Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Vedic Mythology c9.s1: § 71. Disposal of the Dead

Vedic Mythology c9.s1

Language
English

§ 71. Disposal of the Dead

c9.s1.1

— In the Vedic hymns there is little reference to death. When the seers mention it, they generally express a desire that it should overtake their enemies, while for themselves they wish long life on earth. It is chiefly at funerals that the future life engages their thoughts. Burial and cremation were concurrent. One hymn of the RV. (10, 16) describes a funeral by burning, and part of another (10, 18¹⁰⁻¹³)¹, one by burial. The ‘house of clay’ is also once spoken of (7, 89¹). Fathers burnt with fire and those not burnt with fire (i. e. buried) are referred to (10, 15¹⁴; AV. 18, 2³⁴). But cremation was the usual way for the dead to reach the next world. The later ritual (cp. AGS. 4, 1) practically knew only this method; for besides the bones and ashes of adults, only young children and ascetics were buried².

c9.s1.2

With the rite of cremation therefore the mythology of the future life was specially connected. Agni takes the corpse to the other world, the fathers, and the gods (10, 16¹⁻⁴. 17³). He places the mortal in the highest immortality (1, 31⁷). Through Agni, the divine bird, men go to the highest place of the sun, to the highest heaven, to the world of the righteous, whither the ancient, earliest-born seers have gone (VS. 18, 51—2). Agni Gārhapatya conducts the dead man to the world of righteousness (AV. 6, 120¹). Agni burns his body and then places him in the world of the righteous (AV. 18, 3⁷¹). The Agni that devours the body (*kravyād*) is distinguished from the Agni that takes the offering to the gods (10, 169). Agni is besought to preserve the corpse intact and to burn the goat (*aja*)³ which is his portion (10, 16⁴). A goat is also immolated with the sacrificial horse to go before, as the first portion for Pūṣan, and announce the offering to the gods ere it reaches the highest abode (1, 162²·⁴. 163¹²·¹³). In the ritual (AGS. 4. 2; KŚS. 25, 7¹⁹) the corpse is laid on the skin of a black goat, and when an animal is sacrificed, it is a cow or a goat⁵. During the cremation Agni and Soma are also prayed to heal any injury that bird, beast, ant, or serpent may have inflicted on it (10, 16⁶).

c9.s1.3

The dead man was supposed to go with the smoke to the heavenly world (AGS. 4, 4⁷)⁶. The way thither is a distant path on which Pūṣan protects and Savitṛ conducts the dead (10, 17⁴). The sacrificial goat which precedes and announces the deceased to the fathers, passes through a gulf of thick darkness before reaching the third vault of heaven (AV. 9, 5¹·³; cp. 8, 1⁸).

c9.s1.4

¹ ROTH, ZDMG. 8, 467—75; cp. BRI. 23—4; V. SCHROEDER, WZKM. 9, 112—3; HOPKINS, PAOS. 1894, p. CLIIII; CALAND, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, Amsterdam 1896, § 49—50. — 2 Roth, ZDMG. 9, 471; Max Müller, ibid. 1—lxxxii; HRI. 271—3. — 3 *Aja* is by some taken to mean the ‘unborn’ (*a-ja*) part. — 4 Hillebrandt, ZDMG. 37, 521. — 5 MM., ZDMG. 9, iv. v. xxx. xxxii. — 6 Cp. Chānd. Up. 5, 103; Bṛhadār. Up. 6, 1 19. — 7 Weber, IStr. 1, 66; Hillebrandt, ZDMG. 40, 711; ORV. 586—7. — 8 Roth, FaB. 98—9; Bloomfield, AJP. 11, 355; 12, 416.

c9.s1.5

The dead man was provided with ornaments and clothing for use in the next life, the object of the custom being still understood in the Veda (AV. 18, 4³¹). Traces even survive (RV. 10, 18⁸·⁹) which indicate that his widow and his weapons were once burnt with the body of the husband⁷. A bundle of faggots (*kūdī*) was attached to the corpse of the departed to wipe out his track and thus to hinder death from finding its way back to the world of the living (AV. 5, 19¹² cp. RV. 10, 18². 97¹⁶)⁸.

