O Indra, prolong our life once more!
RV I, 10, 115
Just as a cucumber is removed from its stalk, so from Death’s bonds may I be removed but not from Immortality!
RV VII, 59, 12
Desireless, wise, immortal, self-existent, full of bliss, lacking in nothing, is the one who knows the wise, unaging, youthful atman: he fears not death!
AV X, 8, 446
The three verses chosen as antiphons for this section express the gist of the many texts concerning what the Katha Upanishad calls the “Great Departure.” 7
The first one stresses what we are going to hear time and again: the “afterlife” and the “otherworld” may be very attractive prospects, but nothing is so dear and desirable as our human, concrete, bodily life here on earth and under the sun, with fellow human beings, animals, and objects surrounding us. If later on certain Upanishadic sages and, more so, some of their followers despise life here below and all human values, the Vedic rishis are still in love with this world.
The poet of the second verse knows only too well that Death does not wait for the fruit to fall from the tree by itself through its own impulse. He uses the metaphor of the plucked fruit and asks to be saved from the embrace of Death and handed over to immortality. The cucumber dies when plucked; Man enters immortality.
The third antiphon comes from the always astonishing Atharva Veda. Composed long before the Upanishads, it introduces us to the conception of atman, the discovery of which is the one means of overcoming both death and the fear of death. The concept was to be minutely developed in a later period. This existential discovery, which is much more than mere abstract knowledge, makes life glow with self-confidence. It is the secret of happiness and of the conquest of death, for it cannot be touched by the change and the decay caused by the passage of years. 8
This text is similar to others found elsewhere, for instance, in the Shatapatha Brahmana, speaking of either Brahman 9 or of atman. 10 It already foreshadows the trend of later speculation about death and also about life. 11 These sayings tell us that the secret of immortality and happiness is hidden neither on inaccessible peaks of heroic deeds nor in the equally unapproachable depths of universal knowledge, but is simply concealed in any human heart just “alongside” oneself.
Something similar must be said about another important insight, which represents perhaps the most common feature of the great majority of Eastern spiritualities: the notion of karman. Not only is the idea of atman foreshadowed in the Vedas but there is also discernible the seed of the conception of karman, though not the idea of rebirth. The term karman occurs almost forty times in the Rig Veda, but never in the sense of the later theories on transmigration. It means simply works, deeds, and, especially, sacred actions. Karman is directly related to the central idea of sacrifice. What appears clearly, mainly in the Brahmanas, is the idea of a superhuman justice which entails true belief in retribution. 12 All human deeds have good or bad effects according to their nature, that is, to their moral value.
The conception of karman emerges later as the connecting link between the two ideas of immortality and retribution. If not everything disappears at death, and if justice is to be accomplished, there will have to be a continuity. Karman stands here for this continuity, that is, for all the elements gathered around a personal core, which can be shared by others and thus also transmitted from one person to another. The karmas are not only the good or bad dispositions, but the very causes of such dispositions; they are the links in the chain of cosmic solidarity, a kind of crystallization of Man’s deeds on earth, which do not disappear with individual death.
The only Rig-Vedic text that has been traditionally interpreted as supporting the karman theory refers only to the anthropocosmic unity of reality, so that the eye goes back to the sun, the spirit to the wind, and so on. As noted earlier, it also refers to the cosmoethical harmony of the universe; 13 thus the merits and demerits of the person have cosmic repercussions because they belong to the same world. 14 Other texts from the Rig Veda, 15 Atharva Veda, 16 Upanishads, 17 and Gita 18 may also be considered in this connection.
Summing up the many threads of this tradition, we may detect three operative ideas: karman as the saving sacrificial action, mainly stressed in the Samhitas; karman as the subtle structure of temporal reality, as that which all existing things have in common and in which they share, disclosed mainly in the Upanishads and developed in later times; karman as the path of action, of good works, and thus also as a way to salvation, emphasized in the Bhagavad Gita. We could even add that the theory of karman is probably the fruit of a process of secularization away from the Vedic Brahmanic conception of the sacrifice to the general conception of life itself as a sacrifice, maintained no longer by a specific yajna but by the karmic action of Men. Be that as it may, what the shruti discloses is not a theory of karman but an attitude in the face of the problem of death. A few features may be noted.
First, there is the belief that the temporal world is not everything, that human life is not exhausted in space and time on earth, and that the person is not totally dissolved into his constituent elements. There is “another world.”
Second, there is the belief that this otherworld is intimately connected with this world and for this reason not only does human life on earth condition the otherworld, but also the last rites, the blessings for the journey, and the climactic moment of death are of capital importance. They condition the new form of human existence. They open up the gates of the otherworld. It is for this reason that the various rituals are so important. Man cannot live without rituals, nor can he die without them. They are needed not only for corporate human life but also for the great departure.
Third, there is a peculiar continuity and discontinuity between these two worlds, which is differently interpreted in the Vedas and the Upanishads. According to the Vedas the rupture between this world and the otherworld is an anthropological break (i.e., Man is certainly transformed, but it is Man who is still living at the other side); in the Upanishads the chasm is ontological (and atman is the bridge). The Rig Veda foreshadows what becomes clear in the Upanishadic period: the deceased goes either the way of the Fathers, pitryana, or the way of the Gods, devayana. 19 Later, with the theory of rebirth or punar-janman, there is a lively traffic behind the three worlds. According to the more radical doctrine of the Upanishads, all three belong to this side of the shore, all three are still under the law of karman and subjected to cause and effect. The other way, the Upanishads say, because it leads “no-where,” does not even need to be a way. This is, properly speaking, liberation.
According to the Vedas, moreover, the great departure is to “another world.” This otherworld has its own structure, but it seems to be still conditioned by time and space, though in a peculiar way. The Upanishads are not satisfied with a spatiotemporal conception. The great departure is not to another parallel, superior, or inferior world, but a radical departure from the human condition itself. This idea forms the background of the doctrine about the atman, as we shall see in several chapters of this part and the next.
If the idea is valid, the very metaphor of departure will be contested, because, although we certainly depart from this human condition, we neither reach another realm nor are we annihilated. We throw off the spatiotemporal wrapping and jump, stripped of any contingency or creatureliness, to the other shore, though here the word “shore” is also inappropriate, for it suggests the existence of another realm. Brahma-nirvana has no shores. 20 They are visible, as a mirage, only from the other (this) side.
It would be preposterous to claim that the Vedic Revelation has so clearly disclosed the mystery of the beyond that the only remaining requirement is to listen to it. It would also be out of place to pretend that the Vedas have given the answer for which mankind is constantly searching. No answer to any existential question can be given once and for all, nor can we find solutions by proxy to personal issues. We may immediately add that any intellectual answer to the problem of death is methodologically weak, for human reason would then leap outside the area in which it is competent.
What we can learn from the shruti is not an intellectual elucidation or a theoretical answer to the problem of death, but rather an attitude and a disposition. We may even realize new dimensions of the problem of death which may help to enlighten our own confrontation with the darkness of the beyond. Anything we say or think about death is bound to be unsatisfying. Death is precisely such because it is a state where “all words recoil,” to quote a Upanishad speaking about the bliss of Brahman. 21 We may in a way speak more properly about deathlessness than about death, because if we belong to the living we can more congruently deal with life than with what is not life.
The documents in this subsection do not talk much, in point of fact, about death. They speak about Yama, Naciketas, Immortality, this temporal world (samsara), and the two ways leading from this world. They bear witness to an attitude of hope, of joy, of faith; they depict a human situation which is neither overwhelmed nor excessively worried by death; they seem to describe an existential attitude that takes cognizance of the phenomenon of death but denies to it any character of ultimacy, either psychological or metaphysical. It is by integrating the fact of death into life, by reabsorbing, as it were, death into life, by not losing ground, or rather by finding a ground that is common to both death and life, that we can find the proper Vedic perspective.
The six chapters of this subsection, reinforced by scores of other texts, including many of those that follow in subsequent subsections, all present the same characteristic feature: they do not overstress the rupture and the discontinuity at the price of losing sight of the harmony and the continuity between life and death. Life and death are not on the same level, as it were. There is not a principle of life on the one hand and a principle of death on the other. Life and death are intertwined and death is almost inbuilt into life. Moreover, life, although this seems at first sight to be contradicted by the Upanishads, is this earthly human life, though seen in a deeper perspective than the merely empirical one. The Atharva Veda unambiguously declares: “this world is the most beloved.” 22
The next subsection offers striking examples of this attitude. Even the Upanishads, at a second reading--and they have certainly been read many times--do not place the “otherworld” outside this life. They stress so much the radical difference between real life, that is, the liberated life, on the one hand, and the unauthentic existence of the life of the senses or of the body on the other, that the former can be almost perfectly immanent in the latter. The atman is so different from and so superior to the body that it does not rest on or depend upon the body, as later periods forcefully affirm with expressions like “the world is the great illusion,” “Brahman is the ultimate subject of avidya,” “samsara is Brahman,” "nirvana is samsara,” “samsara is nirvana,” and the like.
Be that as it may, we could almost say without being too paradoxical that a feature of the Vedic experience is that it treats the problem of death as a noneschatological question. Death does not belong to the eschata, to the last things, but is an accident in the life of the individual and an incident in the life of society. The beyond is the unfathomable ocean which makes the beaches on this side worth walking on and playing on. The texts, however, tell us more than further comment could.
1 Among the many figures of the Vedas only a few have successfully passed through the fine metaphysical strainer of the Upanishads and the even finer sieve of time. Most of them have become lumber of the past or have been transformed into other deities or notions which conserve a certain continuity in the memory of the specialists but very little in the minds of ordinary people or in the events of everyday life. Among those few survivors we have the fascinating and intriguing figure of Yama. We shall try to expound this fundamental myth shorn of its many later additions and contradictions. 23 We may perhaps in this way find an explanation of the fact that Yama has for so long remained in the realm of the mythical and has not been downgraded to the mythological. We do not give a complete interpretation of the figure of Yama down the ages. In point of fact we have in Yama a commingling of many motifs. We have a whole gamut of factors concurring in Yama, from fertility rites to Egyptian and Iranian myths, so that it would be a mistake to reduce them to an artificial unity. Instead, we select some of the most salient features of Yama and submit what we think constitutes the core of the Yama myth: Yama, the primordial historical Man, reached immortality and thus a divine state by overcoming the double temptation that springs from selfishness and from the fear of death. He overcame this temptation by his fidelity to rita, truth, and through his loyalty to the Gods.
Although Yama’s name is found some fifty times in the Rig Veda, only three hymns are dedicated to him. The main reason that he has survived most of the other deities may be precisely that he is not, properly speaking, a God, but a Man; he is not just an animal called Man, but a full Man, that is, a divinized or immortal Man, actually the first Man to cross to the realm of the beyond. 24 Although later periods like to portray him as a judge, with Citragupta as his scribe, and stress the role of his two dogs as his messengers, he is not in Vedic times a figure who punishes, but a hero who runs before us and shares with us both the human condition and the divine calling. 25 He is the first Man to become immortal, the first one to attain his destiny. He is the Forerunner, as we shall see, 26 or, as the Atharva Veda puts it in a paraphrase of the same Rig-Vedic hymn:
Yama was the first to die among the mortals,
the first to go forth to that world before us. 27
Yama stands for the personified link between the two worlds. He does not come from the otherworld to ours but, on the contrary, he goes from our world to the other realm. Yama is the bridge to immortality, constructed from our side. But, unlike other bridges, Yama is a person; the bridge is personified.
Furthermore, Yama touches one of the deepest human realities: the fact of death. Yama is the king of the dead 28 and death is his path. 29 In point of fact he is a king of the human realm that is the kingdom of the dead. 30 He is really the “gatherer of people.” 31 All Men at one moment or another are gathered by him. He gives them a resting place. 32 He is more the hero of the dead than the God of death. People pray to him in order to be released from their bondage. 33 We shall have occasion to meet Yama yet again in connection with death. 34
The story in our particular hymn is clear and well known. Yami, the twin sister of Yama, not only loves him but is convinced that the law of nature, which she certainly represents, demands that man and woman procreate and love each other. Moreover, as twins, Yama and Yami have already been lying together in their mother’s womb. But their first responsibility is toward future generations: if they do not overcome the taboo of incest, mankind will perish forever and the race of Men will be extinguished. All the arguments are in favor of Yami.
Yama, however, does not yield. He retorts that evil times will certainly come later, in which unlawful actions will be done, but that he is not prepared to do such a deed. Earth, Heaven, Mitra, Varuna, and all the Gods will disapprove of it. He is unmoved by dialectical arguments and unconcerned with pragmatic reasoning, for he, the primordial man, is truthful to his vocation. We have, however, already suggested the main reason for Yama’s refusal: his loyalty to rita, his rejection of anrta:
Shall I utter truth aloud and murmur untruth secretly? Shall I be a hypocrite and only keep up appearances? Shall I act according to somebody else’s caprice, or even follow my own likings, disregarding the true cosmic order of things? Shall I, in short, not be truthful? 35
Fidelity to truthfulness seems to be the pivot of the whole story. Although they are supposed to be alone, Yama with an extremely refined psychological device simply directs the imagination of Yami to embrace another. There is an indication here that the gratifying of the sexual urge does not stand in the foreground.
The act of incest is not committed and yet mankind subsists. Men are mortal and yet they became immortal. Here lies the power of this myth. We may indicate some of the leading threads.
Yama is a brother to the Gods. His father Vivasvat 36 is certainly a solar deity, perhaps the sun itself. Saranyu, his mother, is none other than the daughter of the God Tvashtr. But Yama is also a brother to Men. Though he is offered the Soma and is thus accorded a privilege of the Gods, he is never explicitly called a God. 37 He is a real Man and the whole story of his temptation proves that he has had to work out his own salvation. By nature, that is, by birth, Yama is twin to Gods and Men. But by grace, that is, by conquest, merit, deeds, and by his fidelity to his life, he has overcome death, has become immortal, and divinized, he has become the father of all Men once they are on the other side of time and space. He is the King of the dead.
Later legends tell of the death of Yama and of the inconsolable grief and sorrow of his sister Yami, which gives rise to the beautifully human explanation of the cosmic rhythm of day and night. It banishes the grief of a devoted sister. The Gods, seeing the sadness of Yami who was unable to forget the death of Yama, created the night:
Yama had died. The Gods tried to persuade Yami to forget him. Whenever they implored her to do so, she said: “But it is only today that he died.” Then the Gods said: “Like this she will certainly never forget him; we will create night.” So the Gods created night and thus there arose a morrow; thereupon she forgot him. Therefore people say: “Without doubt day and night together let sorrow be forgotten.” 38
Often the myth of Yama and Yami is called difficult and strange; it is regarded as a mere ballad, a nice but incongruous narrative, and so on. If we do not look for what is not to be found there we may perhaps understand its message. The silence of the myth also has to be incorporated into the interpretation and the silence about the incest is total. The fact that mankind was not extinguished and that offspring came out of the first pair does not justify speaking of a hidden or later incest as if only a Fall could be at the origin of the human race. It would perhaps be more accurate to speak of a Miracle, of a double one indeed, that of generation and that of immortality. Both things go together. Procreation is immortality. Yama’s loyalty has effected both, and thus he became both the first immortal Man and the father of Men. 39 It is interesting to note the similarity between Yama and Manu, who is also said to be our father 40 and the first sacrificer, the first to present offerings to the Gods. 41
The hymn about Yama is more than a recital of a moral or edifying story about our Forefathers. It is important to understand the overcoming of the temptation by which Yama conquered death and reached immortality, as clearly expressed in the third stanza of the hymn:
It is this that the immortals wish from you:
an offspring from the unique mortal.
