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Dr. Freund discovered the ancient manuscript of Varuna Purana in the Chennai, India, and now has published it in a book that contains its stories about enlightenment.
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by Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA, The Review
15 June 2016
For the first time, the charming stories of the Varuna Purana have been published, thanks to the discovery of this ancient text by Maharishi University of Management faculty member Peter Freund and his colleague Vivek Vaidyanathan.
Dr. Freund's book contains both the Sanskrit text and an English translation. Purana is a branch of Vedic Literature that features ancient stories, and the Varuna Purana contains 10 stories portraying the full range of experience from ignorance to complete enlightenment.
Searching for the only-known manuscript of Varuna Purana after finding references to the text in an obscure catalogue in the University of Iowa Library, Mr. Vaidyanathan contacted manuscript repositories all over India. The manuscript was finally found in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in Chennai.
Dr. Freund first converted the text from Telugu script into Sanskrit, and then translated it into English.
According to Dr. Freund, the translation follows Maharishi's principle of sequential unfoldment: The first verse of every chapter contains in seed form the total knowledge of the chapter, which is then sequentially unfolded.
Titled Varuna Purana: Illustrating Higher States of Consciousness with Stories of Lord Shiva, the 352-page paperback book is available at amazon.com.
This is Dr. Freund's second book.
© Copyright 2016 Maharishi University of Management
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