c9.s1.6

§ 72. The Soul. — Fire or the grave are believed to destroy the body only. But the real personality of the deceased is regarded as imperishable. This Vedic conception is based on the primitive belief that the soul was capable of separation from the body, even during unconsciousness, and of continued existence after death. Thus in a whole hymn (10, 58), the soul (*manas*) of one who is lying apparently dead is besought to return from the distance where it is wandering. There is no indication in the Vedas of the later doctrine of transmigration; but in a Brāhmaṇa the statement occurs that those who do not perform rites with correct knowledge, are born again after their decease and repeatedly become the food of death (ŚB. 10, 4, 3¹⁰). Besides *prāṇa*, ‘respiration’, and *ātman*, ‘breath’ (several times the express parallel of *vāta*, ‘wind’), the usual terms denoting the animating principle are *asu*, ‘spirit’, expressing physical vitality (1, 113¹⁶. 140⁸), even of animals (AB. 2, 6), and *manas*, ‘soul’, as the seat of thought and emotion, which already in the RV. (8, 89⁵) seems to be regarded as dwelling in the heart (*hṛd*)¹. Many passages, especially in the AV., show that life and death depend on the continuance or departure of *asu* or *manas*; and the terms *asunīti*, *asunīta*, ‘spirit-leading’ refer to the conduct by Agni of the souls of the dead on the path between this and the other world (10, 15⁴. 16²)². Funeral ritual texts never invoke the *asu* or *manas* of the deceased, but only the individual himself as ‘father’, ‘grandfather’, and so forth. Hence the soul is not a mere shadow, but is regarded as retaining its personal identity. Though men obtain immortality only after parting from the body (ŚB. 10, 4, 3⁹), the corpse plays an important part in the myth of the future state, which is corporeal. For the body shares in the existence of the other world (10, 16⁵; AV. 18, 2²⁶). A body, however, from which all imperfections are absent (AV. 6, 120³), can hardly have been regarded as a gross material body, but rather as one refined by the power of Agni (cp. 10, 16⁶), something like the ‘subtile’ body of later Indian speculation. An indication of the importance of the corpse in connexion with the future life, is the fact that the loss of a dead man’s bones, which according to the Sūtras were collected after cremation, was a severe punishment (ŚB. 11, 6, 3¹¹; 14, 6, 9²⁸). In one passage of the RV. (10, 16³) the eye of the dead man is called upon to go to the sun and his breath (*ātmā*) to the wind. But this notion, occurring in the midst of verses which refer to Agni as conducting the deceased to the other world, can only be an incidental fancy, suggested perhaps by the speculations about Puruṣa (10, 90¹³), where the eye of the latter becomes the sun and his breath the wind. In the same passage (also in 10, 58⁷) the soul is spoken of as going to the waters or the plants, a conception which perhaps contains the germ of the theory of metempsychosis³.

c9.s1.7

Proceeding by the path which the fathers trod (10, 14⁷), the spirit of the deceased goes to the realm of eternal light (9, 113⁷), being invested with lustre like that of the gods (AV. 11, 1³⁷), in a car or on wings (AV. 4, 34⁴), on the wings with which Agni slays the Rakṣases (VS. 18, 52). Wafted upward by the Maruts, fanned by soft breezes, cooled by showers, he recovers his ancient body in a complete form (AV. 18, 2²¹⁻⁶), and glorified meets with the fathers who revel with Yama in the highest heaven (10, 14⁸. ¹⁰. 154⁴·⁵). This is spoken of as a return home (*astaṁ*: 10, 14⁸). From Yama he obtains a resting place (10, 14⁹), when recognized by Yama as his own (AV. 18, 2³⁷).

c9.s1.8

According to the ŚB., the ordinary belief is that the dead leaving this world pass between two fires, which burn the wicked but let the good go by⁴. The latter proceed, either by the path leading to the Fathers or by that leading to the sun (ŚB. 1, 9, 3², &c.)⁵. In the Upaniṣads there are two paths for those who know the Absolute, the one (as a consequence of complete knowledge) leading to Brahma, the other to the world of heaven, whence after the fruit of good works has been exhausted, the spirit returns to earth for rebirth. Those ignorant of the ‘Self’, on the other hand, go to the dark world of evil spirits or are reborn on earth like the wicked⁶.

c9.s1.9

¹ ORV. 525. —

c9.s1.10

² The AV. is already acquainted with the breaths or vital airs familiar to post-Vedic literature: HRI. 153. —

c9.s1.11

³ BRI. 23. —

c9.s1.12

⁴ Cp. Kuhn, KZ. 2, 318. —

c9.s1.13

⁵ Weber, ZDMG. 9, 237; IStr. 1, 20—1; OST. 5, 314—5; SVL. 121; HRI. 206. —

c9.s1.14

⁶ HRI. 227.

Linked texts (7)