If Yama does not yield, death will reign over the whole earth and he himself will die without offspring, most miserable destiny. 42 He could hardly suffer a stronger temptation, and we can understand here incidentally that if the ethical sphere were autonomous and unrelated to the cosmic one, there is no reason on earth (and Indian culture, too, knows casuistry) why the merely moral taboo should in this instance not be broken and overcome. Yet Yama does not yield because he does not understand the problem in terms of individual casuistry or of the merely ethical grounds of autonomous morals. It is the victory over death which brings him immortality and we can understand why. He has really passed beyond death, has despised it, has not yielded, has not been frightened of dying, of remaining without offspring, and thus of leaving the whole world unpeopled. The temptation is not in Yami, the dear sister, but in what she says, in her reasons.
The myth tells us that Yama has conquered immortality. It does not need to tell us that he has conquered life also, for human life goes on here in this world, without the perpetration of the incest. At the origin of the human race there is a miracle, a miracle both of life and of immortality.
On the basis of the vast Vedic tradition we may suggest another reason that the act of incest was not perpetrated. The true incest that perpetuates the human race is not merely a human act of procreation between brother and sister, but the theandric action of the divine Father of creatures uniting himself with his daughter; this stresses the fact that man is not only an animal but also a divine offspring. 43 The origin of mankind cannot be traced to an act of human weakness but to a divine one, if weakness it really is. 44 It is God who has pity on his creation and unites himself with his own offspring. 45 If Yama had wanted to, he could have usurped the place of God, but he could not commit such a cosmic crime.
Yama is not simply a Vedic deity; he is neither a God nor just a mortal man. He is man, the Man, but he is not the cosmic purusha or the metaphysical atman. He is the concrete historical and transhistorical Man; he is mortal and yet he has an immortal life before him which he has to win by conquest, by overcoming the temptation to break the order of the universe for the sake of his own concupiscence or for the sake of complying with others or of following the arguments of his own mind. Yama overcomes all attempts to make him the supreme criterion of truth and righteousness. Let the world remain empty of mortals 46--yet he will not yield.
If we overlook later legendary accretions which made of Yama a terrible God of death and hell, we may conclude that the core of the myth is as follows. Yama is the symbol of Man, of an achieved and fulfilled Man, who has thus already transcended his earthly condition yet preserves his full identity as Man. He is the “master of the house,” yet he fails to keep the rules of hospitality, so that he has to apologize by dispensing his favors. 47 He has a fully human identity and yet is no longer subject to the limitation of this spatiotemporal world. He is the risen Man. The origin of the human race and the historical existence of mankind go back to the fidelity of the Primal Man to truth. No wonder the children of Man have a divine destiny.
[Yami:]
1. May I entice my friend toward friendship,
far though he has gone beyond the oceans!
The sage shall produce a grandchild for his fathers,
considering what will happen here on earth.
[Yama:]
2. Your friend repudiates such a friendship
as will make of his sister a woman unrelated.
The heroes, sons of the mighty Asura,
sustainers of the heaven, view all from afar.
[Yami:]
3. Do not the immortals require of you that
from the sole existing mortal issue an offspring?
Let your heart and mine be fused together.
Enter now as husband the body of your wife!
[Yama:]
4. Shall we do now what has hitherto been spurned?
Shall we who speak truth now countenance wrong?
The Merman and the Nymph within the waters--
these are our origin, our intimate kinship.
[Yami:]
5. Even in the womb God, the Ordainer
and Vivifier, the molder of forms, made us consorts.
No one transgresses his Holy Laws;
to this both Heaven and Earth bear witness.
[Yama:]
6. Who knows about the first day? Who has seen it?
Who can of that day produce firm proof?
Great is the decree of Mitra and Varuna,
What, temptress, will you say to men to seduce them?
[Yami:]
7. Desire for Yama overwhelms me, Yami,
to lie with him on a common bed.
As a woman to her husband I would yield my body.
Like chariot wheels let us move to and fro!
[Yama:]
8. They do not rest or close their eyes,
these watchmen of the Gods who pace around us.
Go, temptress, with another, not with me!
With him move like chariot wheels to and fro!
[Yami:]
9. By day and by night would Yami cherish you.
For a moment the eye of the Sun would vanish!
Twins unite in a bond like that of Earth and Heaven.
The blame for the incest of Yama will be Yami’s.
[Yama:]
10. It may well be that in later generations
brother and sister will act against the law.
Look for another than myself, O fair one,
and offer your arm to another lover.
[Yami:]
11. What brother is he who protects not his sister?
Does she count as a sister when destruction is at hand?
Swept along by love, I whisper again:
unite your body with this body of mine!
[Yama:]
12. Never will I unite my body with yours.
Sin it is called to approach one’s sister.
Not with me--with another find your delight!
Your brother, O fair one, does not desire it.
[Yami:]
13. O miserable coward! In you, O Yama,
I do not find either soul or heart.
Very well; let another entwine herself around you
as a girdle, as a creeper encircles a tree!
[Yama:]
14. Entwine yourself also, O Yami, around another.
Let another embrace you as the creeper a tree!
Seek to win his heart and let him win yours
and form with him a blessed union!
2. Sister: salakshma she who has the same features, is of the same parentage.
Sons of the mighty Asura: the Angirases who perform the role of moral overseers in the same way as the divine watchmen in stanza 8.
3. The sole existing mortal: a frequent designation of Yama.
Heart: manas.
4. Truth: rita.
Wrong: anrta, unrighteousness. Cf. RV III, 4, 7, which may shed some light on more than one aspect: truth-untruth, the connection with Sacrifice, with Manu, etc.
Merman: Gandharva.
Nymph: Apsaras, here understood to be the parents of Yama and Yami.
Origin: nabhi, lit. navel.
Kinship: jami, blood relation, sister.
5. Ordainer: Tvashtr.
Vivifier: Savitri.
Holy Laws: vratani.
6. Temptress: ahanas, lascivious woman.
7. Bed: yoni, lit. womb.
8. Watchmen of the Gods: davanam spashah.
Temptress: ahanas.
9. Bond like that of Earth and Heaven: cf. stanza 5; a reference to the myth of Heaven and Earth who are called sisters in RV I, 159, 4, and yet are the parents of the universe.
Incest: ajami, “what is not proper for brother and sister,” lawless act. Without the sun here is night and then the God would not see.
10. Act against the law: ajami.
Lover: lit. bull.
1l. Destruction: nirrti.
14. Blessed union: samvidam subhadram.
2 This intriguing hymn contains three parts which present three aspects of the mystery of death. The first and the last verses constitute a frame, describing the realm of Yama, who was the first among mortals to reach the otherworld and who is Death personified. There is nothing fearful about the “seat of death;” rather, it inspires a lofty idea of a paradise where the dead join Yama and the Gods in a heavenly feast, drinking Soma and hearing the flute and songs of praise.
The second part of the drama of death (vv. 1-2) is more down to earth and shows the grief of a son for his departed father. It seems to be only the son, representing the surviving family, who grieves; the father, on the contrary, desires to join his predecessors, those who have gone before him to the heavenly world. The beauty and the simplicity of the heavenly and human sides of death are strikingly clear. The third part (vv. 3-6) adds an enigmatic story which leaves us in perplexity.
Verses 3-6 have been variously interpreted. Some have understood that a boy--the son (or a person whose name is Kumara)--dies and is addressed either by his father or by death himself. It seems as if, seeing the death of his father, the boy does not want to go on living, and so he mounts the symbolical chariot for the journey to Yama’s realm. The chariot, like the boat (v. 4), is the Vedic symbol for the sacrifice by which the dead person ascends to the heavenly realm. The dead man leaves behind the priests who proceed to celebrate the funeral rites, and thus the Saman chant still follows him on his journey. Verse 5 puts a series of questions about the boy’s origin, about the way (“chariot”) by which the boy reached Yama’s kingdom, and, third, about the obscure anudeyi, “that which is given after.” It probably means the funeral gifts, or it may perhaps refer to the bride, asking why the youth died before being married. Other interpreters have understood the ascent of the boy to the seat of Yama not as real but as an imaginative or ecstatic movement. A hint of this meaning can be found in the expression that the chariot is “made by the mind” of the boy (manasakrnoh) because he only mentally follows his departed father. The questions in verse 5 would then cast doubt on the reality of the boy’s “journey.”
Indian tradition 48 has seen in these difficult stanzas a first version and a foreshadowing of the well-known story of Naciketas. 49 Whichever interpretation we may make our own, in each of the three instances--whether the youth dies, whether he ascends to Yama in imagination or in reality--we can see in verse 5 the exclamations and questions that arise when Man is faced with the overwhelming fact of death. They are concerned with the origin of the youth (even in a cosmogonic sense), the “whence,” with his departure from this world (the “wheelless chariot”) and with that third obscure “thing” given to him either as the “nourishment,” the “equipment,” or the “funeral gift” of the dead. It is this last “gift” that becomes the measure, we may say, of life. Verse 6 adds to the obscurity and leaves room for almost any temporal, spatial, existential, or ritual interpretation. If we read an existential meaning into it, we might venture to say: according to the measure “given” to a man (anudeyi)--later periods would say according to his karman--such is his origin (agra). First the ground (or depth) of life is extended, spreads forth, and then, when his span is over, a passage or exit is made and Man leaves the place of his earthly existence. The idam with which the next stanza (7) opens, referring to the seat of Yama, may confirm this interpretation: at this exit from life we reach the abode of the Gods, the heavenly realm, and we hear the sound of Yama’s flute whose music no mortal can resist.
[The Son]
1. Near the fair-leafed tree where Yama drinks
in the company of the Gods,
our father, master of our house, is seeking
the fellowship of the ancients.
2. I gazed with reluctance upon him as he
trod the evil path,
seeking the fellowship of the ancients; and I longed
to see him again.
[The Father]
3. Without seeing it you mounted, young man, the new chariot
constructed by your mind;
wheelless it is, with only one pole,
yet it moves in all directions.
4. The chariot, young man, which you made to roll forward,
taking leave of the priests,
was followed by a chant, conveyed on a boat
from here to there.
5. Who was father of the youth? Who caused the chariot
to proceed on its way?
Who can tell us today the nature
of the viaticum’s gift?
6. According to the nature of the gift
arose the beginning.
First was the base extended; later
was contrived an exit.
7. Such is the seat of Yama, called also
the home of the Gods;
there the God plays on his flute, there he dwells,
glorified by songs.
1. Seeks the fellowship: anu-ven-, looks for, desires to see.
The ancients: puranah, the ancestors, his predecessors.
2. The evil path: death, which is regarded by the son as an evil way. I longed to see him: the root sprh- may also mean to envy; both meanings could fit into the hymn, because the following vv. show the desire of the boy to follow his father.
3. Constructed by your mind: manasakrnoh, imagined?
4. Priests: viprah, the wise, the speakers, but here referring to the priests performing the funeral rite.
Chant saman, funeral hymn.
5. The nature of the . . . gift: lit. how was the gift, anudeyi, an obscure word probably meaning funeral gift (or equipment for the journey to death?): viaticum.
6. Beginning: agra, could also mean top (of the chariot), and then the translation would be in spatial instead of temporal terms (i.e., “in front” instead of “first,” “behind” instead of “later”).
Exit: nirayana, also result.
7. This very poetic stanza corresponds to the description of Yama’s world in the first two lines of stanza 1.
Glorified: parishkrta, lit. adorned.
3 We know by now how startling the Brahmanas are. The two texts that follow undoubtedly have an immediate cultic context. The first has to do with the ritual of the fire altar; the second reflects the existence of an ordeal. But both texts point beyond their immediate background, for, according to the Brahmanas themselves, everything has a specular character and thus reflects something of the yonder and more real world.
In this sense we can interpret the first passage as disclosing that death and nondeath are not so opposite to and separate from each other as we might be tempted to assume. Two paradoxical statements put it in a striking way: death does not die and thus within Death itself there is immortality. Here is something more than what we learn from the Upanishads, that “life does not die.” 50 We are not satisfied with discovering a jiva, a soul resistant to the bite of death; we hear that death itself belongs to immortality, that death is not the “end” of life, not something on the frontier of and, eventually, frightening to life, but a constitutive element of life itself.
Death is not at the limit ot life, but in the middle of it. One has to be born thrice, in fact, in order to be immortal. 51
The very universality of death makes Man give it a superhuman character, and thus it acquires a quasi-divine status. What does it mean to say that the Gods have the privilege of immortality? It means not merely that after death comes immortality, as the text has sometimes been understood to say, but that it is only through death that immortality is reached, and thus that death itself already contains the seed of immortality. Another passage in the same Brahmana illustrates the same point. The setting, obviously sacrificial, deals with the immortality which some sacrifices may afford. We are in the period in which the Gods were still working out their destiny; they performed the proper sacrifice and thus became immortal:
Death then spoke to the Gods: “If this is so, then surely all men will become immortal. What will then be my fate?” The Gods said: “From now on no one will become immortal with the body. After you have taken the body as your portion, then only shall whoever is going to become immortal, either by wisdom or works, become immortal, that is, after having laid down the body.” 52
For the human race, therefore, immortality is reached only through death; death becomes the gate to immortality.
In the same vein we may add that only mortal things are immortal. Immortality is not sheer deathlessness, the mere continuation of a given earthly and temporal condition; it is rather the overcoming of death, the passing through it and reaching the other shore, a shore that can exist only because the river of death lies between it and life. A stone, even in an unscientific cosmology, is not immortal. We have here a profound and extraordinary intuition, which yielded fruit in many schools of thought and spirituality. Death is the very token of its contrary, immortality. Here death is not the sequel of evil or of sin but the very condition of authentic life. Death is thus not even bad; it is the door to the realm where Man can fully be what he ultimately is. “Death is suffused in light,” says our text; death clothes itself in brightness.
The second Brahmana connects the two worlds in a forceful way and gives us the hope of being eternally victorious in the yonder world if we succeed in being triumphant in this one. The pair of scales is the symbol of justice in this world and in the other--a metaphor that is almost universal. Another interesting feature is the inverse relation between the two worlds. It is the right weighing here which will spare an unfavorable judgment there. Whatever is done on earth has repercussions in heaven . 53
SB X, 5, 2, 3-4
i) 3. He verily is Death, that Person in the
yonder orb.
