #Râmakrishna, #Religion, #Spiritualité

Source: Jean Herbert: L'enseignement de Râmakrishna, Albin Michel, coll. Spiritualités vivantes, Paris, 1942.

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa: La connaissance de Dieu

13 Avril 2025 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Bharat, #Inde, #Hindouisme, #Râmakrishna, #Religion, #Spiritualité

Source: Jean Herbert: L'enseignement de Râmakrishna, Albin Michel, coll. Spiritualités vivantes, Paris, 1942.

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa: Mort et réincarnation

20 Mars 2025 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Bharat, #Inde, #Hindouisme, #Râmakrishna, #Religion, #Spiritualité

Source: Jean Herbert: L'enseignement de Râmakrishna. Albin Michel, coll. Spiritualités vivantes, Paris, 1942.

L'âme profonde (Bhagavad-Gita)

16 Mars 2025 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Asie, #Bharat, #Bhagavad-Gita, #Inde, #Hindouisme, #Religion, #Spiritualité

C'est au terme de naissances sans nombre,

Qu'un être qui connaît trouve refuge en moi.

Très difficile à rencontrer, l'âme profonde

Qui sait que je suis toute chose.

Bhagavad-Gita, VII, 18-19

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa: La grenouille de puits et la grenouille de mer

10 Mars 2025 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Bharat, #Hindouisme, #Inde, #Asie, #Râmakrishna, #Religion, #Spiritualité

Jean Herbert: L'enseignement de Râmakrishna. Albin Michel, Paris, coll. Spiritualités vivantes, 1942.

Le chemin de la forêt de Kenneth Anderson

26 Février 2025 , Rédigé par Pierre-Olivier Combelles Publié dans #Kenneth Anderson, #Inde, #Nature, #Léopard, #Panthère

Here in the jungle you will find truth, you will find peace, bliss and happiness; you will find life itself. There is no room, no time at all, for hypocrisy, for make-believe, for that which is artificial and false. You are face to face with the primitive, with that which is real, with that which is most wonderful—which is God.

Kenneth Anderson

Kenneth Anderson (1910-1974) and his pariah dog Nipper, whom he adopted during his hunt for the Leopard of Gummalapur

(...)

As I record these adventures, the sights and sounds of the present fade way and memories come rushing in. The blackness of the forest night with the star-filled sky above and the twinkling gems of the jungle carpet below, the myriads of fireflies that glitter together like elfin lamps amidst the dark foliage; and those other, brighter, living lights, the glowing eyes of a tiger, panther or bison, and the green eyes of graceful deer tripping daintily through the undergrowth, reflecting the beams of my torch as I walk beneath the whispering trees.

Come with me for the few hours it may take you to read this book into the domain of the tiger, the panther and the elephant, amidst the stupendous swaying heights and deep shade of the giant trees whose boles form the structure of this marvellous edifice. Forget the false values and ideas of what is called civilization, those imposed rules on the free and simple truths of life. Here in the jungle you will find truth, you will find peace, bliss and happiness; you will find life itself. There is no room, no time at all, for hypocrisy, for make-believe, for that which is artificial and false. You are face to face with the primitive, with that which is real, with that which is most wonderful—which is God.

If I can succeed in spiriting you away for a few moments from all that is mundane in your life, into the marvels of a tropical jungle and its excitements, where your life depends on your senses, your wits, your skill, and in the end on Providence, as you creep on the blood-trail of a wounded man-eater through dense verdure or among piled boulders, then I shall feel myself amply rewarded.

KENNETH ANDERSON, The Black Panther of Sivanipilli and Other Adventures of the Indian Jungle.

Le chemin de la forêt de Kenneth Anderson

"Every panther differs from any other panther. Some panthers are very bold; others are very timid. Some are cunning to the degree of being uncanny; others appear quite foolish. I have met panthers that seemed almost to possess a sixth sense, and acted and behaved as if they could read and anticipate one’s very thought. Lastly, but quite rarely, comes the panther that attacks people, and more rarely still, the one that eats them."

