History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v5.c75.416

v5.c75.416

Heaven, see under 'Hell', 'karma', 'Yama', 'worlds', 'svarga'; ancient machinery of Heaven and Hell has largely failed to keep people moral in these days 172n, calculating and bargaining spirit of smṛtis and purāṇas about actions that lead to, 166; descriptions of the pleasures of, 165-166, glowing descriptions of, in Mahābhārata and purāṇas 165, generous donor or worshipper goes to it and mixes among gods 156, history of idea of 154-158, idea that h is a place or state of eternal bliss to which the spirits of the religious or of warriors go is common to many ancient peoples 158, idea of heaven in post-vedic literature 161-164, in heaven, acc to Atharvaveda, there are bevies of women, ponds of ghee, streams of milk and honey, wine flows like water and there is no disease 157, is devoid of fear or old age, or hunger or thirst or sorrow acc. to Upaniṣads 158, is placed in the north by Śāntiparva, in which there is no hunger or thirst or old age or sin 166; life in h is said in Ṛgveda to be full of joys and delights 156; pious dead become united in h. with their *iṣṭāpūrta* and their forefathers 156; theory of, came to be modified by the doctrine of *karma* and *punarjanma* 158, said to be the abode of Yama in the Ṛgveda and full of music and song 156 theory that pleasures of h have a time limit 167; three heavens mentioned in Ṛgveda 156, warriors killed in battle were supposed even in the Ṛgveda and generally in the Gītā and later to ascend to h and there had the society of beautiful damsels 158