I can understand what you mean. This seems a lot like Henry Corbin's view which he calls the "active Imagination" in that the experiential grasping of god is not ordinary rationality but a super-rationality if you will - a true intelligence. Perhaps even the archetypal "wisdom" that platonists so often strive for. If you mean rationality in this sense then I can see how it is not really opposed to transcendence at all.
Ah cool. I'll check that out.
That poem is fascinating. Thanks for posting.
It isn't exactly a poem. Its [supposedly - if you will] actually a revelation the Sage to whom this hymn is attributed to, received. The concept of revelation and linguistic analysis built regarding it is oldest in Hinduism but its emphasis is probably the weakest of all religions.
Max Müller in an 1865 lecture stated
"In no country, I believe, has the theory of revelation been so minutely elaborated as in India. The name for revelation in Sanskrit is Sruti, which means hearing; and this title distinguished the Vedic hymns and, at a later time, the Brahmanas also, from all other works, which however sacred and authoritative to the Hindu mind, are admitted to have been composed by human authors. The Laws of Manu, for instance, are not revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means recollection of tradition. If these laws or any other work of authority can be proved on any point to be at variance with a single passage of the Veda, their authority is at once overruled. According to the orthodox views of Indian theologians, not a single line of the Veda was the work of human authors. The whole Veda is in some way or the other the work of the Deity; and even those who saw it were not supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised above the level of common humanity, and less liable therefore to error in the reception of revealed truth. The views entertained by the orthodox theologians of India are far more minute and elaborate than those of the most extreme advocates of verbal inspiration in Europe. The human element, called paurusheyatva in Sanskrit, is driven out of every corner or hiding place, and as the Veda is held to have existed in the mind of the Deity before the beginning of time..."
It it is deliberately poetic(rhyme/rythm) because the Vedas are recited in metres. The Vedas were transmitted orally before the invention of Devanagari. They are techniques employed for memorization and thus preservation.
"In order to memorize the vast corpus of Vedic chants, the ancient Prophets(he means Sages or
Rishis actually) put together techniques for recitation by using extremely precise combinations of sound..."
2:54 onwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPcasmn0cRUThe precision of the recitation is so acute that even the slightest mistake renders the whole recitation flawed. The example given to this is like that of a snake charmer playing his instrument, if he did one mistake the snake would strike.
^ this to me also raises doubt on the claim of Islam "that all other scriptures are corrupted". When you see systems of memorization developed and built in to the scriptures themselves (supposedly) revealed to the Sages of the Vedas, how can we easily dismiss it in favour of the Quran?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur'an_readingRecitation of the Quran is based upon the letters.
And it isn't as precise as that of the Vedic chanting.
Topic: Pantheism