That orb’s blazing ray is the immortal; thus Death cannot die either, for he is enclosed within the immortal; thus Death cannot be seen, for he is enclosed within the immortal.
4. On this point there is a verse: “Within Death there is immortality,” for after Death comes immortality. “On Death is based immortality,” for it is within immortality that the Person established in yonder orb shines. “Death clothes itself in Light,” for Light, to be sure, is yonder Sun, because this light changes day and night, and so Death clothes itself in Light and is surrounded on all sides by Light. “The Self of Death is in the Light,” for the Self of that Person is assuredly in that orb. Thus says the verse.
SB XI, 2, 7, 33
ii) Now, regarding the balance of the right side of the altar: whatever good a man does, that is placed upon the altar; whatever evil a man does, that is placed outside the altar. Therefore he should sit down, touching the right side of the altar, for he will be placed on the balance in the otherworld. He must follow the path of the raised balance, whether for good or for evil. He who knows this places himself on the balance even in this world and is thus released from the balance of the other world, for his good deeds raise the balance, not his evil deeds.
i) 3. Death: mrtyu.
Orb: mandala, the disk of “yonder Sun.”
Blazing ray: arcis, the glowing light, radiance (of the sun).
Within the immortal: amrte . . . antah.
4. Within death there is immortality: antaram mrtyor amrtam.
After death: could also be translated as “near death” (avara).
On death is based immortality: mrtyav amrtam ahitam.
Light: vivasvat, the radiant one, the brilliant one, a name of the sun. Yama is said to be the son of Vivasvat; cf. § V 1. There is here a pun on the verb vi-vas-, meaning both to shine forth and also to change, to depart, and the verb vas-, to clothe.
ii) Balance: tula-.
Altar: vedi, the place of the sacrifice.
Good: sadhu.
Evil: asadhu.
4 The Rig Veda speaks of a way leading to the Gods. The same way, moreover, is used by the Gods themselves when they come down to the sacrifice, 54 so that it carries a two-way traffic, Men ascending and Gods descending. 55 In one place Death is requested to move on a road far distant from the one that leads to the Gods, so as not to disturb those who tread there. 56 The Upanishads systematize the whole subject of the different paths on which the departed proceed to the otherworld. From the dialogue between Shvetaketu and Pravahana it appears that this field of enquiry is new, 57 as new as the belief in transmigration. The questions are posed: Who is to proceed on which path after death? Who is to return to earth? The Upanishads leave no doubt that “the one who knows,” the one who has realized the truth and leads the austere life of a vanaprastha, a forest dweller, will proceed on the way of the Gods. 58 Here the sacrificial, cosmological, and jnanic or gnostic ways are combined in an organic whole without break or contradiction. In this instance, the dead passes into the flame of the funeral pyre; he goes along the auspicious temporal path, which is the bright half month (shuklapaksha) and the northern way of the sun (uttarayana), passes into the sun, and is finally led to the brahma-loka from which there is no return. Those who have not yet attained so high a state, who are still on the level of performing rituals and good works (probably the householders [grhastha]), go along the inauspicious temporal path, during the dark half month (krishnapaksha) and the southern way of the sun (dakshinayana), whence they proceed to the moon. In the moon these spirits become food for the Gods and must once more pass through the cosmological elements and return to earth in order to be reborn.
The second text (ii) shows in a striking manner how even those who go along the way of the Fathers (pitryana) 59 and are reborn can be released if they know who they are. What is important with regard to both these ways is to know them and to know what is to be done in order to attain them. He who really knows will not return again.
We may discover from these and similar texts a twofold insight: universal cosmic solidarity and the hierarchical world-building power of knowledge. We may give some idea of the first insight by saying that death is considered from two angles. It is the end of a temporal and spatial earthly road and also the gateway to the temporal and spatial road outside this earth. In fact, the whole universe forms a unity, for we live our lives together with our ancestors and between us we populate the entire universe. The world of Men is coextensive with both the physical and the spiritual universe. There are no empty stars and no time devoid of temporal beings.
Everybody, according to our second text, which is known as paryankavidya (“science of the couch”), 60 goes to the moon and there his destiny is decided according to the wish he expresses; a wish that depends upon his knowledge or nonknowledge of who he is. “Who are you?” is the crucial question of each man’s cross-examination. Here the vital insight is that Man collaborates in the building of the universe. Everybody is invited to contribute to the (re)construction of the world. You may like to share your lot once again with Men or to fly to the heavenly world of the Gods, where other tasks will await you, but you can do so only if you put your whole self behind your affirmation of what you are and what you want to be. This is the meaning of the cryptic identification formulas that keep cropping up in these texts.
i) 1. Then Shvetaketu Aruneya went to the Council of the Pancalas. He went to Jaivali Pravahana who was being attended by his servants. When the latter saw him, he said to him: “Young man!” “Yes, [sir]!” he answered. He then said: “Have you been instructed by your father?” “Yes,” said he.
2. “Do you know how people here, when they have departed from this life, proceed on different paths?” “No,” he said. “Do you know how they return again to this world?” “No,” he said again. “Do you know how it is that the otherworld is not filled completely with the many who ceaselessly ascend to it?” “No,” he said again. “Do you know after the offering of which oblation it is that the waters acquire a human voice and, arising, speak?” “No,” he said again. “Do you know the means of access to the path of the Gods or to the path of the Fathers, and what is to be done to proceed either on the path of the Gods or on the path of the Fathers? And have you not heard the word of the sage:
Two ways, I hear, are given to mortals:
the path of the Fathers and the path of the Gods.
Upon these two all things proceed together,
whatever moves between the Father and the Mother.”
“No, I know nothing whatever of all this,” he said.
3. Then he [the king] invited him to stay, but refusing to stay the boy ran away. He went to his father and said to him: “Sir, before you have called me well learned.” “How is that, O wise one?” “The man of royal lineage asked me five questions of which I did not know the answer of even one.” “What questions?” “The following,” he said, repeating them.
4. The father said: “My son, you should know me as I am, that whatever I myself know, I have told to you. But let us go there and live in purity and the study of Brahman.” “Sir, you may go alone,” said [the son]. So Gautama went to the place where Pravahana Jaivali lived. There the king brought him a seat and had water brought for him. He gave him respectful hospitality. Then he said to him: “I shall grant a boon to the venerable Gautama.”
5. Gautama replied: “You have promised me this boon. Please tell me, then, the words you spoke in the presence of my son.”
6. He said: “This boon belongs to the divine boons; ask rather for a human one.”
7. Gautama said: “It is well known that I have abundance of gold, cows, horses, female attendants, objects to fulfill my wishes, and garments. Do not deprive me of that which is of great value, eternal and boundless.” “This, O Gautama, you will have to request in the proper way.” “I approach you, sir, as a disciple.” For with these words the ancient ones used to approach their master. Having declared himself as a disciple, he [Gautama] stayed [with the king].
8. The king said to him: “Neither you nor your Forefathers should take offense at this. This knowledge has from of old never remained with any brahmin. But I will declare it to you. For it is not proper to refuse it to you who speak like this.”
13. . . . Out of this oblation a person comes to be. He lives as long as his life lasts. When he dies
14. they carry him to the [funeral] fire . . . .
15. Those who know this and those also who in the forest realize that faith is truth, they pass into the flame, from the flame into the day, from the day into the bright fortnight, from the bright fortnight into the six months when the sun goes northward, from these months into the sun, from the sun into lightning. When they have reached the region of lightning, a spiritual person leads them into the worlds of Brahman. In these worlds of Brahman they dwell in the highest of the highest. For them there is no return.
16. But those who win the worlds by means of sacrifice, gifts, and austerity, they pass into smoke, from smoke into the night, from night into the dark fortnight, from the dark fortnight into the six months when the sun goes southward, from these months into the world of the Fathers, from the world of the Fathers into the moon. When they have reached the moon, they become food. There the Gods, in the same way as they say to King Soma, “Increase, decrease!” and partake of him, so also do they consume them. When that has taken place, they enter into this space, from space into the wind, from wind into rain, from rain into the earth. Having reached the earth, they become food; again they are offered into the fire of a man, whence they are born in the fire of a woman, and, arising in the worlds, again move in the circle. But those who do not know these two paths, they become crawling and flying and biting beasts.
KAUS U I, 2-6
ii) 2. He said: those, in truth, who leave this world all go to the moon. In the bright half the moon grows large because of these beings and in the dark half it causes them to be born [again]. The moon, assuredly, is the gate to the heavenly world. Those who answer the moon [properly] are released, but those who do not answer [properly] become rain and rain down [on earth], where they will be born again in different conditions of life, according to their works and according to their knowledge, either as an insect, or as a bird, or as a fish, or as a big bird, or as a lion, or as a bear, or as a snake, or as a tiger, or as a man, or as some other being. When he reaches there, a man is asked “Who are you?” He should reply:
From the radiant one, O seasons, the seed was collected, from the fifteenfold, from the world of the Fathers. Place me in man as an agent, and thence, with the man as an agent, place me in a mother.
[Or he should say:]
So was I born, brought forth in the twelfth or thirteenth month, sired by a father who is twelve- or thirteenfold by nature. Knowing this, I understand; knowing this, I am. By this Truth, O seasons, by this Ardor make me deathless! I am season, a son of the seasons.
“Who are you?” [asks the moon.] “I am you!” [he replies.] Then he releases him.
3. When he proceeds on the path leading to the Gods, he reaches the world of Agni, then the world of Vayu, the world of Varuna, the world of Indra, the world of Prajapati, the world of Brahman. This world contains the lake Ara, the hours Yeshtiha, the river Vijara, the tree Ilya, the city Salajya, the palace Aparajita, the doorkeepers Indra and Prajapati, the hall Vibhu, the throne Vicakshana, the couch Amitaujas, the beloved “Mind” and her counterpart “Vision” who, taking flowers, weave the worlds, and also the mothers, the nurses, the nymphs, and the rivers. To this world he who knows this comes. To him Brahman speaks: “Go toward him! for it is my glory that made him reach this undecaying stream, and assuredly he will not decay.”
4. Then five hundred Apsarases approach him, a hundred with fruits in their hands, a hundred with ointments in their hands, a hundred with garlands in their hands, a hundred with garments in their hands, a hundred with perfumes in their hands. They adorn him with the ornament of Brahman. When he is adorned with the ornament of Brahman, he, the knower of Brahman, goes to Brahman. Then he reaches the lake Ara; he crosses over it by the mind. Those who approach it, knowing only the present, are drowned. Then he reaches the hours Yeshtiha, which run away from him. Then he reaches the river Vijara which he crosses over by the mind alone.
Then he shakes off his good and evil actions. Those who are dear to him take over his good actions, and those who are not dear to him, his bad actions. Just as a chariot driver looks down on the two chariot wheels, he too looks down upon day and night, upon good and evil actions, and upon all pairs of opposites. Thus he is free from good and evil, a knower of Brahman, and he goes to Brahman.
5. He comes to the tree Ilya and the fragrance of Brahman enters into him. He comes to the city Salajya and the essence of Brahman enters into him. He comes to the palace Aparajita and the splendor of Brahman enters into him. He comes to the doorkeepers Indra and Prajapati who run away from him. He comes to the hall Vibhu and the glory of Brahman enters into him. He comes to the throne Vicakshana whose front feet are the Saman chants Brhad and Rathantara, whose hind feet are Shyaita and Naudhasa, whose bars stretching lengthwise consists of Vairupa and Vairaja, whose bars stretching crosswise are Shakvara and Raivata. It is wisdom, for by wisdom one sees.
Then he comes to the couch Amitaujas which is the Breath of life and whose front feet are past and future, whose hind feet are beauty and comfort, whose head parts are [the chants] Bhadra and Yajnayajniya, whose bars stretching lengthwise consist of Brhad and Rathantara, whose lengthwise cords are the Rig Veda hymns and the Saman chants, whose crosswise cords are the Yajus formulas. The Soma-fibers are the mattress, the Udgitha chant is the cover, beauty is the cushion. He comes to the couch
Amitaujas which is Life . . . On this couch Brahman is seated. He who knows this ascends to it with one foot only. Brahman asks him: “who are you?” He shall respond:
6. “I am season; I am son of the seasons. From space as origin I am born as seed of a woman, as the splendor of the year, as the self of every being. What you are, that I am.” He asks him: “Who am l?” “Reality,” he replied. “What is this reality?” “Whatever is different from the Gods and from the vital breaths, that is ‘real,” but the Gods and the vital breaths are ‘-ity.” Therefore it is expressed by the word ‘reality,” which comprises all that is. You are all that is.” Thus he speaks.
i) This passage is similar to CU V, 3-10.
2. The Father and the Mother: i.e., Heaven and Earth.
4. In purity and the study of Brahman: brahmacaryam.
6. Belongs to the divine boons: daiveshu . . . vareshu. Cf. KathU I, 20-27 (§ V 5) where in the same way Yama tries to avoid the spiritual questions by tempting Naciketas with material wishes.
7. In the proper way: tirthena, in the traditional manner, i.e., according to the ritual (consisting here of a short formula).
8. Offense: aparadha.
This instance is one of many in the U where a Kshatriya is teaching the highest wisdom to a brahmin.
9-14. Cf. § III 26
15. Realize that faith is truth: shraddham satyam upasate, worship faith in truth, or meditate with faith on truth.
Spiritual person: purusho manasah, a person consisting of manas (mind, spirit).
Highest of the highest: parah paravatah, or, for long periods, immeasurable length.
ii) 2. Beings: pranah, spirits, breath souls.
Released: ati-srj-, i.e., they proceed on the way of the Gods, devayana.
Fifteenfold: i.e., the moon, which in the Hindu calendar is reckoned in units of fifteen days (the half month).
Or he should say: another type of answer for the candidate for the devayana.
Twelfth or thirteenth month: i.e., within the span of a year.
Knowing this . . . : the idam may refer to the devayana and pitryana, respectively.
Truth: satya.
Ardor: tapas.
I am season: the individual soul depends upon the moon and time and hence is identified with “time,” with the seasons.
3. Vijara: lit. unaging, translated below as the “undecaying stream.”
Aparajita: lit. unconquered. Cf. CU VIII, 5, 3 (§ III 27).
The beloved “Mind”: priya ca manasi.
“Vision”: cakshushi. These are two female attendants of the throne of Brahman, representing two ways of knowledge: by understanding (manas) and by direct vision (cakshus).
The image of weaving the worlds is again present.
4. Ornament of Brahman: brahmalankara.
Mind: manas.
Knowing only the present: sampratividah, those who know only what is in front of them, and nothing beyond, cannot cross over to the “other shore.”
