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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c34.s1: § 1. The Nature of the Dead

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c34.s1

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§ 1. The Nature of the Dead

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IT is not altogether easy to derive from the Rigveda a precise conception of the nature which was attributed to the spirits of the dead by the mind of the people or of the priest, and it is natural to assume that the ground for this difficulty is to be traced to the variation of both popular and ecclesiastical opinion. The modern view of the spirits and their abode is extremely varied and confused, and it would be ill-judged to assume that it was otherwise in the earlier Vedic religion.

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Long before the period of the Rigveda, it is clear that the Indian had realized the difference between life and death and had separated in his imagination the two elements of the man, his body and his spirit,¹ but the distinction must have been vague in the extreme.² Of the spirit as distinct from the body we have two expressions which occur frequently enough to let us believe that their meaning was more or less definitely known: of these the first was what we would regard as physical, but what doubtless seemed just as psychical to the Vedic India as any other aspect of the spirit: it is the *asu*,³ life, which seems clearly to have been based on the conception of the breath of the man, which is the visible sign of life and intellect: later, but not in the Rigveda, the term Ātman, the breath, is the most characteristic term for the self, and the breaths, Prāṇas, are a constant subject of investigation in the Upaniṣads, where often they appear as essentially representing the life and spirit of man. The identification of breath and the *asu* is made formally in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁴ but this fact is of much less importance than the clear indications of the Rigveda. The other term is, unlike *asu*, which never in later times became an expression of any philosophical importance, one which never loses a place in the thought of India, though it does not achieve the rank of the Ātman. It is Manas, the mind, which in later Indian thought is of importance as the means of knowledge of all internal events,¹ and a necessary link in the knowledge of external events *en route* from the senses. The conception of the Rigveda is seen clearly in the case² when the mind of a senseless person is said to have gone away to Yama, the lord of the dead, to sky and earth, to the sea and the mountains, to the sun and the dawn. It is also probable that the conception later prevalent that the mind has its abode in the heart was already developed:³ the connexion of mind and heart is not rare in the Rigveda. The further view that the mind had the dimensions of a pigmy or a thumb in size, which is found said of the Puruṣa as the principle of life in the Upaniṣads and often later, is not to be proved for the period of the Rigveda.⁴

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¹ Passages like RV. x. 16. 3; AB. ii. 6. 13 clearly do not imply ignorance of this fact, which is clearly revealed in many passages, e. g. RV. x. 14. 8; 16. 5. The idea of many souls in the individual appears in philosophical form in the doctrines of sheaths of the soul in TU. ii. 4. Cf. Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, pp. 109 ff.

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² This is illustrated in detail in Tuxen's *Forestillingen om Sjælen i Rigveda*, but is notorious, see Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, p. 112.

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³ RV. i. 113. 16; 140. 8; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 525, 526; for Avestan, *aṅhu*, Geiger, *Ostīran. Kultur*, p. 290.

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⁴ vi. 6. 2. 6; ii. 4. 2. 21.

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¹ C. Rhys Davids, *Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics*², pp. lxxxv ff.; Keith, *Indian Logic and Atomism*, pp. 243-7.

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² x. 58; cf. Feist, *Kultur der Indogermanen*, p. 323.

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³ RV. viii. 100. 5. For the later view see AV. vi. 18. 3; AGS. iii. 6. 8; Windisch, BSGW. 1891, pp. 163 ff.; C. Rhys Davids, *Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics*², pp. lxxxvi ff.

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⁴ Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 525; cf. BAU. iv. 3. 14; Kaṭha Up. iv. 12.

