The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c35.64

v2.c35.64

In the Vedic belief the popular view that the dead must be provided with the same things² as they enjoyed in the world of men has been greatly attenuated. It is absurd to suppose that all women were ever burned with the dead:³ the practice never existed in India at any time which is recorded, and in many cases the result would have been to leave children without proper care. But it is perfectly clear that the wife of a great man might be burned with him, and that the Rigveda⁴ shows a stage of opinion in which this rite has been definitely abolished by the Brahmans, and has been replaced by the giving of her to the brother or some other relative of the dead in symbolic, if not necessarily always real, marriage: we may well believe that the marriage might be real only if the dead had left no son alive to perform for him the funeral ceremonies. Similarly the dead was deprived not merely of his bow, but also of a piece of gold, which his eldest son received: it is difficult not to believe that the older practice was as in ancient Greece to allow him to bear with him to his future abode the ornament of gold which he wore in his life on earth.⁵ The practice of enveloping the body of the dead in the limbs of the cow is a curious one, and offers possibilities of different explanations. But it is clearly the view of the Rigveda that the heat of the fire is to exhaust its fury on the members of the goat and presumably also of the cow,⁶ and it may be that the offering was a sort of substitution for the dead himself, so that evil powers might assail it in place of him. The goat stands in another category: it may be compared to the goat which is slain with the sacrificial horse to show it the way: in the passage to the next world the journey may be trackless and the sure-footed goat will find the way.¹