Series: Biblioteca Adelphi 325.

This is the fifth book by the Italian writer. Praised by Joseph Brodsky, Gore Vidal, Simon Schama, others. "With the same narrative fecundity and imaginative sympathy he brought to his acclaimed retelling of the Greek myths, Roberto Calasso plunges Western readers into the mind of ancient India. He begins with a mystery: Why is the most important god in the Rg Veda, the oldest of India's sacred texts, known by a secret name--'Ka,' or Who? What ensues is not an explanation, but an unveiling. Here are the stories of the creation of mind and matter; of the origin of Death, of the first sexual union and the first parricide. We learn why Siva must carry his father's skull, why snakes have forked tongues, and why, as part of a certain sacrifice, the king's wife must copulate with a dead horse. A tour de force of scholarship and seduction, Ka is irresistible. / Roberto Calasso is also the author of The Forty-Nine Steps and Literature and the Gods. He lives in Milan and is the publisher of Adelphi."