(...)

Generally a panther is an inoffensive and quite harmless animal that is fearful of human beings and vanishes silently into the undergrowth at the sight or sound of them. When wounded, some show an extraordinary degree of ferocity and bravery. Others again are most cowardly and allow themselves to be followed up, or even chased like curs.

If from a hill-top you could watch a panther stalking his prey, he would offer a most entertaining spectacle. You would see him taking advantage of every bush, of every tree-trunk, and of every stone behind which to take cover. He can flatten himself to the ground in an amazing fashion. His colouration renders him invisible, unless you have the keenest eyesight. I once watched one through a pair of binoculars and was amazed at the really wonderful sense of woodcraft the panther had. Then comes the final rush. In a couple of bounds, and with lightning speed, he reaches his prey.

(...)

In the past there has been much controversy between those sportsmen who have claimed that the panther and the leopard are two entirely different species of animal and those who have said that they are one and the same. This argument has died out with modern times, when it has been recognized that they are indeed one and the same. Difference in environment and diet has caused some animals to grow to a much larger size than others. The forest-dwelling panther, with his richer diet of game-animals, generally grow, much bigger and has a darker and thicker coat than the panther that lives near villages, where his food is restricted to dogs and goats. Also, living among rocks and boulders as the latter generally does, his coat is paler, and the hair short and coarse. Incidentally, the darker coat of the forest-dwelling panther helps to camouflage him very effectively against the dense vegetation of the jungle, while the paler coat of the ‘village panther’, as he is sometimes called, makes it very difficult to detect him among the rocks where he lives.

Very occasionally, however, there are exceptions in both cases, and Nature appears unaccountably to break her own rule. I have shot some very large panthers living near villages and far from the regular jungle, possessing dark rich coats of hair, and some quite small ones within the forest with pale coats.

(...)

The tiger takes to water and will swim across large rivers freely. Especially in hot weather, he is very fond, during the midday hours, of taking his siesta by the banks of a shady stream or pool, sometimes lying in the water itself. He hunts freely on rainy days, and his pug-marks are often seen in the morning after a night of pouring rain. This is not so with the panther. A true cat in every respect, he detests water, abhors rain, and is not given to swimming, although he can do so in emergencies, such as to escape from a pack of wild dogs.

(...)

The tiger was originally an immigrant into India from the colder regions of Mongolia. Hence his liking for cool spots in which to shelter from the heat. The panther is a true native of India and of the tropics.

(...)

Apart from the mating season, tigers advertise their presence in a jungle much more than panthers do. The tribes of aborigines living in the forests of India will confirm this and will tell you the rough direction of the trails generally followed by tigers while out hunting. Their melodious, deep-throated and long-drawn moaning call, terminating in that never-to-be-forgotten ‘oo-oo-ongh’ that reverberates down the aisles of the valleys and across the wooded glens of the jungle in the stygian darkness beneath the giant forest trees, or in the phosphorescent moonlight, is music to the jungle- lover’s ears. The harsher but less distance-carrying call of the panther, very closely resembling a man sawing wood, that occasionally penetrates the still darkness of the jungle night, is much less frequently heard.

(...)

Tigre aiguisant ses griffes sur le tronc d'un arbre.

One of the most intelligent animals, if not the most intelligent, in the Indian jungle is the wild dog*. Shikaris of earlier days have variously given this place to the wild elephant, tiger and panther, but if you have studied the habits of the wild dog you may be inclined to disagree with them. When hunting deer they send out ‘flankers’, which run ahead of the quarry and ambush it later. In large packs of thirty or more, these animals are fearless hunters, and will ring, attack and kill any tiger or panther by literally tearing it to bits, despite the number of casualties they may suffer in the process.

Particularly in the forests of Chittoor District, in the former Presidency of Madras, they have earned quite a reputation for this, and I know of at least three instances where a very gory battle had been waged, resulting eventually in the tiger being torn to shreds, but not before he had killed a half-dozen of the dogs and maimed many others. I have never come across a panther destroyed in this fashion because, as I have said before, of their ability to escape by climbing trees.

