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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s6: § 6. Divine Implements

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c19.s6

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§ 6. Divine Implements

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There is no very essential distinction between the worship of natural objects conceived as living and the worship of objects made by human hands, but it is obvious that the worship of such objects tends to be restricted in effect and importance. This is borne out by the evidence of Vedic religion where such religion is of very minor importance, despite the fact that it receives further attention in the Rigveda than might a priori have been expected. Thus we find there¹⁰ that two implements of the ploughman, Çuna and Sīra, which may be the ploughshare and the plough, are invoked, and that in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa a cake is assigned to them in the sacrifice. The warrior invokes his arrow as divine,¹¹ and begs it to protect him and assail his foes: his armour, his bow and quiver, are also celebrated, and the drum is invoked to drive away the demons and the danger: in the Atharvaveda¹² a whole hymn is devoted to its praises. But the priest naturally is more prominent in the Rigveda, where not only the sacrificial post is deified, perhaps as a remnant of tree worship, is called divine, and is asked to allow the sacrifice to go to the gods, but the sacrificial grass ¹ and the divine doors ² are celebrated. The pressing stones have three hymns ³ given up to them: they are unaging, immortal, more powerful than the heaven itself. They are compared to steeds or bulls, their sound in the pressing reaches the sky. They bestow wealth and offspring, driving away the demons. The mortar and pestle ⁴ were deified also, and the Atharvaveda ⁵ adds to the category various ladles and invents a great deity in the remnant of the sacrifice, the Ucchiṣṭa.

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¹⁰ RV. iv. 57. 5–8: ÇB. ii. 6. 3. 5; they are taken as constellations by Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 221–4.

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¹¹ RV. vi. 75. 11, 15, 16; 47. 26 ff.

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¹² v. 20.

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¹ RV. ii. 3. 4; x. 70. 4.

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² RV. i. 142. 6.

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³ RV. x. 76, 94, 175.

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⁴ RV. i. 28. 5, 6; so the 2 carts, RV. x. 13.

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⁵ xi. 7.

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It is possible to draw a distinction between the cases of the deities of the plougher and the warrior, and those of the priest. In his case the presence of the deity at the sacrifice may be held to be the cause why the instruments of the sacrifice are treated with so much reverence, while in the former cases the reverence is not due to anything save the essentially valuable character of the objects, and the mystic powers which are deemed by man to lie within them. It is particularly easy to understand how the arrow or even the plough can be regarded as animate: the worship of the priestly implements would thus be rather more fetishistic in origin than real and direct worship of the implements for themselves, and this is perhaps the more accurate manner of considering the question.⁶

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⁶ See Part II, Chap. 5, § 2. That the millstone on which offerings are deposited in the Bhūtayajña and which figures in the marriage ritual was the recipient of direct worship is conceivable (Arbman, *Rudra*, p. 203, n. 1), but not proved.

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