History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c71.s1.608.3

v5.c71.s1.608.3

These passages are enough to establish that the state of the pious after death and of heroes killed in battle was one of happiness in heaven, that there the food and material things (such as honey, ghee) that a person required in this world were also available in greater perfection and abundance The remark of Macdonell 'Heaven is a glorified world of material joys as pictured by the imagination not of warriors but of priests' (Vedic Mythology p. 168) is not (in view of Ṛg. X. 154.3) quite accurate or justified There is nothing to show that the warriors of Vedic times did not believe what the priests believed. In later times (as in the Bhagavadgītā II 37 'hato vā prāpsyasi svargam' or in the Raghuvamśa VII. 51) warriors killed in battle were supposed to go to heaven and were privileged to have the company of beautiful damsels Heaven as a place or state of eternal bliss to which the spirits of the religious or meritorious people or warriors go, is an idea common to most ancient peoples and was probably based on the idea that the Earth was flat and the sky was a dome carrying various celestial objects In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up (IV 3 33) and Tai Up. (II. 8) it is³⁷⁷ stated that the joys of the world of gods are'hundreds of times more delightful than those of the mortal world ³⁷⁸ In the Kathopaniṣad (I 12) it is stated by Yama himself that in Heaven there is no fear and no old age, that the denizen of Heaven is beyond hunger, thirst and sorrow and is in the midst of all delights.