The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c27.s1: § 1. The Sacrifice as a Gift

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c27.s1

Language: English

§ 1. The Sacrifice as a Gift

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As we have seen, the Vedic pantheon is essentially a body of great and powerful gods before whom the worshipper realizes to the full his comparative weakness and inability to exist satisfactorily without their constant aid. By the most simple logic he applies to the powers divine the same principle which he applies to other more powerful men, or which are applied to him by his inferiors. He seeks to propitiate them by the process of giving gifts.¹ Doubtless, beside this view of the relation of man to the gods, there existed the belief that he could do much for himself by the power of the magic art, which we need not doubt flourished as much then as in later India, and against demons of all kinds magic is freely employed, but the essential distinction of magic and religion is plainly to be seen in the whole of the Vedic religion. Often too in place of using magic, or still oftener in supplement of magic, the aid of the gods is employed in the battle with the demons. In the case of one of the higher gods alone is there any trace of other than a relation of friendship: the aim of the worshipper is to satiate Rudra and to avert his dangerous presence: this fact, which expresses itself in the ritual in many ways, makes a certain degree of difference between the case of Rudra and the other gods, though occasionally some of these, such as Varuṇa, show slight traces of a similar conception of their nature to that of Rudra.

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¹ This is recognized even by Feist (*Kultur der Indogermanen*, p. 351), though he inclines to trace all worship to the cult of the dead. Cf. Tylor, *Primitive Culture*, ii.² 372 ff., who shows the ease of developing the ideas of homage and renunciation from that of gift; Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, chap. xi.

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The dead stand in a peculiar relation to man, since they deserve from him consideration and honour, but mingled with that conception is the fear of the quick for the dead. It is often asserted ² that the mode of honouring the gods is a direct imitation of the mode of providing for the dead, but the assertion admits of no proof, and must stand or fall with the effort to demonstrate *a priori* that all sacrifice or worship of gods is secondary, and dependent on the cult of the dead. In the Vedic, as in the Greek ritual, the nature of the cult of the gods and that of the dead is markedly and in important measure different,³ a fact which tells, as much as any such argument can tell, against the original identity of the two cults. This fact renders it at once desirable and convenient to treat of the cult of the dead together with Vedic eschatological conceptions in the next part of this work.

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² Hirt, *Die Indogermanen*, pp. 514, 515; Eitrem, *Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Römer* (1915).

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³ Stenzel, *Opferbräuche der Griechen*, pp. 127 ff.

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In the Rigveda and in the later period alike the cult of the gods is marked by the absence of any temple or house of the god, even of the simplest kind. The nearest approach to such a conception is perhaps the fires of the Sabhā and the Āvasatha which in the Sūtras are mentioned as to be kept up by kings;¹ but in this we have merely an occasional use, and the Vedic ritual has nothing similar to the tending of a perpetual fire by Vestal Virgins in the house of the king as at Rome.² There is no public cult, merely the carrying out of offerings for princes and other men wealthy enough to employ professional priests, and the performance of a much simpler cult by the householder himself. The essential form of the sacrifice is one which can be carried out under these circumstances, and it reduces itself to the invitation of the god to come to the place of offering, and to partake of the food and drink provided for him. The gifts of costly jewels or garments and of chariots or weapons or other accoutrements, are wanting in the ritual, partly no doubt from the absence of any place in which such jewels and other gifts might be kept, but more perhaps from the fact that the priests considered it in their own interest to secure that these things should be disposed of most wisely by bestowal upon them. In so highly developed a priestly atmosphere as that of the ritual it is at least reasonable to believe that gifts, which an earlier piety might have conveyed by fire to heaven, were converted to their own use by the vicegerents of the god on earth, who even in the Brāhmaṇas claim the title of god for themselves, while in the classical literature it is assumed by the king.

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¹ Above, Part II, Chap. 10, § 1.

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² This fact very markedly distinguishes Vedic from Babylonian religion; the lack of temples assimilates it to Iranian religion, which, however, seems to have known fire altars of a somewhat permanent character; cf. Jackson, GIP. ii. 688, 701; Moulton, *Early Zoroastrianism*, pp. 52, 53. For the lack of temples, as opposed to sacred groves, in Germany, see Tacitus, *Germ.* 9; Helm, *Altgerm. Rel.* i. 235, 286 f.

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It was of course essential that the god invited should be received in a due place, and that any honours which were possible should be paid to him. Hence the hymns of praise, the sound of music, and the dance: even perhaps the theosophical riddles³ with which at the great horse sacrifice the priests delighted one another, and it may well be the god, since gods were built by priests in their own image. But in addition to these features there was much more in the Vedic sacrifice, mimic combats, ribaldry, chariot racing, archery, dicing, and much else, which cannot be deemed save in quite a secondary way to have been thought to be part of the entertainment provided for the god. In the vast majority of these cases the nature of the ritual can be solved at once by the application of the concept sympathetic magic, and this is one of the most obvious and undeniable facts in the whole of the Vedic sacrifice : it is from beginning to end full of magic elements,¹ which can as a rule be perfectly easily disentangled from the rest of the rite. In some cases it is impossible not to feel that the rite is merely magic dressed up with sacrifice, but in the majority of rites no such view is possible, and in many the magic element is wholly secondary.