The hours Yeshtiha . . .: because the knower of Brahman has already transcended time, even the mythical “time” of the Brahma world evaporates in front of him.
Good and evil actions: sukrta-dushkrta. By the law of solidarity and interrelatedness, the merit derived from a man’s good deeds goes to his dear ones (priya) and the fruit of his evil deeds, to his enemies (apriya).
Pairs of opposites: dvandvani. Cf. BG IV, 22.
5. Doorkeepers: Indra and Prajapati can reach no farther than the threshold of the world of Brahman, whereas the released person enters within.
Wisdom: prajna.
Breath of life: prana.
The throne and the couch of Brahman are made of the components of sacrifice, and mainly of the Saman chant. This mythical description reveals the process by which Brahman becomes the Absolute, that is, by means of the sacrifice and the sacred chant.
6. The reply to the ultimate existential question refers both to the temporal self and to the ultimate Self of a person.
Sons of the seasons: artava, related to the season, i.e., temporal; derived from rtu, season.
From space as origin: akashad yoneh; akasha is the cosmic womb.
Reality: satyam. We have tried to reproduce the Sanskrit pun which splits the word into sat and tyam, by a similar device: “reality.” Cf. also BU II, 3, 1 (§ VI 7); V, 5, 1; CU VII 3, 5 (§ VI 6).
You are all that is: idam sarvam asiti. It is interesting that in this ultimate dialogue, man is a “you,” tvam. Cf. § VI 10.
5 The Upanishads take us straight to the heart of the metaphysical problem connected with death. By means of lively dialogue the Katha Upanishad brings us step by step to the disclosure of the mystery of death. The dialogue is between Yama and a young Brahmin, Naciketas by name. The parable of Naciketas belongs to an already highly developed stage in human consciousness. It combines the symbolism of Yama with elements of the earlier story of the Taittiriya Brahmana, thus weaving together in one artistic fabric the different threads of the Vedic tradition. The Katha Upanishad presents to us one facet of the human experience of the universal phenomenon of death.
Yama is depicted both with human features (he was not at home when Naciketas went to him, he feels sorry, and apologizes) and with divine knowledge (he imparts the highest wisdom to the young man). Naciketas represents Man at his noblest, longing for enlightenment and realization, haunted by the problem of death and capable of overcoming the allurements and temptations to which Yama subjects him when attempting to avoid compliance with his request. He is not satisfied with individual comforts or concerned with individual problems. To discover the real meaning of death is the one thing that will satisfy him and he chooses the boon that will allow him to penetrate the mystery. The theme of temptation, which later on assumes considerable importance, is here only discreetly mentioned.
It is instructive to notice the divergencies between the story of the Brahmana and that of the Upanishad. Whereas the former is steeped in ritual and, by playing on words, elaborates the doctrine of the Naciketas fire through which one becomes imperishable, the latter, though acknowledging the value of rituals and repeating the first two boons, converts the third one into a spiritual realization which involves saving knowledge as well as ritual practices.
In the Taittiriya Brahmana 61 the third gift aims at the conquest of “death again” or “repeated death” (punar-mrtyu). 62 The Upanishad, on the other hand, insists upon the necessity of knowing the mystery of the great departure and the teaching is imparted accordingly.
Out of desire for reward, Vajashrava gave away all his wealth in order to perform a sacrifice. His son Naciketas, either because according to the customary ritual he himself is to be given away as part of the sacrifice or because “faith enters into him” offers himself also as oblation (dakshina) for the sacrifice and asks his father three times over to whom he has to go. “Go to hell!” is the impatient rejoinder of the father and there the boy goes, to the kingdom of death. Because of the absence for three days of King Yama, however, Naciketas does not receive the customary attention demanded by hospitality. To atone for the lapse Yama offers three favors or boons to Naciketas. The boy proceeds to ask, first, that the wrath of his father may be appeased and, next, that Yama may give him instruction concerning the fire of sacrifice which gains entry to heaven for a man. These two favors are granted. 63 As his third favor the young man begs to be enlightened on the crucial question: “Does Man--the life principle in a Man--continue to exist or not after death?” Or, more tersely and more vividly: “Is he or is he not?” 64
KATH U I, 20-21
i) [Naciketas:]
20. The doubt that exists about a man when he is dead--
for some say “he is” and others, “he is not”--
about that I would clearly know, instructed by you.
This is my third and final favor.
[Yama:]
21. Even the Gods were once in doubt about this question.
To know is not easy, so subtle is the problem.
Choose, Naciketas, another favor.
About this do not press me! Let it be!
Yama tries to dissuade him by offering him more tempting and solid favors, which Naciketas rejects. Yama finds the young man ripe for instruction and indeed better prepared than himself, for Naciketas is ready to give up all material and spiritual wealth in order to know the ultimate mystery. 65 There is a fundamental difference between the second favor, which is to know svarga-loka, the “world of heaven,” 66 and the way leading to ananta-loka, the infinite world, 67 and the third one, which is concrete existential knowledge of existence or nonexistence.
KATH U I, 29
ii) [Naciketas:]
Tell us, I pray, of the great Departure
about which doubt exists, O Death.
The boon that will elucidate this mystery--
it is that and none other that Naciketas chooses.
Then Yama, judging him to be worthy of receiving Brahma knowledge, discloses to him the profound secret of atman-brahman.
KATH U II, 12-14
iii) 12. The hard-to-perceive and wrapped in mystery,
set in the cave and hidden in the depth--
he who, wise indeed, realizes this as God,
by means of an awareness centered on the Self,
leaves far behind both joy and sorrow.
The question about the Great Beyond is taken in an absolute way by Naciketas. It is not mere curiosity about afterdeath but an all-encompassing query about total transcendence.
13. The man who has understood and grasped this well,
who, stripping off all else, has plumbed this mystery,
will rejoice, having obtained what merits rejoicing.
For you, I think, the house is wide open, Naciketas!
[Naciketas:]
14. Declare to me then what you deem to be
beyond what is righteous and what is unrighteous,
beyond what is done and what is undone,
beyond what was and what shall be.
Yama’s answer consists of an explanation of OM. 68 He then goes on to say that this mystery is beyond any observable appearance and is apparent only by its own grace.
KATH U II, 18
iv) The Inspired Self is not born nor does he die;
he springs from nothing and becomes nothing.
Unborn, permanent, unchanging, primordial,
he is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
KATH U II, 20
v) Smaller than the small, greater than the great,
the atman is hidden in the core of every creature.
One free from desire and thus free from grief
sees the greatness of the atman by grace of the Ordainer.
Then follows a description of the atman and the dispositions of the heart necessary for its realization. Next comes the famous metaphor of the chariot in which the atman is the lord, the chariot is the body, the driver is the intellect (buddhi ), the reins are the mind (manas ), and the horses are the senses (indriyani). Through yoga, affirms Yama, one begins to overcome death, and he proceeds to extol in a great crescendo the realization of the atman as a means of overcoming death.
KATH U III, 10-11
vi) 10. Beyond the senses are their objects,
beyond the objects is the mind,
beyond the mind is the intellect,
beyond the intellect is the great atman.
11. Beyond the Great is the Unmanifest,
beyond the Unmanifest is the Person,
beyond the Person there is nothing:
it is the end, the highest state.
Yama now declares to Naciketas that he must set out on the difficult path of liberation from death.
KATH U III, 14-15
vii) 14. Arise! Awake! Seek to understand
the favors you have won. The sharpened edge
of a razor is hard to cross--thus the sages
declare the intricacies of the path.
15. When one has realized that which is soundless,
intangible, formless, unchanging, tasteless,
odorless, unwavering, beginningless, and endless,
that which is infinite and perfectly stable,
then one is freed from the jaws of death.
Two stanzas bring to a close the story of Naciketas, but this question (I, 20) still haunts Man, and the Upanishad, in what is probably a later addition, continues its reflection. Chapter IV attempts to define the identity, the complete oneness, of atman and Brahman by the expression “this is that,” declaring that those who do not understand this essential unity pass from death to death, that is to say, from rebirth to rebirth, never transcending the world of space and time. The whole chapter is an injunction to turn inward and to discover the inner vision that will lead to immortality. 69 Chapter V reverts to the theme of the identity of atman-brahman and, stressing the immanence-transcendence of the atman, declares the supreme joy that results from the knowledge of this truth. It is this atman, the antaratman or inner soul, which frees a man from death. We still hear echoes of the teaching of Yama to Naciketas:
ATH U V, 6-7
viii) 6. Now I will teach you concerning
this mysterious everlasting Brahman
and also what becomes of the atman
when death arrives, O Gautama.
7. Some go into a womb
to receive once again a body;
others enter inert things
according to, their works and knowledge.
KATH U V, 14-15
ix) 14. “This is that”--thus they recognize
the supreme ineffable happiness.
How will I then discern “it”?
Does it shine or does it reflect light?
15. There the sun does not shine, or moon or stars,
lightnings do not shine there, much less this fire.
All things shine as reflections of his shining
and this whole world is bright with his light.
The Upanishad concludes, in Chapter VI, with a vision of the world as an everlasting tree with its life, or roots, firmly fixed above, in Brahman, the immortal, and with its branches directed downward. The powerful breath of Brahman fills the universe with so much energy that fear seizes all things. Because of this fear the fire burns and the sun gives heat; because of this fear, also, Indra, Vayu (the wind), and Death speed on their ways. He who is freed from all desires becomes immortal. It is this immortality that is bestowed upon Naciketas when he is purified and becomes one with Brahman.
KATH U VI, 1-3
x) 1. This everlasting fig tree, whose roots are on high
and whose branches are below, is the Pure, is Brahman,
what is called the Immortal. In that all worlds
are established and nothing passes beyond.
This in truth is that!
2. This whole world--whatever exists--
both springs from that and moves by his breath.
Herein is great fear as in a brandished thunderbolt.
Those who know that become immortal.
3. From fear of that burns the Fire,
from fear of that blazes the Sun,
from fear of that both Indra and Vayu
and Death, to name a fifth, speed on their ways.
KATH U VI, 14-18
xi) 14. Once freed of all desires that lie in the heart,
then a mortal man becomes immortal.
Even in this life he attains to Brahman.
15. Once all the knots of the heart are cut,
then a mortal man becomes immortal.
This is the end of the instruction.
16. A hundred and one are the channels of the heart;
one of them leads to the crown of the head.
By this channel, proceeding upward, one goes to immortality.
The rest serve for movement in various directions.
17. The Person of a thumb’s size, the atman within,
ever dwells in the heart of beings.
One should draw him out of one’s body with care
just as an inner stem is drawn from its sheath.
Him you should know, the Pure, the Immortal;
him you should know, the Pure, the Immortal.
18. Then Naciketas, instructed by Death,
having embraced this knowledge and the whole yoga discipline,
passed over to Brahman and became free from stain
and exempt from death; and so too is he
who possesses this knowledge of the Self within him. 70
If Yama is the risen Man, the Man who has transcended his earthly condition, Naciketas is the Man on pilgrimage, the homo viator, the symbol of mankind’s itinerant condition. He is the perpetual seeker, the Man of faith, driven by his desire to know, which leads him to ignore all other pursuits. He is a young man, a student, on the way. 71 He breaks with his father and even enrages him. He is the generous youngster, according to another interpretation, who reminds his father that he has not yet given up everything, as his son still remains to be offered as an oblation. Yama discovers that he will not be content with rituals and, perplexed by this obduracy, tries to convince the young man that he should be amply satisfied that the sacrificial fire will henceforth be called by his name. Rebuffed, he next tries to allure Naciketas with all sorts of earthly temptations.
After so graphic a buildup one would expect some spectacular disclosure regarding the meaning of death. We have here, certainly, one of the deepest revelations concerning the mystery of the beyond, but its hallmark of authenticity lies in its simplicity and universality. There is nothing spectacular here. The realm of the beyond is neither beyond nor far away; it is neither inaccessible to the majority nor reserved for the superhuman. Naciketas is the common Man who finds residing within his own self that for which he is searching. He is equipped simply with the desire to know, with a thirst for knowledge. Yet his thirst is not only intellectual; it is not an epistemological curiosity that drives him, but a gnostic-existential thrust, if we are allowed to phrase it this way: it is the desire to know salvation, to decipher not objective problems but the mystery of human existence, to master the riddle that consists of himself. Naciketas is Man desiring to know whether he is or is not, because in this knowledge is contained all his being. It was later called mumukshutva or existential desire for liberation. 72 Some may see in Naciketas a sage, others a philosopher. He is in any event the searcher aspiring to reach fullness of life by discovering the mystery of being itself. Here the problem of death is bound up with the question of being or not being, and Naciketas is the symbol of Man intent on this supreme quest.
The answer is immortalized in the simple words, “this is that,” that is, that which you see and smell and think and will, that which comes within the range of your human experience, this is that, this is what you are looking for, this is that which transcends everything, that which is really beyond, that which is imperishable and absolute--except that you must really know the this and the that. You must know, furthermore, that the this is that and yet not confuse them, for the that certainly does not appear except in the form of this but if you mistake the this for the that, then you are deluded. Naciketas, know the this and know the that, know that this is that and yet do not mix or confuse them, do not blur the this and the that, precisely because this is that.
The Upanishad ends with the same invocation with which it started and which occurs also in other texts. Although it does not belong to the Upanishad proper, it acquires here a profound meaning:
May He help both of us, 73
may He be pleased with both of us,
may we act together in a vigorous way, 74
may our study be successful,
may we never hate each other.
Om! Peace, peace, peace!
i) 20. He is, he is not: asti, nasti, with double reference to the immediate context and to the later one of the astikas and nastikas, or orthodox and heterodox views on religion and reality.
21. Problem: dharma, doctrine, truth, state of affairs.
ii) Of the great Departure: samparaye mahati.
Mystery: gudha, covered, hidden, concealed, invisible, secret.
iii) 12. Set in the cave: guhahitam, i.e., in the heart.
Wise: dhira, i.e., the one who is firm in meditation, wise as a result of his realization of God.
Awareness centered on the Self: adhyatma yoga, yoga relating to the deepest Self, spiritual yoga or spiritual communion or concentration. This phrase appears in the Upanishads only here.
13. Mystery: dharmyam, that which possesses dharma.
14. Beyond: anyatra, an adverb that can also mean other than, different, independent from.
Righteous, unrighteous: dharma, adharma: good and evil, merit and demerit, duty and nonduty, etc.
Done, undone: krta, akrta.
What was and what shall be: bhuta, bhavya, past and future.
iv) Inspired Self: vipashcit, a name for the atman, i.e., aware (cit) of vipas (inward vibration, internal stirring), hence, inspiration. The root vip- means to quiver, to tremble. Cf. BG II, 20, where this text is the substance of Krishna’s argument for engaging Arjuna in battle against his kin but on behalf of dharma.
v) Core: guha, the cave, the heart, the secret place, the hidden spot.
Free from desire: akratu, without will, without craving.
