The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c34.s2.33

v2.c34.s2.33

Yama, however, and Varuṇa also do not appear as active in the work of controlling the world of the dead: as the great god, Varuṇa’s place is there, perhaps too as the god to whom cries proceed for pardon from sin, but neither god is said to punish the dead or judge them for their sins. The idea of judgement of any sort is foreign to the Rigveda as to early Iran, and it is only in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka¹ that we have the express statement that the truthful and the untruthful are separated before Yama, but his activity in this separation is in no wise indicated, and the idea of the weighing of the deeds of man on his arrival in the other world, which is prominent in the Avesta, is only found in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa² in a passage of speculative activity. What the dead obtain in heaven is not only long life there by the gift of the mercy of the gods: they obtain the merit of the Iṣṭāpūrta, the sacrifices which they have offered, and the gifts which they have given to the priest,³ and at the same time they are nourished by the piety of their relatives on earth, as they have nourished in their turn their forefathers. Such nourishment may be either buried with them, when the grains of corn and sesame will become wish-cows and their calves in the heaven, or may be conveyed by the later offerings.⁴ It is not a very distant step to the idea of the Buddhists⁵ that souls which are miserable can be aided by the gift to monks in their name, and the assignment to them of the merit thus acquired.