Rudra - Vedic Metal

Soon after I started this blog in 2005, I started posting videos by bands that I thought were seminal, or life-changing, at least for me. That hasn't been done so much these days, because of the ease of sharing music and video on the social networking sites, though I still get lots of hits on those pages.  But given my current direction, here's a band that I find not only inspiring and motivating, but that actually helps me concentrate my psychic energies in ways that I find intuitive and correct.  Therefore, meet Rudra - a Vedic metal band from Singapore!

I wish I knew more about this band - if you do, drop me a line!  I do know they've been around since 1992 or so, have released six albums, and have just finished a world tour.  I only own and have listened extensively to their latest album, Brahmavidya: Immortal I, which was released last year.  That will change.

I don't know if there are any other Vedic metal bands.  I'm not normally a big metal fan, or haven't been - a lot of it leaves me cold.  But the energetic black metal these guys play, blended with bits of Carnatic music, which I love, and rich with Sanskrit, not nearly all of which I have translated or even identified yet, is a perfect soundtrack for the wealth I get from the Vedas.  I was usually disappointed with the lyrical content of the Nordic metal bands some of my Asatru friends like; a lot of their presentation seemed cartoonish.  But these guys have good true content, true not only to the Vedic philosophies as I understand them, but to later, but still strong, aspects of the Hindu metaphysic - especially the warrior mentality, the karma yoga of the Bhagavad Gita.  Nothing says Kurukshetra like - well, Kurukshetra!

Witness these lyrics from "Harrowing Carrions of Syllogism" on the above-mentioned album:

Mind creates a subjective notional world
Limited by knowledge we see what we want to see
The mind can't see beyond its thought constructs
The lack of a valid pramana leads to self-deception
Destroy your world by seeing yourself as the essence of the universe

Like the eye which can't see itself, the I can't see the inner I
Without shabda, you can't know your Self
Without shruti, you can't see your Self
Manobuddhyahankaracittani naham
Na ca vyomabhumir na tejo na vayu
Cidanandarupa shivoham shivoham*

Destroy your world by seeing yourself as the essence of the universe
Like clay in the pot, see yourself as the essence of the universe
Vain reasoning is a bottomless pit
Inflates the non-self with conceit

Shabda alone leads the mind beyond the limit of thoughts
To the self which is beyond logic and reason
Aham nirvikalpo nirakararupa
Vibhutvacca sarvatra sarvendriyanam
Na casangato naiva na muktirna bandha
Cidanandarupa shivoham shivoham*


[*Nirvana Shatkam]

(with thanks to DarkLyrics.com)

I present to you two excellent videos; the top one is "Hymns from the Blazing Chariot" from Rudra's 2009 album Brahmavidya: Transcendental I, and the one below is "Now Therefore" from the album Brahmavidya: Immortal I  (and they play a lot better if you double-click and play them on YouTube).  The first is a great depiction of the setting of the Gita, wherein Krishna tells of Arjuna of the karma marga - the path of action without attachment to results.  Enjoy!  The hippie myths of flowery Hinduism are destroyed on the Field of the Kuruks.