By grace of the Ordainer: dhatuh prasadat. If one adopts the variant dhatu-prasadat, the text would read “through tranquillity of spirit [mind, senses, faculties].”
vi) 10. Senses: indriyani.
Objects: arthah.
Mind: manas.
Intellect: buddhi.
Cf. KathU VI, 7-8 (§ VI 11), where a similar progression is given and where the concept of alinga purusha is expressed: the bodiless, signless, attributeless person.
11. Unmanifest: avyakta.
Person: purusha, which here could perhaps be better rendered as Spirit.
Highest state: para gatih, the highest path, the supreme way, the final goal.
Para is the word constantly used: beyond this or higher than this.
vii) 12. Cf. § VI 5.
14. Intricacies of the path: durgam pathas, a way difficult to go.
viii) 6. Mysterious everlasting Brahman: guhyam brahma sanatanam.
Gautama: Gautama-kumara (young Gautama), says the TB and it is generally understood that Gautama refers to the clan (gotra).
7. According to their . . . knowledge: yathashrutam, according to the tradition they received (what has been heard, learned), is the same as yathavidyam in KausU I, 2 (§ V 4): according to knowledge. Cf. for a similar idea § V 12.
8. Cf. § VI 7.
9-13. Cf. § VI 2.
ix) 14. “This is that": tad etad.
Ineffable happiness: paramam sukham.
Does it shine or does it reflect light: Many interpreters make a distinction between bhati, shining by its own light, and vibhati, reflecting the light of another. Another reading has, “does it shine or does it not,” na bhati va instead of u bhati vibhati va. Ultimately the two readings come to the same, for in both the question is whether it shines or whether it reflects (i.e., does not shine of itself).
15. Reflections: here the same verb, bhati, is used (as in v. 14) with the prefix anu -; thus anu-bhati, shines after. Cf. Udana I, 10.
x) 1. Cf. the hymn to skambha (§ I 3). Cf. also RV I, 24, 7, and BG XV, 1, where again the arbor inversa, the inverted cosmic tree, is said to be immortal.
2. Breath: prana, the universe originated from and develops owing to life.
Great fear: mahad bhayam, mysterium tremendum!
3. Cf. TU II, 8, 1, a similar stanza.
Indra and Vayu here symbolize not only storms and winds but also all the cosmic powers: Agni, Surya, Indra, Vayu, and Mrtyu. The TB substitutes the moon for Indra.
xi) 4-11. Cf. § VI 11.
12-13. Cf. § VI 9.
14. This stanza is given also in BU IV, 4, 7 (§ VI 11).
15. It seems that this was the final verse of the second enlarged version of the Upanishad.
16. Channels of the heart: hrdayasya nadyah, the arteries. Cf. CU VIII, 6, 6: PrasnU III, 6 (§ II 6).
Crown of the head: murdhan, referring to the conception of brahmarandhra the opening of the skull which the soul passes through at the time of death.
17. Cf. MaitU VI, 38.
Ever dwells in the heart of beings: sada jananam hrdaye sannivishtah.
To draw out with care the purusha from one’s body is the supreme yoga discipline (yogavidhi, v. 18) and cannot be only a mrtyuprokta vidya, a teaching imparted by death.
18. Passed over to Brahman: brahmaprapta, having attained or realized brahman.
Self within: adhyatman, relating to the Self.
6 The word samsara was first coined in Upanishadic times. It is un-known in the Vedas but occurs in the Gita. Later it was widely used in literature and in everyday language. 75 It means literally a going or wandering through, a course or passage through a succession of states or stages. 76 Then it came to be used directly to mean the passing through a succession of existences, that is, of births and deaths, or, in a word, the cycle of life.” The meaning of the word was then extended so that it came to denote the totality of transitory things, that is, this fleeting world.
The Bhagavad Gita uses samsara to denote rather the cycle of death, for it is through and by death as the gate that living beings pass through and wander from one stage to another. 78 Death, therefore, is not seen as an end, but rather as a gate. One could almost call it a sluice through which the different elements of this world go as they move from one stage to another in the cosmic evolution of all empirical “reality.”
Samsara is not the cosmos but the world in its dynamic and evolutionary aspect; it is the world’s movement, implying both change and continuity; it is the cyclical process of all the elements of this world. In terms of the present-day cosmological world view we could say that samsara stands for cosmic transformation, and thus transmission, in all its manifestations, including that of matter. Samsara is the universal circulation of the entire world traffic.
Together with the idea of karman, the notion of samsara suggests the contingency and the caducity of all things, their mutual interrelatedness, and the dynamic nature of all the elements of the empirical world. It also points to the fact that there is a transempirical reality which Man is called upon to enter once he breaks through the cycle of samsara, once he realizes (this word implies more than a merely epistemic act) the true nature of reality, that is, once he discovers his true and real atman.
Therefore it is not difficult to understand the other affirmation in the mouth of the Lord Krishna, that he, Krishna, is not only deathlessness but also death, for he is both appearance and reality. The appearance could not be such if it were not the appearance of the real, and in this world of samsara the real can be manifested only as appearance. Wisdom does not consist in denying the appearances but in recognizing them as such. This can be done, the Gita says (and here it represents a new emphasis), only if our mind and heart are totally and sincerely surrendered to the Lord.
The immediate implication is that death also belongs to samsara, that is, that death appertains to this side of the shore, that it is the very expression of contingency. If so, a change will be noticeable: death is no longer the gate through which Man reaches immortality. Death is only the condition for change within the world itself. Immortality does not depend on death: immortality is primordial, original, and not the result of a process of death and new life. All that rises again to life was certainly not immortal. Resurrection was only a figure of speech. You are risen!
Slowly the two conceptions sharpen their positions. On the one hand is the primeval Vedic notion of death as the gate to immortality, which makes possible the idea of a real resurrection to a new life. On the other hand, there is the later notion of death as an internal, this-worldly, samsaric process having nothing to do with true immortality. According to this view Man is constitutively immortal and so he does not need to die in order to live forever. The atman “is” because it already “was” Brahman. Is there any middle way between these two views? This question is the concern of Part VI. Meanwhile, we shall meditate on the mortal condition.
i) Death is certain for all that is born
and birth for all that dies.
Therefore for what is unavoidable
you should not be distressed.
BG VIII, 5-6; 10
ii) 5. And whoever at the end of his span of life,
when leaving the body,
remembers Me alone, he attains my own being;
of this there is no doubt.
6. Whatever state of being he recalls when at the end
he abandons his body,
to that state he attains, being ever assumed
into that condition.
10. If at death with steady mind, disciplined in love
and the power of yoga,
he locates his vital strength between the eyebrows,
he will reach the supreme Person.
BG IX, 19
iii) I am the producer of heat. I withhold
and send forth the rain.
I am deathlessness and also death,
being and nonbeing.
BG X, 34
iv) I am death, the devourer of all,
yet the source of things to be.
BG XII, 7
v) Those whose thoughts are set on Me
I shall deliver--
and that quite soon--from the ocean, O Arjuna,
of ever-recurring death.
BG XIV, 20
vi) Transcending the three attributes of nature
which give the body its existence,
man, freed from birth, death, old age, and pain,
attains immortality.
i) Cf. § IV 7.
ii) 5. At the end of his span of life: antakale, lit. at the end of time or the last moment.
My own being: mad-bhava my state of being, my nature.
6. State of being: bhava, nature.
Being ever assumed into that condition: tad-bhava-bhavita, lit. made to become in the state of that; i.e., he reaches that particular state of being in which he remains.
10. At death: prayana-kale, time of passing away.
Disciplined in love: bhaktya yuktah.
Power of yoga: yoga-bala, power of discipline.
Supreme Person: param purusham . . . divyam, the highest divine being.
iii) 18. Cf. § I 29.
19. Producer of heat: tapami, lit. I heat.
21. Cf. § V 28.
v) Ocean . . . of ever-recurring death: mrtyu-samsara-sagara.
vi) Attributes of nature: guna.. Cf. BG XIV, 5: goodness (satva), passion, greed (rajas), dullness, negligence (tamas).
Man: dehin, lit. the embodied one, having a body, the corporeal (man); hence, the soul as being in a body. Deha, the body, is often one of the components of the anthropological triad (deha, manas, vac). Dehin is the soul in bondage to the body, the incarnate soul. Once the Self is realized, man passes beyond that state. Hence Janaka, the great jivanmukta is called videhin, freed from the embodied state.
Cf. the Buddhist view about the sufferings of birth, death, and old age.
The Vedic attitude to dead steers a course between two extremes: on the one hand it avoids a tragic and almost obsessive attitude, while on the other it does not trivialize or ignore the place of death in human life. The group of texts presented here give ample evidence of this middle way.
Again there is a certain free association of ideas in the different themes dealt with in this subsection. Life is a great value; indeed, if properly understood, it is the highest value. It seems to be the task of death to help us realize the value of life, to enhance it, and to give earthly existence all the value it deserves. Man should not leave this earth too early, before his time. Indeed, if by accident he has already had to abandon his earthly mansion, one should even try to let him come back. The blessings for the journey are not last-minute consolations. They are blessings that are offered in order to call us back or to delay the time of departure. They are final blessings in the sense that they are directed to what is going on at the moment of dying. Let the dead depart in peace, in the hope that life has been a good thing and that it is still the highest blessing.
The first part of one of the oldest Upanishads ends with a cryptic sentence referring to the structure of reality as being threefold: name, form, and act (karman). It says that “immortality is veiled by reality,” 79 meaning that truth or the real is what veils immortality. It does not say that the world of names and forms is unreal and that only the underlying atman is real. It explicitly affirms that immortality is covered by reality, that the real is the veil of deathlessness, or in other words that truth is the outer shell of an everlasting core.
The core is not covered by an illusory veil, by an unreal fiction, but by truth itself. Truth is the very cover that conceals and at the same time reveals the immortal core hidden in all things. But what is that core without its real manifestation? Man cannot consider death as something irrelevant, as the sloughing off of a skin. The attainment of deathlessness is achieved at the price of leaving reality behind. This feeling is encountered in many texts of this subsection.
7 This is the first of the traditional funeral hymns of the Rig Veda. Like many other texts dealing with the subject of death it has certain striking features: there is no sign of grief; the whole hymn is markedly sober in tone; and it is pervaded by a spirit of subdued joy: “O King, rejoice in this oblation.” 80 Neither bereavement nor regret is visible here. On the contrary, the dead Man is going to be gloriously united with Yama and the Fathers. Death is seen here from the viewpoint of the dead man himself and not from that of those he leaves behind him. The center of life lies not in the temporal span of our earthly years but in the other world. The dead Man is going to the resting place prepared for him by Yama the forerunner of men, who has gone before us to prepare a place for us and to show us the way, who was not originally a God but a Man, who has endured, as we have, the entire burden of the human condition and who has overcome the ordeal of the great departure.
We may now concentrate our attention on an interesting point, which proves once more that the importance of a text does not lie in what it says but mainly in what one reads out of it and in the overall interpretation that each epoch has given to it. The truth lies in the interpretation. We refer to stanza 8 where the deceased is addressed as follows:
Come home again, leaving your stains;
assume a body bright with glory.
A similar idea is found in another funerary hymn:
Putting on new life, let him approach the remaining ones,
let him reunite with a body, All-Knowing One!” 81
Life in the otherworld is not discarnate; it is life with a new body, a body of glory. This idea is considered almost obvious, not only by later tradition but also by the Atharva Veda, when speaking about life beyond. Here is another example of the holistic view of the Vedic Revelation.
The title suggests the exemplary role of Yama, a role that might almost be called teleological. He goes before, he calls, he attracts. Thus he will have the right of knowing who is coming to his house, that is, of judging them. Yama establishes true fellowship between Men and Gods; in his home or realm, Men and Gods feast together and the cosmic dichotomy is overcome. But Men without their bodies would not be Men. And it is with their bodies that they share Soma with the Gods. Yama is certainly the forerunner. He is the one who has found the trail leading to immortality, the path to the Gods, the way to total humanness. If religion is considered to be the way to salvation, we can call Yama a religious founder par excellence, a truly religious man who follows to the very end the way that he himself has discovered.
[The chronicler]
1. The one who has climbed the mighty steeps,
thus blazing a trail for many to follow,
the son of Vivasvat, the gatherer of men,
Yama, the King, we worship with offerings.
2. Yama was the first to find us a way,
the pastures that no one shall steal from us.
The path that our ancient Fathers took
all mortals, once born, must tread for themselves.
3. Matali is there, united with the ancient
poets and Yama, with the priests of old
and Brhaspati, praise of the singers, both those
who extol the Gods and those the Gods extol.
Some rejoice in lip praise; others, in the oblation.
[Invocation of Yama]
4. Take your seat, O Yama, on the sacred grass,
together with the priests of old and with the Fathers.
May the prayers of the sages bring you hither!
O King, rejoice in this oblation!
5. Come, O Yama, with the holy priests of old!
Here, together with the Vairupas, rejoice!
Seated on the sacred sacrificial grass,
I summon also Vivasvat your father.
6. May the priests of old, our Fathers, the Navagvas,
the Atharvans and Bhrgus, all worthy of Soma,
regard us with kindliness--deserving, they, of worship--
and keep us ever in their grace and favor!
[The last blessings (to the dead)]
7. Proceed, proceed along the ancient pathways
whereon our Forefathers have passed before us.
There you shall see God Varuna and Yama,
the two kings, rejoicing in the offerings.
8. Meet Yama and the Fathers in the highest heaven
along with your offerings and praiseworthy deeds.
Rid of imperfection, seek again your dwelling
and assume a body, bright with glory.
[To the evil spirits]
9. Off with you, spirits! Flee, rampage elsewhere!
For him the Fathers have prepared this place.
Yama will grant him a place of relaxation,
where days and nights rotate and waters flow.
[To the deceased]
10. Speed on your happy pathway, outstripping
the two brindled dogs, each with four eyes,
sons of Indra’s messenger. Then approach the kindly
Fathers who rejoice in the fellowship of Yama.
[To Yama]
11. Put him, O King, under the protection
of your two dogs, each with four eyes, the guardians
and keepers of the way, who gaze upon men.
Bestow on him happiness and well-being.
12. May the broad-nosed dark-hued pair, the life stealers,
the messengers of Yama who run in men’s wake,
restore to us today a life of happiness,
that we may live to see the sun!
[To the priests]
13. For Yama press the Soma-juice,
To Yama offer the sacrifice.
Toward Yama it mounts, a perfect offering,
with Agni as herald going before.
14. Present to Yama an offering rich
in ghee; come forward and take your places.
May he conduct us to the Gods,
so that in their midst we may live forever!
15. The offering steeped most richly in honey
present now to the royal Yama.
We offer homage to the Seers of old,
to the pioneers who discovered the way.
1. Steeps: pravatah, the distant and steep ways leading to the limits of the earth and to the region where Yama now lives. Cf. AV XVIII, 3, 13.