Kenneth Anderson, The Black Panther of Sivanipilli and Other Adventures of the Indian Jungle.

NDLR: Dhole, Canis alpinus.

Lone dhole strolling through the jungle in Mudumalai National Park (Wikipedia)

Pour en savoir plus sur Kenneth Anderson:

https://www.africahunting.com/threads/kenneth-anderson.14978/

http://madangsingh.expertscolumn.com/article/kenneth-anderson-big-gametiger-hunter-south-india

https://www.firstpost.com/long-reads/kenneth-anderson-and-melagiri-colonial-hunters-legacy-drives-conservation-effort-in-south-indias-forests-7009741.html

Le refuge (La Bhagavad-Gîtâ)

12 Février 2025 , Rédigé par Sudharsan Publié dans #Bharat, #Bhagavad-Gita, #Hindouisme, #Inde, #Religion, #Spiritualité, #Sri Aurobindo, #Gandhi, #Râmakrishna, #Vivekananda, #Dharma

Krishna:

Ta pensée plongée en moi, Arjuna,

gardant ton détachement intérieur

et faisant de moi ton refuge,

ainsi, sans aucun doute, sauras-tu qui je suis

dans ma totalité.

Écoute !

(...)

C'est au terme de naissances sans nombre

qu'un être qui connaît trouve refuge en moi.

Très difficile à rencontrer, l'âme profonde

qui sait que je suis toute chose.

La Bhagavad-Gîtâ (VII, 1 et 18-19). Traduite du sanskrit par Alain Porte. Arléa, 1992.

"The Gita does not track the disinterested performance of duties but the following of the divine life, the abandonment of all dharmas, sarvadharmān*, to take refuge in the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Ramakrishna, a Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with his teachings."

Sri Aurobindo, Essays on Gita, p. 33 (The Core of Teaching).

* Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava is an Indian concept embodying the equality of all religions. The concept was embraced by Ramakrishna and Vivekenanda,] as well as Gandhi. Although commonly thought to be among the ancient Hindu vedas, the phrase is actually attributed to Gandhi, having been used first in September 1930 in his communications to his followers to quell divisions that had begun to develop between Hindus and Muslims toward the end of the British Raj. The concept is one of the key tenets of secularism in India, wherein there is not a separation of church and state, but an attempt by the state to embrace all religions.

Sarva dharma sama bhav has been rejected by some modern Hindus who claim that religious universalism has led to the loss of many of Hinduism's rich traditions.

https://en.dharmapedia.net/wiki/Sarva_Dharma_Sama_Bhava

Aidan Rankin: La Voie du Jaïnisme

28 Décembre 2024 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Aidan Rankin, #Angleterre, #Bharat, #Inde, #Jaïnisme, #Religion, #Spiritualité, #Gandhi, #Dharma

Living Jainism explores a system of thought that unites ethics with rational thought, in which each individual is his or her own guru and social conscience extends beyond human society to animals, plants and the whole of the natural world. The Jain Dharma is a humane and scientific spiritual pathway that has universal significance. With the re-emergence of India as a world power, Jain wisdom deserves to be better known so that it can play a creative role in global affairs. Living Jainism reveals the relevance of Jain teachings to scientific research and human society, as well as our journey towards understanding ourselves and our place in the universe.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/living-jainism-aidan-d-rankin/1114932003;jsessionid=53DECB9CEF3E0032F1317AD8D6DFAD1A.prodny_store01-atgap07

Voir également:

https://pocombelles.over-blog.com/tag/aidan%20rankin/

https://pocombelles.over-blog.com/2014/07/aidan-rankin-green-karma.html

Ahimsa: Its theory and practice in Gandhism

https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/ahimsa-Its-theory-and-practice-in-Gandhism.php

B.R. Dugar: Gandhi and JaInism

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24701117

Published on New Statesman (http://www.newstatesman.com)

Escape from UKIP
Tired of the political correctness of the left, Aidan Rankin joined Ukip. Becoming right-wing gave h
by Aidan Rankin [2] Published 14 June, 2004 - 13:00

