The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.17

v2.c41.s1.17

It seems, therefore, that the date of the Gāthās of the Avesta must remain unascertained; it remains, however, to consider the value of the evidence adduced by Hertel regarding the position of the Rigveda. He finds in that text evidence of hostility to the tenets of Zoroaster openly expressed, in the condemnation of the *brahmadviṣ*² and the *devanid*.³ The doctrine of the Brahman was held by persons who insisted on negating the pre-existence and future existence of each individual; the believers in the Daēnā of Zoroaster, for which the younger Avesta has Fravaši, held opposing views, and thus can be censured as *brahmadviṣ*. Similarly the Zoroastrians were the only persons known to us who degraded the gods of the Aryans to demons. The answer in either case seems irresistible; the *devanid* of the Rigveda is most naturally and normally applied to the non-Aryan foes of the Vedic Indians, and the *brahmadviṣ* is even more obviously not to be interpreted in the strange way suggested by Hertel, whose assertion that the believers in the doctrine of Brahman did not accept an individual pre-existence and future existence of the soul is a pure hypothesis, quite unsupported by anything which we know of any historical Brahman doctrine as opposed to that invented by Hertel,⁴ in which, doubtless, the individual is to be regarded as the result of the streaming out of the cosmic fire, into which he is reabsorbed. Hertel does not state how he connects this view with the obvious belief in transmigration of the Upaniṣads. Even more remarkable is his assertion that in Rigveda vii. 104. 2 the term *brahmadviṣ* is applied to a Piçāca, the Piçācas being a cannibalistic race found in the Indus valley and in the Hindu Kush. Apart from any dubiety as to the correctness of Grierson’s views on Piçācas,⁵ there is the uncontrovertible fact that Piçāca does not appear in the passage cited at all, which clearly and obviously applies to a Rakṣas, the hymn being directed against these demons. Even on Hertel’s own theory it is obvious that it is unlucky that the Rigveda should apply the same term *brahmadviṣ* to the Zoroastrians and to a race of eaters of dead bodies, who are severely censured and denounced in the Avesta.¹ Nor does he adduce any reason why, even on his own theory, the term should not always apply to Piçācas, if it actually once does so.