Minor Inaccuracy in Religious Text

[kuros]

I ran into this book, the details of which I’m copy/pasting from chezzo:

The Four Vedas–
…This book takes 10 minutes to read…

This book contains 0 crafting recipes:
A single volume containing all four Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.

There are a few thousand Vedas. I believe what is meant here is “A single volume containing the oldest four Vedas of Hinduism.” or possibly “Four of the oldest scriptures in Hinduism: the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharvaveda.”

Note that the Atharaveda is pretty much nothing but recipes, as it is the earliest documented book of herbal medicinal lore.

Also, taking a look at the books on chezzo that are flagged as Inspirational, it’s pretty obvious that this list was not checked with even a nominal Hindu, as pretty much no layman reads the Vedas, or the Upanishads, and the three most common texts, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, and The Bagdavah Gita aren’t in your list.

I have no interest in unearthing the arcana of modern programming languages, but if somebody wants to throw the appropriate blanks at me, I can fill them in correctly.

[kevin.granade]

Basically all we need is a name and a description for the most common books that would be considered sacred or holy to a hindu, physical characteristics if it’s an unusual book (e.g. they appear as a notably large or small book, or are published in an unconventional format such as a scroll), and unusual traits like the appearance of recipes in the book.

With those facts established, its trivial for someone who understands our item formats to add the definitions to the game.

Even if the existing books are notably rare, I’d be inclined to simply dial down their rarity and fix the descriptions rather than replacing them outright.

[kuros]

I mean, the Vedas are rare in the same way that chemistry textbooks are rare. They’re historical documents more than they are Inspirational texts. I would remove the Vedas and add these two:

The Bhagavad Gita

A conversation on the nature of duty and spiritual enlightenment between the Pandava prince, Arjuna, and his charioteer, Lord Krishna, on the eve of climactic battle of the larger work, the Mahabharata. The book includes the original Sanskrit, Hindi and English translations, and commentary every few sentences.

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Mahabharata

An epic legendary narrative of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes and the events leading to war between them. It also contains philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four “goals of life.”

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If you want to be super didactic, then the Mahabharata would be super easy to read (maybe Intelligence 6) and the Upanishads equally harder to read. Assuming you keep all three.

Let me also add that I appreciate the breadth of books you’ve included in the game, and that I understand that you’re not going to please everyone in such a touchy subject.

[darktoes]

Hey that’s pretty neat. I learned something today.

[kuros]

If you’re interested in reading the story without the religious context, there’s a translation of the Mahabharata by William Buck that’s pretty good. It’s fairly epic mythology.

If you’re interested in a more Western-accessible version of the Gita, which is just the conversation between Arjuna and Krishna/God on the eve of battle, I’ve heard there’s a new version called Bhagavad Gita As It Is that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the English text with the original Sanskrit. The version I grew up with was Sanskrit/Hindi/Phonetic Pronunciation of Hindi using English / English / Commentary, and it was a bit much, with three or four paragraphs explaining every gorram sentence.