The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c34.s2.52.1

v2.c34.s2.52.1

As compared with the clear conception of the dwelling of the spirit in the highest heaven or in hell, there is little trace in the Vedic literature of the more simple and perhaps more primitive conception⁹ which regards the dead as dwelling in the earth, whether actually in the place of burial, or in the under world. The idea that the dead man's spirit went to the sky is not in the slightest degree essentially bound up with the burning by fire, for the Rigveda¹ expressly places both the Fathers, who have been burnt, and those who have not been burnt, as dwelling in the heaven, and there is no hint of any contrary view in Vedic literature. But undoubtedly here and there the idea is to be seen that the burning by the fires was the moment of the passage of the soul to the sky: of this the best proof is the doctrine of Āçvalāyana² that the place attained by the spirit depends on the nature of the fire, which first seizes the corpse when the body is set on the bier within the reach of fires derived from the sacred three fires. But this example in itself is not in the slightest degree a proof that it was the fire which sent the spirit to heaven: it is only a natural, but not primitive, view, as is shown by the mere fact that it depends on the use of the three fires, which the average householder could not dream of maintaining.