The scene was a dinner, organised by the Salisbury Review, somewhere in the depths of the Carlton Club. It was an occasion of right-wing triumphalism, or a rallying of the troops, but I felt neither triumphant nor rallied, only irritated and bored. I listened, with increasing loathing, to a repertoire of anti-Muslim barbs from people who knew nothing whatsoever about Islam and were proud of their ignorance. I listened to conspicuously affluent men and women inveigh against scroungers, appeal to the work ethic, condemn asylum-seekers as criminals and call for people to be charged for visiting the doctor. This, apparently, "worked perfectly well in the old days", although few people gathered around the table were born before 1945.
A drunken academic accused me of being "anti-western" when I supported Palestinian autonomy. Palestinians were "Muslims" and "terrorists". At this supposedly intellectual gathering, not one single idea, substantial or ethereal, was expressed. Soon, my disgust was tempered by self-loathing. I would rather be just about anywhere but here. So why was I here, listening to mean-minded philistinism and being eyed disapprovingly every time I dissented? How on earth had I ended up on the right - and was I ever going to be able to leave it?
It took me two more years to leave the right fully. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to use the past tense when I describe it. When I awake in the morning, I relish the sudden realisation that, no, I am no longer right-wing.
Looking back, I feel that being on the right was like losing a part of myself. In shamanic cultures, there is a widespread theory of "soul theft". This is the belief that an individual's soul can be captured, and then manipulated, by an external force. Soul theft is blamed for a wide range of ailments, from serious physical and mental illness to feelings of inner emptiness, and soul retrieval is an important part of the shaman's work. The process of soul theft can be long and insidious, with the affected individual becoming a willing collaborator.
Soul theft is an accurate depiction of the experience of becoming right-wing. It starts as a vague impression, then progresses - if that is the word - into a world-view; it begins as a bad mood, then becomes a permanent, brooding anger. One doesn't wake up one morning and find oneself transformed into a reactionary, a political version of the clerk in Kafka's Metamorphosis, who awakes as a gigantic insect. Instead, right-wingery takes over gradually, crowding out conflicting thoughts, until suddenly it defines and underlies everything.
I should begin by saying that there were two types of right-wing ideology that never appealed to me. One is "far-right" racism and the scapegoating of immigrants or refugees, given voice by the British National Party, but believed in by many members of the UK Independence Party, the Eurosceptic groupuscules and the Tory party's "traditionalist" right. This has always profoundly repelled me, both for its creeping totalitarianism and its simple-minded classification of individuals by race or group.
The second strand of right-wing thinking that held no appeal was the ersatz religion of "market forces", part consumerist cargo cult and part fundamentalist reworking of 19th-century liberalism. That approach is equally off-putting because of its personal heartlessness and its superstitious regard for the market's "hidden hand". In its naive, mechanistic view of human society, and its belief in permanent revolution, the neoliberal right resembles the most extreme variants of Trotskyism.
These two tendencies - traditionalist xenophobia and market fundamentalism - dominate the British right. They coexist quite happily with-in individual right-wingers, although they are contradictory. Market ideology gives economic forces precedence over nations and traditions, after all, and places corporate rule before "national sovereignty".
As a young man in the mid-1990s, I had held standard progressive views and written occasional contributions to New Left Review. But, like many at that time, I became disillusioned with a left that seemed to be recycling old slogans and ignoring new complexities. Moreover, it was doing so with a distortion of liberalism dubbed "political correctness", which seemed harsh and intolerant, and could hurt most those whom it intended to help. In particular, I found that the left's assumptions about gay men - of which I am one - were often patronising and in many ways as restrictive as the old stereotypes. Being gay, the left seemed to think, meant ceasing to be an individual and becoming a nameless, faceless member of a minority group, obediently reciting the mantras of victimhood.