3. Matali: a celestial being; or, the charioteer of Indra.
Ancient poets: kavyas, a group of manes.
Priests of old: Angirases (also in vv. 4-6), a group or house of priests in days of old.
Lip praise: svaha, the sacrificial exclamation, standing for the sacrifice itself.
Oblation: svadha, the offering to the dead.
4. Prayers: mantras, sacred hymns.
5. Vairupas: they belong to the family of the Angiras.
6. Navagvas: a priestly clan or class of rishis (as also the Atharvans and Bhrgus).
Kindliness: sumati, benevolence, favor.
Grace and favor: bhadre saumanase, in their gracious goodwill, benevolence.
7. Both Yama and Varuna are called kings, but only Varuna is said to be a God.
Offerings: svadha, the offerings to the dead.
8. Offerings and praiseworthy deeds: ishta-purta, the sacred and secular works that earn merit in the world beyond. This is the only occurrence of this term in the RV.
Seek again your dwelling: i.e., at the time of ancestor worship.
9. Where days and nights . . . : lit. distinguished by waters, days, and nights.
10. Sons of Indra’s messenger: sarameyau, i.e., the two dogs, sons of Sarama, Indra’s hound; (cf. § V 13 iv).
12. Dark-hued: udumbalau, doubtful word.
Life stealers: asutrpah, taking away the life of others.
15. Who discovered the way: pathikrt, those who prepared the path.
16. There is a last stanza, which may have been added at a later date.
8 The hymns that follow illustrate an interesting and original feature of the Vedic experience of death, namely, the refusal to consider it to be a final or irreversible fact. No wonder, then, that Vedic Man tries to rescue his fellowmen from the clutches of death or even to recover them once they have actually died.
These two hymns belong to the same group of the Gaupayana hymns. In a continuous narrative they describe the efforts made to bring back the priest Subandhu from death. He had been deprived of life by the incantations of two other priests. His three brothers, who are also priests, pray a blessing 82 followed by a ritual injunction in order to get his life back (i). They also entreat several Gods, especially the Goddess Nirrti, to preserve the life of their brother (ii). The last hymn of the group is a thanksgiving offered to king Asamati 83 in spite of the fact that it was he who had appointed the two other priests in place of the four brothers. 84
Hymn X, 58, enumerates all the possible places where a dead man may have gone. Yet the return to earth is considered the greatest blessing. One can hardly conceive of an attitude that is more secular, and yet at the same time it is sacred. We may recall what we said on the subject of premature death and on the extinguishing of one’s life as being its own fulfillment. Here Subandhu was violently snatched from the realm of the living and he is conjured back to it. 85 Interestingly enough, the last verse, without any special sense of paradox, says that among the many places to which he might have gone are the past and the future. From past and future time he may also come back to the real present.
Hymn X, 59, is an impassioned appeal for the dead man’s return, for the prolongation of his human life so that he may still be allowed to share in its blessings. Life triumphs over death. There is one particular theme we must not allow to pass unnoticed, though we have already mentioned it in the context of the sacrifice; 86 that is the theme of rejuvenation. In this hymn the desire is expressed that the risen Subandhu may have a renewed life, and the name of Cyavana is cited as an example of such renewal. 87
Since the story is already familiar, we shall simply point out some of the details in the actual process of rejuvenation. Cyavana was made young again by the act of peeling off his skin like a garment. As a result he not only became acceptable to his young wife but was also made “husband of maidens.” 88 He was made young again, 89 given another form, 90 freed from old age, 91 and renewed like a chariot so that he could run again. 92 We do not discuss here the later additions to the story. 93 It is important to note that there is no question of Cyavana remaining eternally young; he regains his lost youth by means of an appropriate bodily change. Nor does he become immortal; he is given back his youth after having lived a long and healthy life. Last, there is also no question of his being born again in a young body.
i) 1. Your spirit which has gone afar
to Yama, son of Vivasvat,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
2. Your spirit which has gone afar
to heaven and earth,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
3. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the four corners of the earth,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
4. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the four directions of space,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
5. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the waves of the ocean,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
6. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the shining light rays,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
7. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the waters and the plants,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
8. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the Sun and Dawn,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
9. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the highest mountains,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
10. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the whole world,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
11. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the farthest realms,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
12. Your spirit which has gone afar
to the past and the future,
may it return to you again
that it may live and dwell here.
RV X, 59
ii) 1. Now may his life be renewed and further extended,
as by two skilled charioteers, pursuing their course!
May he, like Cyavana, attain the goal!
May Goddess Destruction move to distant places!
2. This is a song for wealth, for food in plenty.
Let us do many noble deeds to win glory!
Now may the singer rejoice in all our doings!
May Goddess Destruction move to distant places!
3. May we surpass our foes by deeds of valor,
as heaven surpasses earth and mountains the plains.
All these our deeds the singer has acclaimed.
May Goddess Destruction move to distant places!
4. Do not deliver us over to Death, O Soma!
Still may our eyes behold the rising of the sun!
May the full life span determined by the Gods be ours!
May Goddess Destruction move to distant places!
5. O guide of the spirits, retain our heart within us.
Prolong for us the life span yet to be lived!
Allow us still to enjoy the vision of the sunlight!
Strengthen your body by means of the fat we bring you!
6. O guide of the spirits, restore to us our sight,
give us again our life breath and powers of enjoyment.
Long may our eyes behold the rising of the sun!
O gracious Goddess, grant us your favor and bless us.
7. May Earth restore to us our breath of life,
may Goddess Heaven and the aery space return it!
May Soma give us once again a body
and Pushan show us again the way of salvation!
8. May both the worlds accord to Subandhu a blessing,
they who are youthful mothers of cosmic Order.
May heaven and earth remove all evil and shame!
May you be troubled neither by sin nor by pain!
9. The healing remedies descend from heaven
in twos and threes, or singly roam the earth.
May Heaven and Earth conspire to dispatch the evil
into the ground! May sorrow no more affect you!
10. Restore, O Indra, the ox that brought to this place
he chariot bearing the wife of Ushinara.
May Heaven and Earth conspire to dispatch the evil
into the ground! May sorrow no more affect you!
i) Spirit: manas throughout.
12. The past and the future: bhuta and bhavya.
ii) 1. Just as Cyavana was once restored and rejuvenated (cf. RV I, 116, 10), so may Subandhu, the rishi of this hymn, experience the same.
Goddess Destruction: nirrti. A dark Goddess frequently associated with Yama and death.
2. Song: saman.
Singer: jarita, as also in v. 3 Subandhu himself.
4. Determined by the Gods: dyubhir hitah, fixed by the heavenly ones or else “with the passing of days.” For our translation cf. RV I, 89, 8, where we read: devahitam yad ayuh.
5. Guide of the spirits: asuniti.
6. Gracious Goddess: Anumati. Cf. § VII 32.
8. Mothers of cosmic Order: rtasya matara, i.e., heaven and earth (even heaven is sometimes conceived of as a mother).
10. The wife of Ushinara: Ushinarani. Sayana takes it to mean a healing herb; others see in her the wife of Subandhu (also called Ushinara after his country). The chariot may be understood symbolically (cf. v. 1).
9 This hymn from the Atharva Veda is a form of conjuration to ward off death. We see here a heartfelt and impassioned striving, a supreme effort to keep the dying man in the land of the living, to snatch him from destruction:
Remain here! Go not hence nor follow the Fathers!
I firmly bind your breath of life. (v. 1)
This vivid and detailed description starts by enumerating the causes that may have brought the dying man to the brink of death. Has he been bewitched? Has he laid violent hands on someone? Is he undergoing the consequences of some sin of his parents? Doubt remains, and yet at the same time the sure conviction grows that the sick man is going to be delivered from death and is going to recover his life. “Do not fear! You will not die” (v. 8).
The priest, who seems here to have also a prophetic role, now resolutely exhorts the living, first the two sages, the Watcher and the Waker, the ever watchful guardians of the breath, then Agni the Savior, Light, the one who scatters the shadows of Death. Next as a token of respect he renders homage to Yama, Death, and to the Fathers. Then, fully confident of Agni’s powers, the poet begs the vital forces “invigorated by Agni” (v. 14) to bring fresh life to the breath, the mind, the eye, the breathing (both in and out), the tongue, and the whole body. He also invokes the Sun whose rays at early dawn infuse energy into the life of the world.
The last verse praises human existence and bids the dying man live once more. In this hymn the human and the divine, the spiritual and the physical, darkness and light, death and life, confront each other in a powerful and evenly matched contest of strength. Light and Life win the day, thanks to the divine omnipotence of Agni and Surya. 94
We have here a typical expression of a fundamental trait of Vedic spirituality. Vedic Man has sometimes been described as a hedonistic- and eudemonistic-minded being, with an exclusive concern for material life. It is not necessary to point out the falsity of this assumption at this juncture. We simply want to draw attention to the healthy attitude that considers that death can be conjured away, that it is an evil whose reality no eschatological picture can deny, and that the completing of one’s days in old age is not properly death. This is not the attitude of an unbeliever, but the realistic posture of a man who, precisely because he believes in the “otherworld,” believes equally strongly in the present one, which he is not prepared to neglect or despise or abandon because of a rosy picture of the other one. For the time being--and one might say for the being in time--this world is more important and more real than the other one. This is the human perspective of which Vedic Man is not ashamed and which he does not attempt to camouflage.
1. May near things stay near to you and far things also!
Remain here! Go not hence nor follow the Fathers!
I firmly tie up your breath of life.
2. If one has bewitched you--a man of your people
or perchance a stranger--I proclaim by my voice
these two things to you: deliverance, freedom.
3. If you have done violence or, heedless, have maligned
a man or a woman--I proclaim by my voice
these two things to you: deliverance, freedom.
4. If you lie there prone owing to sin of your mother
or sin of your father--I proclaim by my voice
these two things to you: deliverance, freedom.
5. Accept the healing remedy your mother and your father
bring together with your sister and your brother.
I make you one who reaches ripe old age.
6. Live on, O man, with your spirit unimpaired.
Do not follow the messengers sent by Yama!
Remember the cities where the living dwell!
7. Come back hither in response to our calls,
you who know the path that lies ahead,
the way and the ascent of every living person!
8. Do not fear! You will not die. I shall bring you at the last
to a ripe old age. I have exorcised
from your limbs the consumption and burning fever.
9. The limb-splitting fever and the burning pain,
the disease of the heart and all consumption, have fled
far away. Iike a falcon, by the power of my word.
10. May those two Sages, the Watcher and the Waker,
he sleepless and the vigilant, guardians of your breath,
be alert for your safety by night and by day!
11. All hail to Agni whom with reverence we approach!
May the Sun continue to rise here for you!
Arouse yourself from the pit of Death,
from the shadows, however dark they may be!
12. Homage to Yama, homage to Death,
homage to the Fathers and those who conduct you!
I set forth Agni, who is able to save,
before the eyes of this man, that he languish no longer.
13. Come breath, come mind, come eye, come strength!
Let the body resume and integrate its power!
Let it stand firm and steady on its feet!
14. Reunite him to his breath, O Agni, to his sight!
set his whole body and its powers in motion!
You know the secret of deathlessness.
May he stay, not depart to a house of clay!
15. May your out-breath not falter, your in-breath remain
quite unobstructed! May the sovereign Sun
snatch you from death by the power of his rays!
16. Trembling and halting, the tongue in his mouth
utters words. From her I have exorcised
the consumption, the hundred symptoms of fever.
17. Best loved is this world of ours: to the Gods
let us leave the unconquered world. O man,
whatever be the death assigned to you from birth,
we recall you hither till old age comes!
1. May near things etc.: i.e., may your eyesight not fail at the onset of death.
Breath of life: asu.
2. Deliverance, freedom: unmocana-pramocana; unfastening and loosening, i.e., complete release.
3. Done violence: dudrohitha.
5. Healing remedy: bheshaja.
6. With your spirit unimpaired: sarvena manasa saha, with all your mind, possessing fully your mind.
Yama’s messengers, the two dogs, envoys of the God of death. Cf. RV X, 14, 11 (§ V 7).
7. The different terms for path, etc., are: ayana, patha, arohana, akramana.
8. I have exorcised: niravocam aham.
9. Consumption: yakshma.
By the power of my word: vaca.
10. Two Sages: bodha-pratibodha, names of the two pranas.
11. Death: mrtyu
12. I set forth Agni: the verb puro-dha- means also to appoint for a priestly function (to place at the head), or to place foremost, to honor.
14. Deathlessness: amrta.
To a house of clay: be one whose housing is the earth, i.e., be a dead man; cf. RV VII, 89, 1 (§ IV 19). Some scholars see here the practice of burial instead of cremation.
17. Best loved is this world of ours: ayam lokah priyatamah.
Unconquered (world): aparajita, a reference to heaven.
We recall you hither: i.e., do not die before (old age).
10 For two reasons we are justified in including in this subsection the two prayers from the eighth book of the Atharva Veda. They are undoubtedly concerned with death and on certain occasions they were the prayers said for a dying man, in spite of the fact that they are precisely prayers for life and for the blessings of human and terrestrial life: “May the sun warm you with blessing.” 95 The second reason, which is related to the first, is that the presence of death is felt throughout these hymns as it is felt throughout human life on earth. Death is not something that comes only at the last moment of life; it permeates every human act. It is the fact of death which gives uniqueness to our separate acts, making them unrepeatable and different from one another. In this sense these two hymns are also blessings for the journey, because the journey toward death begins with birth and we can meet death at any moment.
The first hymn (Atharva Veda VIII, 1) is most impressive. It has sometimes been considered a simple incantation to prolong the life of a dying person. A closer examination of the text, the fact that the hymn is used in the upanayana ceremony, the startling salutation to death with which it begins--all suggest that its main emphasis lies in recovering life for a man when he has not yet fully lived it and in bringing him to a new hope of life when he has given up hope because of sickness or for some other reason. It is in a certain sense a hymn of resurrection, about overcoming death by not allowing it to come before its proper and duly appointed time. It is a prayer for good health and a benediction to conjure away death. Dirghayus is a term used in the Vedas to express the life of a man lived until it has yielded all it had to give. 96
This hymn is a prayer to scatter away melancholy and recreate the will to live. It plainly contradicts what is said elsewhere, 97 for it emphasizes that for this particular man it is in the yonder world that there is fear, while here on earth there is confidence and no dread: “Beyond there is fear, on this side fearlessness.” 98
The hymn says plainly that it is morbid to dwell upon the ancestors, or perhaps upon the recent death of a dear one which tempts us to follow in his footsteps, abandoning those who still love us and are grasping our hands. lt is a kind of pact with Death, putting the man again under the protection of all the cosmic powers so that he may live his full ayus, his “whole lifetime,” sarvam ayus. To live the whole life span allotted to us, to exhaust all the possibilities and seize all the opportunities that life presents to us, to squeeze out the elixir of life to the last drop, before we become light--this is the Vedic ideal and an injunction of the Vedic Revelation to modern Man.