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³ Bloomfield, *JAOS.* xv. 172; it has been suggested (Koegel, *Gesch. d. deutschen Lit.* I. i. 5, 64 ff.) that such riddles are Indo-European, but the best parallel from Teutonic sources is late (cf. Helm, *Altgerm. Rel.* i. 110 ff.).

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¹ Similarly in Babylon and less markedly in Greece; Farnell, *Greece and Babylon*, pp. 176–8, 291 ff. The gift theory of sacrifice is accepted by Baudissin, *ZDMG.* lvii. 832 ff.; Westermarck, *Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas*, i. 623. It in part is akin to the dynamic theory as accepted by Warde Fowler, *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, p. 184, from Hubert and Mauss, *Mélanges d'histoire des religions*, pp. 55 ff.; *Année sociol.* ii. 29 ff., for a criticism of which see below, § 4.

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The nature of the ordinary offering to the god is expressly stated to be an offering made to the god for the purpose of attracting his attention and good-will, so that, delighted himself, the god may reward in the appropriate way his worshipper. This is essentially the standpoint of the Rigveda where the sacrificer is promised wealth both temporal and in the world to come in return for his sacrifice, and his gifts to the priest, and where the gods are invoked to delight themselves with the offering and to reward their votaries.² The Brāhmaṇas bluntly state the doctrine of *do ut des* in so many words,³ and Suçravas, we are told, was approached by Indra, who told him he was hungry and gladly took from him the cakes of the offering.⁴ But the gods in the Rigveda are not less frank in their expression of feeling: they can sympathize with the poor man who can offer but little,⁵ but they are bitterly indignant with the rich man who gives nothing. The whole formula is excellently expressed in the Sūktavāka formula uttered near the end of the sacrifice, where it is said,⁶ 'The god hath accepted the offering; he hath become strengthened; he hath won greater might,' to which the sacrificer for whom the rite is performed replies, 'May I prosper in accordance with the prospering of the god.' It is, however, needless to multiply examples: this theory of the sacrifice and its result as an exchange of gifts, of strength for strength, is the fundamental fact of the whole Vedic religion.

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² RV. i. 54. 9; iii. 36. 3, 9; vii. 32. 6; x. 49. 1.

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³ TS. i. 8. 4. 1; cf. iii. 2. 9. 7; ÇB. i. 2. 5. 24; viii. 1. 2. 10.

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⁴ PB. xiv. 6. 8.

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⁵ Bergaigne, *Rel. Véd.* ii. 227.

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⁶ Hillebrandt, *Neu- und Vollmondsopfer*, p. 144.

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Beside this form of offering in hope of favours to come very small traces can be found of the offering which expresses grateful thanks for favours paid. The two ideas are clearly closely connected and to a generous people the existence of the one might seem to bring with it essentially the existence of the other. But it is clear that as in Roman religion the traces of the thank-offering are scanty and, though the idea is known, it has a feeble existence. A Sūtra⁷ prescribes such an offering for the case in which a man after falling ill recovers his health: the case is interesting for its simplicity: if a man falls ill after establishing the three offering fires, he should go away from his place of abode: the fires love the village and in their desire to return thither may heal him, in which case he should perform a Soma or an animal sacrifice. The offering of firstfruits,¹ however, is mainly if not entirely an offering to secure the safe eating of the new products,² an idea which is of world-wide extension. If a man has a son born to him ³ or attains a thousand cattle ⁴ he sacrifices, but merely to secure the health of one or the other; if he makes a vow and keeps it on the fulfilment of the occasion, as for instance if he says to a god, ‘Slay him and I will offer to thee,’ the keeping of the promise, which was not always done, is not a thank-offering.⁵ If the dead have a feast made for them when there is a birth in the family or a wedding,⁶ it is not according to the texts for thanks at their bringing about the good fortune: it may rather be that they are expected to share in the common joy, or that it is hoped to avert their envy of the good fortune of the house. The horse sacrifice ⁷ is indeed offered after the attainment of the position of a great prince, but the ritual shows that it concludes with a prayer for the welfare of the king and his people and the birth of a prince: it is in effect an offering to secure the maintenance of the success arrived at, a fact hinted clearly by the assertion of the Brāhmaṇas that it is fatal to a weak king to make such an offering.

Linked texts (8)

Taittirīyasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Aitareyabrāhmaṇa — Mahidāsa Aitareya, Sanskrit
Śāṅkhāyanagṛhyasūtra — Śāṅkhāyana, Sanskrit
Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit
Āśvalāyanagṛhyasūtra — Āśvalāyana, Sanskrit
Pañcaviṃśabrāhmaṇa — Sanskrit