I was interested in green issues as well and had the experience of working for Survival International, which promotes the interests of indigenous peoples throughout the world, oppressed minorities who are struggling to preserve their ancient cultures as well as keep their environment intact. I came to see a contradiction between this cultural and ecological conservatism and the universalist values of the left.
In moving right, I thought that I would meet people who would excite me and make me think, who would dare to question received assumptions. I thought I would find cultured yet passionate individuals whose radicalism was balanced by a sense of history. I had the naive and hopelessly utopian idea of uniting green politics with cultural conservatism and in the process strengthening both. This led me towards sections of the right that showed some basic ecological awareness. In 1997 I became a contributor to Third Way, then the British mouthpiece for the European new right, and which proudly proclaimed itself green.
Many on the left have demonised Third Way, because its best-known contributor, Patrick Harrington, was once a well-known activist in the National Front - although his views on immigration and race have modified beyond recognition. At the time of my involvement it seemed a rather homely outfit, a London-based magazine and small political movement run from a sprawling basement flat in Kensington by Harrington and his mother, a sharp-witted, cheerful lady who served herbal tea and gave highly expert tarot card readings. This is fairly typical of the British right: grandiloquent declarations of intent contrasting with banal realities. Despite Harrington's reputation, there were far fewer right-wing views expressed in Third Way than in the UK Independence Party. When I became a researcher for Ukip's 2001 manifesto, I thought that I was helping to shape a moderate and mainstream movement. I hoped it would revive some of the best, and most flexible, aspects of conservatism. In reality, I found a movement held together primarily by hatred and fear.
My attraction to Ukip took me into a peculiar demi-monde, peopled largely by men with faces red through alcohol and outrage against the modern world, ladies with affected accents or strange hats, and youthful zealots who collected "facts" about Europe or immigration the way better-adjusted young men collect train numbers. There were rules to this half-world, but I could never grasp them. I was never "one of us", but I was often characterised as "one of them", a phrase they use without shame. During my time in Ukip - which I emphasise was long before Robert Kilroy-Silk and Joan Collins declared for it - I met with objections to the word "inclusive" because it was "used by gays" or "could include gays". When I suggested inheritance and pension rights for same-sex couples - and others living together, such as siblings or friends - frenzied letters of complaint were circulated by the party's evangelical wing. These letters, which were never addressed to me, but whose content I was made aware of by "helpful" friends within the party, were more Inquisitional than political. They speculated on whether or not I was a "practising" homosexual and, if so, whether I was a suitable person to work on policy.
Homophobia was one of the few forces uniting a notoriously divided party. To its brownshirt-in-blazer tendency, the dangers of Europe and the dangers of homosexuality were intertwined. Immigration, too, was seen less as an economic and social issue than as a threat to the moral order. When I spoke of the benefits of immigration, I was accused of "sounding like Labour"; when I expressed approval of other cultures and religions, I was accused of being "anti-western". Although the party contains men who almost make Abu Hamza sound liberal, Islamophobia pervades its internal dialogue.
There have, needless to say, always been homosexuals in Ukip. They either affect to ignore the party's intolerance or seek to increase it, to avoid discovery. One parliamentary candidate told me that he was gay - or rather, he whispered his "confession" even though we were speaking on the telephone. He did not discuss it with the electorate, he told me, not because he thought they would be prejudiced, but because he was afraid his Ukip colleagues "would react badly".
