The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c36.s1: § 1. The Living and the Dead

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c36.s1

Language: English

§ 1. The Living and the Dead

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THE attitude of the Vedic Indian to his dead is one of distinctive and pronounced individuality. The constant anxiety lest from the dead should come injury to the living is perfectly obvious, but it must be admitted that it does not show any trace of being due to the direct fear of the spirit of the dead: it is the fear of death which marks the attitude of the Indian: the dead has not a hostile nature, but the thing which has affected him is to be feared. It is, therefore, intelligible that the Indian in the Vedic period looks, despite his dread of death, with affection and esteem upon his ancestors, and that much of his existence should be concerned with the means of securing them nourishment.¹ That food is required especially on certain occasions, not less often than once a month and occasionally at other times: in a certain portion of the rainy season the dead are conceived as leaving the abode of heaven and coming to the houses of their kin to seek for food.² On the other hand if the men care for their Fathers, it is but natural that these Fathers should be deemed to be anxious to aid and assist them, and the companionship of the blessed dead with the gods encourages the belief that they have power to aid, even as the gods have power.³ The Fathers generally are often referred to in the Rigveda and the later literature as invoked to confer boons, similar to those which the gods convey, and, though they are distinctly differentiated by a multitude of things, and especially by cult, from the powers of heaven, nevertheless, for the purpose of being a very present help in tribulation, they appear to be ranked as not unworthy of invocation with, or even without, the gods. Like the gods, men pray to them for success, for the defeat of enemies, for the gift of rain, for the bestowal of eloquence, or for abundance of food. Even in battle the Fathers are invoked as warriors.⁴ But the energy of the Fathers has one special end, the production of offspring, in which they have the special interest that the rites for the dead can only be kept up by the device of continuing the family. At the offering for the dead the great-grandfather, the grandfather, and the father are all invoked to send sons :¹ the wife of the offerer is given a lump of the food made ready for the Fathers with the prayer that they may accord her a son ;² the offerer³ himself, who desires a son, wets his face with the remains of the water poured out for the Fathers. They naturally find a place in the ritual for the marriage ceremony : food is offered to them before the marriage to induce them to give offspring to the bride, and, when the bridal procession starts out, it is thought that the Fathers crowd around to see the bride.⁴ But we do not hear in any case that the Fathers were deemed to incorporate themselves in the bride for rebirth, as is one constant view of birth in Australian belief, and as seems in some degree to have been the view taken of the Roman Genius.⁵

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¹ Caland (*Todtengebräuche*, pp. 171, 172) insists that fear is the only motive even for the feeding of the dead, but this is clearly untenable; cf. Meyer, *Gesch. d. Alt.*³ I. i. § 62; Warde Fowler, *Roman Ideas of Deity*, pp. 23–6; Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, pp. 74, 78 ff.; Max Müller, *Egypt. Myth.*, p. 183; Helm, *Altgerm. Rel.* i. 136 ff. For modern India, cf. Stevenson, *Rites of the Twice-Born*, pp. 156–92. See also Paton, *Spiritism*, chap. iv.

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² Caland, *Todtenverehrung*, pp. 43 ff.

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³ Bergaigne, *Rel. Véd.* i. 95 ff.; AV. iv. 15. 15; vii. 12. 1; xviii. 2. 30; 3. 15; ii. 12. 4, &c.; TA. v. 7, 8; AGS. iv. 7. 1.

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⁴ RV. vi. 75. 9.

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¹ Kauç. lxxxviii. 28.

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² Kauç. lxxxix. 6.

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³ AGS. iv. 7. 15.

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⁴ Kauç. lxxxiv. 12 ; AV. xiv. 2. 73. Cf. RV. x. 40. 10, with Oldenberg's note.

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⁵ Cf. Reinach, *Cultes, Mythes et Religions*, iv. 361 ff. ; Warde Fowler, *Religious Experience of the Roman People*, pp. 74, 75. In India this view appears only under the influence of transmigration in the Upaniṣad period and in Buddhism ; Windisch, *Buddha's Geburt*, pp. 9 ff. ; cf. Segerstedt, *Le Monde Oriental*, iv. 144 f. ; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 565, n. 1.

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In the overwhelming majority of cases the person invoked is not an individual, but the whole body of the Fathers as such : nevertheless in occasional instances an individual ancestor may be invoked, like Kaṇva or Kakṣīvant, or a specific group such as the Vasiṣṭhas.⁶ Men too occasionally appear among the gods with divine attributes, such as Kutsa who is invoked along with Indra.⁷ Other men may here and there be placed in this position : the name, Udalākāçyapa, of a spirit invoked at the plough festival, does not look very divine or demoniac, but that is a mere speculation.⁸

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⁶ RV. x. 15. 8 ; AV. xviii. 3. 15.

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⁷ RV. v. 31, 9.

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⁸ PGS. ii. 13, 2 ; Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², p. 567, n. 3.

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The attitude of the Fathers to the living is assumed by the latter to be one of friendship : they are invoked to turn the merit acquired by their good deeds to the overthrow of the foe of the living, but to their own they are dangerous only when these sin against them by failing to provide them with due offerings, a fact which seems clearly alluded to as early as the Rigveda.⁹ Their power to injure is pre-supposed by the help they are to give in the overthrow of enemies, but very little is said directly about it. In a spell against the Dasyus, who at the offering for the dead mix themselves with the Fathers looking like kinsmen, a torch is employed, but this is hardly any definite evidence that the Fathers *per se* were dangerous.¹⁰ Nor is the mere fact that various objects are buried at cross-roads for the destruction of enemies¹¹ any proof of their activity in effecting the desired destruction, since many other evil spirits inhabit cross-roads. The souls of unborn children become according to a late piece of evidence blood suckers,¹² and possibly this may explain the special objection felt in Vedic religion to the slayer of an embryo, but this explanation is not necessary. The danger from the dead is, as we have seen, fear of death, not of the spirits of the Fathers. Moreover, as we have noted, the Atharvaveda finds for the evils which are practised on men the cause in demons,¹ not in souls of the dead, which is again a strong piece of evidence that the mischievous powers of the dead were not strongly felt in the Vedic period.

Linked texts (10)

Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Mahāvagga — Pāli
Udāna — Pāli
Taittirīyabrāhmaṇa — Sanskrit
Pāraskaragṛhyasūtra — Pāraskara, Sanskrit
Taittirīyāraṇyaka — Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit
Āśvalāyanagṛhyasūtra — Āśvalāyana, Sanskrit
Kauśikasūtra — Kauśika, Sanskrit