1. Homage to Death, the end of life!
Here rest your breath, both inward and outward!
May the life of this man be maintained in the realm
of the Sun, in the world of deathlessness!
2. The power of God has raised him up,
the heavenly Drink has raised him up,
the powers of the Storm, of Heaven and of Fire,
have raised him up to well-being.
3. Here be your life--its full span--your breath
and your mind! We save you from the bonds of Perdition
by means of the divine Word.
4. Rise up from this place, O man, do not fall down,
but cast off the fetters of Death which now hold you.
Do not cut yourself off from this world of men,
from the sight of the Fire and the Sun.
5. May the great Wind breathe purification upon you,
May the Waters rain immortality upon you,
may the Sun warm your body with blessing,
may Death show you mercy! Do not perish!
6. I charge you to rise, O man, not to fall.
Long life I impart to you and skill for living.
Mount safe and sound on this chariot of deathlessness.
You shall speak in old age, full of wisdom!
7. Let not your mind stray away and be lost.
Do not spurn the living and follow the Fathers!
May All-Gods protect you right here!
8. Do not give thought to the departed ones
who lead men away to a far-off land.
Arise out of darkness! Come to the light!
Come, we grasp your two hands!
9. From Yama’s two watchdogs sent forth on the path,
the black and the spotted, may you stay safe!
Come, do not waver! Do not stand there
with your mind deflected from here.
10. Do not proceed on that dread-filled path,
not yet trodden by you--I give you good warning!
To that darkness, O man, do not descend.
There is fear, here fearlessness.
11. May the sparks that dwell in the Waters protect you,
may the Fire that the sons of men kindle protect you,
may the Universal Lord, the All-Knowing, protect you,
heavenly fire and lightning not consume you!
12. Let not the funeral pyre consume you!
Elude the Destroyer! May Heaven and Earth,
the Sun and the Moon, protect you! May space
protect you from the stroke of the Gods!
13. Let the Wise and the Knower both protect you,
let the Dreamless and the Sleepless both protect you,
let the Guardian and the Wakeful both protect you!
14. Let them protect you, let them guard you!
To them be homage, to them be “all hail!”
15. May the Lord of the Wind, the Sky, the Creator,
the saving Sun, restore you to communion with the living!
Let not your breath or your strength forsake you!
It is for your sake that we call back your life!
16. Let not the friend of the snapping jaws
find you, or darkness, or the tongue of the demon!
Shall you be subject to Death? No, never!
May all the powers raise you up, may the Lord
of the sky and of Fire raise you up to well-being!
17. Heaven and Earth and the Lord of creation
have raised you up! The plants and the herbs,
with the heavenly Drink, have saved you from Death!
18. Here let this man dwell, O Gods, not yonder!
We rescue him from Death with a thousandfold charm!
19. Lo, I have now released you from Death!
May life-giving breaths breathe in concert!
Let not the wild-haired women
nor the dismal howlers howl at you!
20. I have brought you back, I have found you again.
You have come back renewed, all your members complete,
your sight unimpaired, your whole life span intact!
21. Life has breathed on you! Light has come!
Far away from you has darkness retreated.
Far from you are Death and Perdition and Decay.
1. Homage to Death, the end of life: antakaya mrtyave namah.
Life: asu.
2. Power of God: Bhaga.
Heavenly Drink: lit. the stalky Soma.
Powers of the Storm: Maruts.
Of Heaven and of Fire: Indra and Agni.
3. Life (asu ), breath (prana ), life span (ayus ), and mind (manas ) are the essentials of human life. The Upanishads reduce the first three to prana only.
Perdition: nirrti.
By means of the divine Word: daivya vaca, the saving aspect of vac.
5. Great Wind: Matarishvan.
6. Long life: jivatatu.
Skill for living: dakshatati, ability.
8. Do not give thought to . . . : ma. . . a didhithah, do not regard, etc., for the very thought of the dead leads a sick man far away.
Darkness: tamas.
Light: jyoti. Cf. the famous prayer of BU I, 3, 28 (§ V 12).
9. Mind deflected: paranmanah, the mind turned back.
10. There is fear . . . : bhayam parastad abhayam te arvak, lit. beyond is fear, on this side fearlessness.
11. The kindly and dangerous aspects of Agni are invoked.
Universal Lord: vaishvanara.
All-Knowing: jatavedas.
12. Funeral pyre: kravyad (Agni).
Destroyer: samkasuka, another destructive aspect of Agni.
13. Cf. AV V, 30, 10 (§ V 9). According to the commentator these are the names of six rishis.
15. Lord of the Wind: Vayu.
Sky: Indra.
Creator: Dhatr.
Saving Sun: savita trayamanah.
16. All the powers: The Adityas and the Vasus.
Lord of the Sky: Indra.
Fire: Agni.
17. Lord of creation: Prajapati.
Heavenly Drink: Soma, the king.
18. Thousandfold charm: lit. power.
19. May life-giving breaths . . . or, may the givers of strength melt you together.
Howl at you: probably a reference to ritual mourners. (Even today women with loosened hair mourn the dead with a ritual lamentation.)
20. Whole life span: sarvam ayus, lit. I have found your whole sight and your whole life span.
21. Decay: yakshma, a particularly deadly disease.
11Like the preceding hymn, this one is used both at the beginning and the end of life. It is often recited at the ceremony of the name giving (nama-karana), and it is also used when death threatens to come before its proper time. The danger of death threatens Man from his earliest childhood. This prayer attempts to summon the four elements of the universe from which Man is created and with their aid to protect their creature who was made by the expenditure of such prodigious energy. From the wind came his breath, from the sun his sight: O Death, do not strike this man! Let him first live a hundred years and enjoy the gift of life. Do not deceive him with metaphysical theories or high-flown doctrines; give time to time and let him first have his share of immortal life here on earth.
This hymn seems to be almost a salute to life rather than a prayer to death. For example, the opening phrase of the second stanza, “Go forth . . . into the light of the living,” is another felicitous formula of Vedic spirituality. From our point of view the interesting point to note is that this phrase does not mean to go into “eternal” or “everlasting” life, but to enter into the earthly life of the living. We are the living, we are building up the universe, we are performing the life-giving sacrifice, we are struggling in order to be, and we enjoy the supreme joy and gift of life. That is the affirmation of this prayer, and it is speaking of our human terrestrial condition.
1. Guard well, O Man, your share of immortality,
that you may reach old age without mishap.
Spirit and life I now impart to you!
Do not vanish into shadow and darkness! Do not perish!
2. Go forth, I adjure you, into the light of the living.
I draw you toward a life of a hundred autumns.
Releasing you from the bonds of death and malediction,
I stretch forth your life thread into the distant future.
3. From the Wind I have taken your breath, from the Sun your eyesight.
I strengthen your heart in you, consolidate your limbs.
I adjure you to speak with tongue free from stammering.
4. With the breath that dwells in creatures of two legs or four,
I blow upon you as one blows on a fire just kindled.
To you, O Death, to your sight and your breath, I pay homage!
5. Let him live, not die! This man we now revive.
I bring him healing. O Death, do not strike this man!
6. A life-possessing, life-bestowing plant,
powerful, salvific, potent, I here invoke,
to bring this man once more to health and strength!
7. Speak in his favor! Seize him not, but release him,
yours though he be. Let him stay here with all his strength!
Have mercy upon him, O powers of destruction, protect him!
Grant to him fullness of days, removing all evil!
8. Bless this man, O Death, have mercy upon him!
Let him rise and depart, safe and sound, with unimpaired hearing!
May he reach a hundred years and enjoy life’s blessings!
9. May the missile of the Gods be deflected from you!
I make you emerge from the realm of darkness; from Death I have saved you!
Far have I removed the Fire of the funeral pyre.
I place a protective wall for your life’s preservation.
10. We rescue him, Death, from your murky path which admits
of no return, and, protecting him from the descent,
we make a shield to guard him--this our prayer.
11. To you I now impart in-breath and out-breath,
a ripe old age, death at its close, well-being!
All the messengers of Death who prowl around--
I send them far away!
12. I drive to a distant place Malignity, Destruction,
the Demon who grabs and ghosts who feast upon corpses.
All demons and evil powers--like darkness I destroy them!
13. From Agni, the deathless One, the living and All-Knowing,
I snatch back your breath, so that you may be unharmed,
immortal in union with him. I perform this rite
on your behalf, that you may reach perfection.
14. May Heaven and Earth be gracious unto you,
may those two splendors set you free from suffering!
May the Sun warm you with blessings! May the Wind
waft its propitious breezes to your heart!
May the heavenly Streams, rich in milk, flow within you auspiciously!
15. May the herbs of the earth be to you a propitious aid!
I have raised you up from the lower realm to the higher.
There may the Sun and Moon, the Boundless Ones, guard you!
16. The cloth that is covering you, encircling your waist,
that we make soft to the touch, a caress to your body.
17. When, by means of a fine and sharpened razor,
you shave like a barber our hair and beards, let our faces
shine bright, but our length of days be uncurtailed!
18. May rice and barley bring to you good fortune!
Never may they produce in you sickness or wasting!
Let them, rather, serve to release you from anguish!
19. Whatever you eat or drink, the grain of the field
or milk, food of all kinds, edible, inedible--
all these I make for you devoid of poison.
20. We now entrust you to both, the Day and the Night.
Protect him from the clutches of the demon who
seeks to devour men.
21. We grant you a hundred, ten thousand years,
two, three, or four generations.
May Indra and Agni and all the Gods
grant you this boon without anger!
22. To Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer
we now entrust you. May the Rainy Season,
which makes the plants grow, console you!
23. Over all creatures of two feet or four
Death holds dominion, but you I rescue
from his clutches! Do not fear.
24. Do not fear, you will be safe!
You shall not die, you shall not die!
At that point men do not die
or go to the lowest
25. At that point all creatures live,
the cow, the horse, and human beings--
here where this holy word is uttered,
true protection for life!
26. May it protect you from your peers, from evil
incantations, from the wiles of your relatives!
May you be deathless, long-lived, immortal,
may your breath not abandon your body!
27. From the hundred and one kinds of death,
and the powers of destruction that must be combated,
may the Gods deliver you--by the power
of Agni, Universal Lord!
28. You are the body of Agni, ready to save;
vou are a slayer of demons and of foes.
You, expeller of sickness, the healing herb,
Putudru by name.
1. Guard well: may also be translated as trust in hold on to.
Without mishap: without break or interruption.
Spirit: asu, soul, breath, life.
Life: ayus, vital power.
2. L.ight of the living: jivatam jyotih.
Malediction: ashasti.
3. Heart: manas, mind.
5. Healing: bheshaja, remedy.
7. Powers of destruction: Bhava and Sharva, minor deities related to Rudra.
8. Enjoy life’s blessings: atamana bhujam ashnutam, let him obtain enjoyment for himself.
9. Fire of the funeral pyre: lit. agni kravyad, the corpse-consuming fire.
10. Murky path which admits of no return: niyanam rajasam . . . anavadharshyam, your dark (or misty) path which is to be shunned.
12. Malignity, Destruction: arati, nirrti.
Like darkness: tama iva, or into darkness, as it were.
13. Breath: prana.
14. Gracious: shiva, benevolent, auspicious.
15. The Boundless Ones: Adityas applied here to Sun and Moon.
17. This refers to the custom of shaving hair and beard on the death of a relative.
20. Demon: arayas.
22. A prayer against the evil influences of the climate.
23. I rescue from his clutches: lit. from the Lord Death (mrtyor gopateh). Gopati, the herdsman is a positive term suggesting his care for his flock.
24. Safe: arishta, whole, unhurt.
25. Holy word: brahman, rite.
Uttered: kriyate, performed.
26. From the wiles of your relatives: sabandhubhyah or from your friends!
27. By . . . Agni: agner vaishvanarat, or from Agni vaishvanara?
28. Putudru: either a kind of acacia, or else the deodar tree (common in the Himalayas).
12 The four Upanishadic extracts that follow are very different in nature and yet they belong together, for they illumine from three different angles the same mystery of death and immortality. All four are concerned with what in death does not die, and we find a crescendo in the four queries.
The first text, which has a more ancient and rather more philosophical counterpart in another Upanishad, 99 deals with the so-called sampradana or sampratti, that is, “transmission” or “tradition.” 100 Immortality is here conceived of as being, as it were, on a strictly horizontal plane. It is something handed over by a dying father to his son. By his own birth and by the birth of his son the father has contracted a debt with life. In this moving “transmission” ceremony he repays this debt. He does so by passing on to his son all that he has, the prayers, the sacrifice, and the portion of the world which he is. The son receives what his father gives, and thus the continuity between the generations is established and the immortality of the father secured. Herein lies the reason for one of the final injunctions, namely, that if the father does not die after all he will have to be subjected to his son, to whom he has handed over everything. If he dies, the funeral rites will terminate his mission on earth. In a real sense, in passing away in this manner there is no death.
Here again there is a blending together of the cosmic, anthropological, and sociological factors. The father is the steward of spiritual, moral, biological, and material values. All are given back and deposited in their right place. The son is entrusted with all that is still left to the father. The “tradition” is then complete and the father can leave this world. The lokya, “he who has world,” will from now on be the putra, the son, “he who protects [his father]” or “he who fills the hollows left from the father.” 101 But all the father’s gifts that the son cannot keep will return to the elements from which they came. Nothing is lost.
The second excerpt is about karman, and it has been considered to be the first authoritative document on the matter. The sage Yajnavalkya answers five questions put by Jaratkarava Artabhaga. The first one relates to the number of Man’s organs of apprehension. The second concerns our problem: it asks about the death of death, about the end of all perishable things. It takes the concrete form of asking which is the deity for whom death is food, for we know that everything is food for death. The answer is Agni, the triumphant God of the second death, the punar-mrtyu. Later tradition interprets this text as saying that the knowledge of the atman is the water that puts out the fire and overcomes death. 102 The third question asks to know something that transcends the individual; the answer is his vital breath, his prana. It survives the death of the individual, for it makes his body swell, so that in a way we can “see” the prana after its owner has died. The fourth question asks what is the immortal core of Man, that which does not leave him. “When a person dies, what is it that does not leave him?” (v. 12). The answer is not sociological, for it is not his fame or prestige, that is, his name which does not leave him. The answer is theological, for the name is Brahman. 103 The climax is obviously the fifth and last question: “What becomes of the person?” When the elements of the dead person have all gone to their proper places where they belong, is there nothing left? Is death the absolute end of everything? And they spoke, but not openly, on karman. This is the locus of karman. Is there in the individual something more than the sum of all his constituent parts? In this passage immortality transcends not only the individual but also the order of the elements and visible things; immortality is not simply retransmitted on a horizontal line from the father to the son or from the individual to the imperishable elements composing him, but it belongs to a higher sphere, to the human and cosmic solidarity not of the elements but of the actions and their fruits. The immortal here seems to be a cosmic solidarity, the whole universe, the world of actions and reactions, the spiritual world.