Suggestions that the party should appeal to trade unionists and ethnic minorities, many of whom are trenchant critics of the EU, elicited responses that ranged from a "why should we bother?" attitude to outright hostility. When I produced a leaflet aimed at the Kashmiri community in West Yorkshire, it was widely condemned as "supporting separatism", although it rigorously espoused electoral politics and non-violence. The Eurosceptic movement as a whole consists of a series of mock-conspiratorial cabals, sad little internet discussion groups and obscure news-sheets, each trying to outdo the other in vituperation. They hate each other at least as much as they do the European Union.
I have yet to meet anyone on the British right who is made more contented or fulfilled by its politics. So why do otherwise relatively intelligent people put up with it?
The answer, I believe, is to be found in the initial frisson, the sense of adventure and vague threat, which much of left-wing politics has lost. Indulging in right-wingery is a form of political slumming akin to the predilection for "rough trade". And, like the taste for rough trade, it is initially thrilling but yields quickly to feelings of loneliness and inner turmoil. Right-wing politics and rough trade are both addictions. They take over as substitutes both for real thought and real emotion. They combine certainty with danger, and rebellion.
Indulging in rough trade gives you the certainty of sexual encounter and the danger of it being with a stranger, in illicit (and often illegal) circumstances that can climax in violence. With the right, you have the certainty that comes from clear positions and convictions often lacking in nuance. You have the certainty that comes from constant appeal to a long tradition and a glorious national history. You also get a sense of danger: these are on the whole unfashionable convictions, which can provoke strong responses from many interlocutors.
For gay people, rebellion is a rite of passage: for many, it is a turning away from their family's values and a rejection of the establishment's code of conduct. The right-wingers, instead, promise that to ally oneself to them is to rebel against the shibboleths of contemporary discourse - no need to kowtow to political correctness here.
In his semi-autobiographical novel A Boy's Own Story, Edmund White writes of his teenage hero's wish "to be a homosexual and not to be a homosexual". To the adult male, there is no better stopgap solution to this problem than being on the right. In the right-wing demi-monde, the negative aspects of the gay scene are replicated with astonishing accuracy. The bitchiness, fierce rivalries and mindless militancy associated with the worst of gay life are found in abundance in right-wing politics. Abstract loyalty is demanded, but personal treachery is the norm.
If the right has any core at all, it is its anger. Anger takes the place of a philosophy and also projects itself on to convenient objects. These range from "practising" homosexuals to Muslims, "Europe" to home-grown "liberal elites". This anger is sustained by paranoid caricatures of outsiders and political opponents, including members of rival right-wing factions, needless to say. When I associated with the right, I seemed to spend most of my waking hours listening to them preaching about how angry they were that Britain and the world were not the way they used to be. They missed a society that was coherent, that had order and structure and predictability. They missed a crime-free Britain where the traditional family reigned and foreigners left after an admiring tour of Buckingham Palace and the Cotswolds. In short, they missed a fictional Britain. What they loathed about the contemporary, real Britain was the unfamiliarity of it - a place where people looked different and spoke in a different way, where change always lurked around the corner.
Being criticised on the right does not involve gentlemanly disagreement or even tough debate, but wild-eyed accusations. When I decided not to stand as a Ukip candidate, the Eurosceptic bush telegraph buzzed with rumours that I was working for MI6 and that I had been "pro-EU" all along. This was an amusing, in some ways flattering accusation - its only tragic aspect being that the poor old things really believed it. The right is as paranoid about the intelligence services today as the left was at the height of the cold war. In truth, I suspect that the right enjoys being paranoid. It makes its followers feel that they matter.
My political journey took me eight years. Eight years spent being ashamed of my political allegiances when I was with my gay friends, or my Muslim and Hindu friends, and realised that they would have been rejected by many in Ukip.
Renouncing the right is like waking from a disturbing dream or throwing off an especially nasty hangover. It is a life-enhancing, liberating experience. I wish it on many others.

Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/print/node/148179

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa: Vanité des discussions

27 Décembre 2024 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Bharat, #Hindouisme, #Jean Herbert, #Inde, #Religion, #Râmakrishna, #Spiritualité

Sri Râmakrishna Paramahamsa

In: Jean Herbert et al: L'enseignement de Râmakrishna, Albin Michel, Coll. Spiritualités vivantes, Paris, 1942.

L'hymne à Aranyani du Rig Veda (Hymne 146, Livre X)

22 Décembre 2024 , Rédigé par Sudarshan Publié dans #Aranyani, #Bharat, #Hindouisme, #Inde, #Rig Veda, #Religion, #Spiritualité, #Forêt, #Asie

Rig Veda, tr. by Ralph T.H. Griffith, [1896], at sacred-texts.com

HYMN CXLVI

Aranyani

1. GODDESS of wild and forest who seemest to vanish from the sight.
How is it that thou seekest not the village? Art thou not afraid?

2 What time the grasshopper replies and swells the shrill cicala's voice,
Seeming to sound with tinkling bells, the Lady of the Wood exults.

3 And, yonder, cattle seem to graze, what seems a dwelling-place appears:
Or else at eve the Lady of the Forest seems to free the wains.

4 Here one is calling to his cow, another there hath felled a tree:
At eve the dweller in the wood fancies that somebody hath screamed.

5 The Goddess never slays, unless some murderous enemy approach.
Man eats of savoury fruit and then takes, even as he wills, his rest.

6 Now have I praised the Forest Queen, sweet-scented, redolent of balm,
The Mother of all sylvan things, who tills not but hath stores of food.

1. Déesse de la forêt et de la nature sauvage, qui semble disparaître de la vue. Comment se fait-il que tu ne cherches pas le village ? N'as-tu pas peur ?

2 A l'heure où la sauterelle répond et enfle la voix stridente de la cicala, Semblant sonner avec des cloches tintinnabulantes, la Dame des Bois exulte.

3 Et, là-bas, le bétail semble paître, Et ce qui semble être une demeure apparaît : Ou bien, le soir, la Dame de la Forêt semble libérer les vaches.

4 Ici, l'un appelle sa vache, Là, un autre a abattu un arbre : Le soir, l'habitant de la forêt croit que quelqu'un a crié.

5 La déesse ne tue jamais, à moins qu'un ennemi meurtrier ne s'approche. L'homme se nourrit de fruits savoureux, puis il se repose à sa guise.

6 J'ai loué la Reine de la Forêt, au parfum suave, à l'odeur de baume, La Mère de toutes les choses sylvestres, Qui ne cultive pas, mais qui a des réserves de nourriture.

AraNyaanii (or Aranyani) represents the earliest known reference to a forest goddess in the Indian context, and perhaps even in the world at large. The hymn to AraNyaanii in the Rig Veda is indeed an extremely rare one, and the only one of its kind. The hymn visualizes, describes and praises a feminine deity of the forest or a forest nymph. It is a short hymn of just six verses, and presents a simple narrative, drawing upon happenings in the forest and the da

The word AraNyam (neuter gender) means forest; and AraNyaanii is a feminine noun, which is used to mean goddess of the forest, or just a large forest itself.

In this hymn, AraNyaanii is described as an elusive spirit of the deep forest, who is invisible, but can be heard in the form of various sounds of the forest, by the jingling of her anklets and by her loud cry. She is the mother of all animals in the forest. She is also the benevolent provider of varieties of foods (from the forest vegetation), without having to till the land.

The hymn (suktam) to the deity (devatha) AraNyaanii is the 146th hymn in the tenth chapter (mandala) of the Rig Veda. The hymn is also repeated in the Taittiriya Brahmana of the Krishna Yajurveda. The sage (rishi) or seer (bard) of this hymn is Devamuni, and the verses (mantras) are in the poetic meter (chandas) called Anushtup.

Though we have temples dedicated to forest goddesses going by names such as Vana Durga, Banashankari, etc., in different parts of India to this day, these deities are seen as forms of Parvati or Durga, and are not the same as AraNyaanii of the Rig Veda.

A transliteration and simplified translation of the six verses of the hymn to AraNyaanii are given below.

1
araNyaanyaraNyaanyasou yaa preva nashyasi
kathaa graamam na prichchasi na tvaa bhiiriva vindathii
AraNyaani, O AraNyaani (goddess of the forest), the elusive one who wanders away
Why do you not seek the village (i.e., the civilized inhabited spaces)? Are you not afraid (of the thick forest)?

