Vedic Mythology c9.s1.2

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).