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Naturally enough there is abundant evidence of the simple views which suggest the theory of the spirit: the phenomena of loss of the senses, which is recorded in the Rigveda, is also recorded of the ancient Bhṛgu, who in this condition went to the other world and had experiences of interest there.⁵ The view that in the case of a dream the soul might be outside the body and moving about freely at will, which is a common belief of many peoples, is proved by the reference to such a case in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁶ which warns us of the danger of waking the sleeper too hurriedly, lest the soul should thus fail to find its way back into the body. It appears also that dreams about the dead were deemed to be due to the souls of the dead moving thus about. At least this belief would explain the fact that, on going away from a festival for the dead, the partaker in the rite should rub himself with the Apāmārga plant and ask it to wipe away evil dreams.⁷ The danger of the spirit escaping through yawning seems suggested by the rule that in such a case one should say, ‘In me be strength and wisdom’.⁸ The shadow also is here and there found as being in some way connected with man: if one cannot see his reflection it is an omen of death, and the reflection of one whose mind is gone can be used in a spell to restore his mind to him.⁹ All these elements can be supposed to have been steadily at work in Vedic India, and the result is the conception of the spirit as some more or less impalpable substance. It is not *asu* entirely nor mind: it is also breath, and it is very often regarded as *asu* and mind :¹ or it appears as mind or as *asu*, as in the frequent phrase *asunīti*, ‘*asu* leading’,² which is applied both to the process by which the spirits are led from the earth to their home in the sky, and the reverse process by which they are brought back by Agni, as the conveyer of souls, from the heaven in which they live to the offerings made to them on earth. It is, however, of importance that mind is assumed to be with the spirit when it is away from the body : the Fathers of the Vedic creation are thus creatures who are perfectly gifted for intellectual action of all kind, to know, to perceive, to enjoy, and to will. But the view as to exactly what it was which departed at death was never quite clearly settled by the thought of India : the Upaniṣads inclined to regard it as the Ātman, the Buddhist in one view as consciousness, Vijñāna,³ and later there developed more precise views of the psychic apparatus which transmigrated, but the views of the populace were probably as vague as those of Vedic India itself.

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⁵ Oertel, JAOS. xv. 234. On the legend of Subandhu's loss of soul and its recovery see JB. iii. 168-70; PB. xii. 12. 5; Oertel, JAOS. xviii. 41; Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, i. 47; RV. x. 57-60.

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⁶ xiv. 7. 1. 12.

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⁷ ÇB. xiii. 8. 4. 4.

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⁸ TS. ii. 5. 2. 4; cf. Pease, CP. xi. 429-44.

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⁹ TS. vi. 6. 7. 2; HGS. i. 11. 6. For the shadow see also LÇS. iii. 3. 6; ĀÇS. v. 19. 5; ĀpÇS. xiii. 14. 3; AV. xiii. 1. 56 (v. 19. 9 is wrongly so interpreted by Brunnhofer, *Arische Urzeit*, pp. 258 ff.); Frazer, *Taboo*, pp. 77 ff.; von Negelein, *Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft*, v. 18 ff.

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¹ AV. viii. 1. 1, 15; 2. 26; v. 30. 1; viii. 1. 7; 2. 3.

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² RV. x. 15. 14; 16. 2.

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³ Oldenberg, *Buddha*⁶, p. 308. For the Ātman in the Saṁjñāna, see ÇB. xiv. 7. 2. 3; BAU. iv. 4. 2. Strictly speaking the aggregate of the Skandhas is the transmigrating element; Windisch, *Buddha's Geburt*, pp. 37 ff.; Keith, *Buddhist Philosophy*, pp. 6 ff.

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But it would be an error to assume that the body was left for ever at death : this might seem to be the logical view, but it is not the view of the Vedic Indian, as it has not been the view of many different classes of men. The care expressed in the Rigveda⁴ itself for the avoidance of injury to the body of the dead, which was to be burned, by a bird or other beast, is confirmed by the express injunction to the dead that he has in the next world to unite himself with his body. The same idea is expressed in the Atharvaveda,⁵ which treats as in the next world the body, the *asu*, the mind, the limbs, and the sap all uninjured, and the Fathers are entreated to secure that the bones which have been placed out of order shall all be placed in due arrangement. This unquestionably is the regular view in the Veda : the alternative view once found in the Rigveda,⁶ which sends the eye of the dead to the sun, the breath to the wind, bids him go to the heaven and the earth, or if he prefers to the waters, and to dwell among the plants with his members, cannot be treated as more than a mere deviation of no great consequence for the general view of Vedic religion. The connexion of the eye and the sun is also seen in the Puruṣasūkta, where the sacrifice of the primeval giant results in the sun being created from his eye. The concrete character of the entity which is left in the heaven is proved by the fact that the Fathers are always addressed, when mentioned individually, by their own names : there is no such thing as an invocation of the spirit of any individual. He himself continues his life.

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⁴ x. 16. 6; 14. 8; 16. 5. Hauer's reference (*Die Anfänge der Yogapraxis im alten Indien*, pp. 97, 108) of x. 16 to an initiatory ceremony is impossible.

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⁵ xiv. 2. 24.

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⁶ x. 16. 3. So of the victim, AB. ii. 6. 13.

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