2
vruShaaravaaya vadate yadupaavati chichchikah
AaghaaTibhiriva dhaavayannaraNyaanirmahiiyate
W- hen the chirping chichchika bird responds to the roar of the vrishaarava (evidently, a forest animal)
The forest nymph runs about with sound like the clanging of cymbals (or the jingling of anklets with bells)

3
uta gaava ivaadantyuta veshmeva drushyate
uto araNyaanih saayam shakatiiriva sarjati
Also some animals like cattle seem to graze, and there (a group of trees) looks like a shelter
And in the evening the forest rattles like a cart (suggests various sounds of the forest)

4
gaamangaiSha aa hvayati daarvangaiSho apaavadhiit
vasannarNyaanyaam saayamakrukshaditi manyate
Here one is calling his cow, another has cut timber
In the evening the forest dweller thinks that he heard a cry (of AraNyaanii)
(Once darkness sets in, forest dwellers or those living on the fringes of the forest, who graze cows and cut timber during the day, leave for their abodes)

5
na vaa araNyaanirhantyanyashchennaabh- igachchhati
svaadoh phalasya jagdhvaaya yathaakaamam ni padyate
AraNyaani does not harm, unless another (hostile enemy) approaches her
(Hence), eating tasty fruit, he (the forest dweller) settles down at will

6
aanjanagandhim surabhim bahvannaamakruShiivalaam
praaha- m mrugaaNaam maataramaraNyaanimashamsiSham
I- praise AraNyaanii, the mother of beasts
who is perfumed and fragrant; and who offers varieties of food, though she does not till (the land)

Source: https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/hymn-to-a-forest-nymph-in-the-rig-veda

Source: https://archive.org/details/rigvedacomplete

Kalpataru, the divine tree of life being guarded by mythical creatures Kinnara and Kinnari, flying Apsara (a female spirit of the clouds and waters in Hindu and Buddhist mythology) and Devata - 8th-century Pawon temple, Java, Indonesia. Credit: Gunawan Kartapranata - CC BY-SA 3.0

Kalpavriksha, l'Arbre de vie. Marbre sculpté. Asie.

Kalpavriksha, the tree of life, also meaning "World Tree" finds mention in the Vedic scriptures.

In the earliest account of the Samudra manthan or "churning of the ocean of milk" Kalpavriksha emerged from the primal waters during the ocean churning process along with Kamadhenu, the divine cow that bestows all needs.

The tree is also said to be the Milky way or the birthplace of the stars Sirius.

The king of the gods, Indra returned with this Kalpavriksha to his abode, the paradise and planted it their. Tree also finds mention in the Sanskrit text Mānāsara.

In Indra's "Devaloka" it is said that there are five Kalpavrikshas, which are called Mandana, Parijata, Santana, Kalpavriksha and Harichandana, all of which fulfill various wishes. Kalpavriksha, in particular, is said to be planted at Mt. Meru peak in the middle of Indra's five paradise gardens.
It is on account of these wish-granting trees that the asuras waged a perpetual war with the devas as the heavenly gods who exclusively benefited freely from the "divine flowers and fruits" from the Kalpavriksha, whereas the demigods lived comparatively in penury at the lower part of its "trunk and roots".

The Parijata is often identified with its terrestrial counterpart, the Indian coral tree (Eyrthrina indica), but is most often depicted like a magnolia or frangipani (Sanskrit: champaka) tree.

It is described as having roots made of gold, a silver midriff, lapis lazuli boughs, coral leaves, pearl flower, gemstone buds, and diamond fruit. It is also said that Shiva created his daughter Ashok Sundari from a Kalpavriksha tree to provide relief to Parvati from her loneliness.

In Hindu mythology Shiva and Parvati after much painful discussions while parting with their daughter Aranyani gave her away to the divine Kalpavriksha for safe keeping.

Parvati requested Kalpavriksha to bring up her daughter with "safety, wisdom, health and happiness," and to make her Vana Devi, the protector of forests.

https://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Kalpavriksha

Pilier sculpté à l'entrée d'une maison moderne, dans le haut de la rue Borgnis-Desbordes à Versailles (Quartier Saint-Louis), près de la demeure natale de Pierre-Olivier Combelles. Photo: Pierre-Olivier Combelles.

L'hymne à Aranyani du Rig Veda (Hymne 146, Livre X)

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