The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c20.s5.43

v1.c20.s5.43

One collective class is found early, the Bhūtas, beings, whence Rudra derives his style of Bhūtapati, lord of beings. The generality of the term is certain for the Vedic literature; the Bhūtayajña, offering to beings, is generic in character,¹¹ and there is not the slightest reason to doubt that this was its early sense. The theory¹² that there was originally a Bhūtayajña confined to certain inferior divine figures, which, owing to the ambiguity of the term, and the tendency of the priests to idealize the popular religion, came to be made into a sacrifice for all beings, is wholly unsupported and most implausible. The term Bhūt in modern usage has come to denote a malevolent spirit of the dead, one who has existed, and has ceased to exist, but this is palpably not its early meaning; indeed even in modern usage it is applied to nature spirits as well as to ghosts,¹³ and it is impossible to show that in the Vedic period it had any specific sense¹ referring to inferior or hostile demons. The wide sense of beings is natural enough for a religion which saw divinity readily on every side, and is probably merely a recognition of popular belief. It is a striking fact that in the medical literature² the Bhūtavidyā is by no means confined to evils brought about by evil spirits, but includes those caused by the gods. The tendency of the term to become narrowed down to hostile beings in later literature³ is interesting, but not surprising in view of the much more remarkable history of Asura. The origin of the limitation can be traced to the domestic ritual, in which the Bhūtayajña was artifically differentiated so as to create a distinct Devayajña, with the result that there seemed to be some opposition between Bhūtas and Devas, though the original Bhūtayajña covered all those beings to whom it was deemed wise to make offering when man partook of food.