The third text represents a third step. It is expressed in an enigmatic form susceptible to many interpretations. Here the movement is, significantly enough, the opposite to that of the preceding texts. The discourse is not about giving up, distributing, passing on, and transmitting, but about saving “the tip of the heart,” “taking into himself the sparks of light” and concentrating them in the heart. The whole text is more than just a biological description of the last moments. It describes a process of unification and not of dispersion.
The phrase eki-bhavati is the recurrent theme of the text. If we follow the whole course of the passage we can well understand this phrase in its literal meaning of “becoming one,” without having to force the translation. 104 Man, at the hour of his death, certainly becomes one; that is, he simplifies his life, he discards what is merely accidental, and in particular he concentrates and condenses his whole being so that what he leaves behind or passes on to others is the very core of his being, the kernel of his person, the atman, which will not fade away. The text puts the expression in the mouth of the people, as if popular wisdom could here grasp the truth on two planes. On the plane of appearances the dying man gathers together his faculties and becomes more and more united, while on the plane of underlying reality he is ontologically becoming one, he is reaching the unity that gathers together all that he still has: his intelligence, his experience, his wisdom. Thus death is here the supreme act. Until that moment one is dispersed, not yet unified. Now, people say, “he is becoming one.” The pilgrimage toward unity, toward oneness, is the mortal path of Man.
The fourth text has been unceasingly repeated and chanted until our own time; it is in truth a liturgical prayer, a fact that should not be overlooked. It homologizes asat (nonbeing, nothingness, unreality) and tamas (darkness, blindness, gloom) with death and prays to be guided to immortality, which is also understood as the real, being, existence, and as light, vision, insight. Therefore deathlessness is not the mere absence of death; it is reality and light. It is not the mere continuation of a life in which the authentic and the unauthentic, brightness and obscurity, are mixed; it is living in pure being and spotless light. We are dealing here with a prayer of purification, a prayer to purify our earthly existence from any shadow of unreality and darkness. We know from empirical evidence that unless we become light itself there will always be shadows, and that unless we live in the realm of total truthfulness and authenticity there will always be errors and lies in our lives. This cannot be avoided unless we become the very source of light and of being itself. The prayer seeks to set in motion the dynamic movement toward that identification. It is thus a prayer for the living: it asks a blessing for our journey through the world, and it asks for the gift of immortality, by which it means far more than a mere “afterlife. “
i) Next comes the Father-and-son ceremony or the Transmission, as it is called.
A father, when he is about to die, summons his son. He first spreads new grass on the floor of the house and lays the fire; then, after placing near the fire a jar of water together with a dish of rice, he lies down, covers himself with a fresh garment, and remains thus. The son comes and extends himself on his father, touching his hands, feet, and so on with his own corresponding organs, or the father may perform the act of transmission while the son sits before him. Then he bestows his powers upon the son, [saying]:
The father: Let me impart my word to you.
The son: Your word within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my life breath to you.
The son: Your life breath within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my eyesight to you.
The son: Your eyesight within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my hearing to you.
The son: Your hearing within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my tastes to you.
The son: Your tastes within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my works to you.
The son: Your works within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my pleasure and pain to you.
The son: Your pleasure and pain within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my joy and delight and my power of begetting to you.
The son: Your joy and delight and your power of begetting within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my movement to you.
The son: Your movement within me I receive.
The father: Let me impart my mind to you.
The son: Your mind within me I receive
The father: Let me impart my wisdom to you.
The son: Your wisdom within me I receive.
If, however, he is unable to speak much the father may use this comprehensive statement: “Let me impart my life breath to you,” and the son may reply: “Your life breath within me I receive.” Then, turning to the right, the son goes out toward the East. The father calls after him: “May honor, spiritual brilliance, and fame be well pleased in you!” Then the son looks over his left shoulder, covering his face with his hand or with the edge of his garment, and says: “May you attain the heavenly worlds and all your desires!”
If the father becomes well he should nevertheless remain under the authority of his son or wander about as an ascetic. If, however, he dies, let it be accomplished [with funeral rites], as is right and proper, as it should be accomplished.
BU III, 2, 10-13
ii) 10. “Yajnavalkya,” he [Jaratkarava Artabhaga] said, “all this [universe] is food for death. Now, which is the divinity of which death is the food?” “Fire, most certainly, is death and fire is the food of water. Thus he who knows this wins over repeated death.”
11. “Yajnavalkya,” he said, “when this [holy] person dies, do his life breaths arise out of him or not?” “No,” said Yajnavalkya, “they are all collected in him. He gets swollen, he is inflated, and, thus inflated, he lies dead.”
12. “Yajnavalkya,” he said, “when this person dies, what does not depart from him?” “Name,” he replied, “for name is eternal, all the Gods are eternal, and he wins an eternal world.”
13. “Yajnavalkya,” he said, “when the voice of this dead person enters into fire, his life breath into wind, his eye into the sun, his mind into the moon, his ear into the regions, his body into the earth, his self (atman) into space, when his blood and his semen are placed in the waters, what, then, happens to this person?” “Take my hand, Artabhaga, my friend. We two alone shall know about this. It is not for us to disclose it in public.” Away they went together and together they spoke with each other. What they were discussing was karman and what they were praising was karman. By good action, indeed, one becomes good and by sinful action sinful. Then Jaratkarava Artabhaga kept silent.
BU IV, 4, 1-2
iii) 1. When this atman becomes weak and unconscious, then all the lifepowers collect around him. Then he gathers to himself all the particles of light and descends into the heart. When the person in the eye withdraws from him, he no longer recognizes forms.
2. “He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not see.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not smell.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not taste.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not speak.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not hear.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not think.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not feel.”
“He is becoming one,” they say, “he does not understand.”
The tip of his heart gets illumined and, being illumined, the atman departs through the eye or the head or some other part of the body. As he departs, the breath of life departs after him; and when the breath of life departs, all other breaths follow. He then is reunited with consciousness and departs together with consciousness. His knowledge and his works and his past experience [alone] accompany him.
BU I, 3, 28
iv) And now comes the ceremony of the purificatory rites.
The singing priest sings the chant. While he is singing, let [the sacrificer] recite in subdued tones:
From unreality lead me to reality;
from darkness lead me to light;
from death lead me to immortality.
When he says: “from unreality lead me to reality,” the “unreality” means death, of course, and “reality” means immortality; that is, “from death lead me to immortality; make me immortal.” This is what he means.
“From darkness lead me to light”--darkness means death, of course, and light immortality; that is, “from death lead me to immortality; make me immortal.” This is what he means.
“From death lead me to immortality”--there is nothing obscure in this.
i) Word: vac, which may also mean speech here or, more simply, voice.
Life breath: prana.
Works: karman, deeds.
Honor: yashas, glory.
Spiritual brilliance: brahmavarcas, divine splendor, sacred luster.
Fame: kirti.
Let it be accomplished: samapayitavya, referring to the funeral rites that conclude the existence of the individual as such.
ii) 10. Thus . . . he wins . . . : according to the Upanishadic conception, “he who knows this.” In this reply everything depends upon what the questioner understands by “water” obviously not the physical element but water symbolizing a means for overcoming death.
11. The reply seems to refer to a holy man, because when the death of an ordinary person occurs it is said that the pranas depart from the body (cf. v. 13).
12. The name (naman) is eternal (ananta). Cf. CU VII, 1, 5, (§ VI 3).
13. All the human organs enter the elements, including the atman which goes into the akasha. Of the person only his karman remains.
Together they spoke . . . : mantrayam cakrate.
Good: punya, virtuous, meritorious.
Sinful: papa.
Kept silent: upararama, he was contented, he held his peace.
iii) 1. Unconcious: sammoha, confusion, etc. Lit. “goes to weakness and unconsciousness.”
Life-powers: pranah.
Particles of light. tejomatrah, the life-sparks.
Person in the eye: cakshushah purushah, the individual principle that sees and is seen. When it is about to disappear, individual identity dissolves.
2. Becoming one: ekibhavati, he goes back to primordial unity.
Tip of his heart: hrdayasyagre, the fine point of the heart; it can also mean “center,” orifice.
Consciousness: vijnana, intelligence.
Knowledge: vidya.
Works: karmani.
Past experience: purva-prajna, knowledge of the past, remembrance, memory (of previous lives?). The fate of the departed will be decided by the balance of these three factors
3-7. Cf. § VI 11.
8. Cf. § V 27.
iv) Purificatory rites: pavamana.
The singing priest sings the chant: prastota sama prastauti.
From unreality . . . :
asato ma sad gamaya,
tamaso ma jyotir gamaya,
mrtyor mamrtam gamaya.
At the dawn of his life a man was blessed and welcomed as an infant by his parents and relatives, and by the Waters, Fire, Savitri, Earth, and Sarasvati. He was not yet conscious of the human, cosmic, and divine realities, but Men, the cosmos, and the Gods received him. He lacked nothing. The Gods, the Sages, the Fathers, and sacrifice were all invoked to ensure him a long life; even the wisdom of the Vedas was “instilled” into him. 105 Later, having become a youth, he was initiated according to the rites by his guru 106 and united to a bride 107 with whom he settled in his home where he himself offered the daily sacrifice and prayed to the Gods. He enjoyed a long span of life.
Gradually he grows old, until one day he no longer possesses human vitality and strength; the flame of his earthly life is consumed and he is no more conscious of his surroundings or of what is going on around him. Now once again, as at the time of his birth, his relatives, the cosmos, and the Gods are going to bless him and take care of him. In his infancy it was his father who had presented him to the Gods, but now it is his own son who is going to perform the funeral and the subsequent rites. Each of those rites aims at purifying him from his earthly stains so that he may reach the Fathers” realm. In the last rites (antyeshti), 108 as in the first rites (jatakarman), the relatives, the cosmos, and the Gods attend him: the Waters, Fire, Savitri, Earth and Sarasvati are present once more.
Opinions differ as to the way in which Vedic Man disposed of his dead. It is generally accepted that cremation was the normal way, though burial was also practiced. 109 The cremation rites are a continuation of the daily sacrifice. The dead person who can no longer offer the sacrifice is himself offered in sacrifice so that all his impurities may be burned away before he reaches the heavenly world. 110 This explains why the innocent child who had not reached the age of two was not cremated, but buried. 111 It is probably for the same reason that ascetics were buried, a custom that still prevails today. By embracing the wandering life of an ascetic, the holy man has renounced everything, including the offering of the daily sacrifice, because he has interiorized this offering and as it were exhausted the sacred Fire. Hence cremation would be superfluous: all his impurities have already been burned away.
There is a precise and detailed description of the funeral rites in the Shrauta Sutras and some of the Grhya Sutras. These two sutras differ in several details of the ceremony; nevertheless in each of them the rites are derived from some hymns of the Rig Veda 112 whose inspiration they follow, incorporating some of the verses at important moments of the ceremony. Though in the course of time several alterations to the original texts of the Grhya Sutras have occurred, even today the bulk of the funeral rites still have their source in those sutras.
In order to present a vivid description of the ceremony, we give a paraphrase of each of the rites as it is set out in the Ashvalayana Grhya Sutra. Hymn RV X, 17, which follows, though not incorporated in the Grhya Sutras, is sometimes considered to be a funeral hymn. Next come the hymns of the Rig Veda on which the Grhya Sutra texts are based.
The funeral rites for all twice-born 113 persons are the same except for the number of fires used. The cremation of an ahitagni 114 is performed with the three sacrificial fires; someone who has kept only the smarta 115 or aupasana 116 fire is cremated with that fire alone; and someone who has not kept any fire is burned with ordinary fire. 117 The description of the funeral rites according to the Ashvalayana Sutra that follows is for an ahitagni.
Let us now look at the text of the three hymns, and in particular at those aspects not contained in the Grhya Sutras.
In Rig Veda X, 17, Pushan, who knows the roads and the highways, 118 who is the protector of travelers and of the comings and goings of cattle, escorts and protects the dead man on his way to his new abode. With Pushan the deceased is in perfect safety, for he has a perfect knowledge of the roads between heaven and earth. The departed is never uncared for, never left alone in the unknown; while Pushan protects him, Savitri conducts him and Agni ushers him into the company of the Gods (vv. 3-6). The following verses deal with the living who are engaged in the offering of the sacrifice. These verses are addressed to Sarasvati who comes in a chariot with the Fathers and sits on the sacrificial grass. Although these verses seem somewhat unrelated to the preceding ones, they are to be found in the cremation rites of the Kaushika Sutra. 119 It is possible that waters from the rivers were used in earlier versions of the funeral rite, and that these waters were identified with Sarasvati, the holy river. Sarasvati is asked to protect the worshipers against sickness, and the Waters, who are addressed as Mothers, are asked to wash away every kind of stain. 120
Hymn X, 18, is often described as a funeral hymn. It may not have originally been intended for use at a funeral ceremony, but later sutras made use of some of its verses, though a different order of events is often followed in the ceremony itself. The hymn is addressed in turn to death, to the dead man, and to his survivors, with whom in fact it is primarily concerned. The hymn’s train of thought does not correspond exactly to the order of the rite.
The first stanza, though addressed to death and urging it to depart, is really concerned with the living. The next four stanzas are addressed to the relatives of the deceased when they return to their home after the funeral. In these verses the glory of life is extolled in contrast with the void caused by death. The “barrier” or “mound” in stanza 4 probably refers to a stone that was symbolically placed as a boundary mark between the dead and the living. This use of a boundary testifies, once again, to the desire to keep death at a distance and to the human craving for a long and prosperous life. Stanza 5, which is also addressed to the relatives, probably alludes to the place assigned to them in the funeral procession, in which the elders come first and the younger follow. The order of precedence corresponds to that which prevails in the cosmos and which is itself determined by the divine Ordainer. Stanzas 7 and 8 allude to the widow, but in a more elaborate way than in the Ashvalayana Grhya Sutra. Here the beauty, grace, and vitality of the young womenfolk of the household are stressed. Next we are told of the burial of the ashes as in the Ashvalayana Grhya Sutra, in which verses 10 and 13 are repeated. If one takes verse 11 out of its context without referring to the rest of the rite, one might conclude, as certain commentators have done, that the corpse is buried, since interment was practiced in Vedic times. The post or “pillar” mentioned in stanza 13 was probably a kind of pedestal or support for the urn to rest upon. In the last verse the poet seems to pray for himself: he wants to sever all ties and connections with the dead man and with death, just as a feather is loosed from an arrow. The hymn as a whole shows a strong will for life and deep solicitude toward the dead man.
If we were to follow the traditional funeral rites, hymn X, 16, should be interpolated between X, 18, stanzas 9 and 10, as it deals with the funeral fire. It is a hymn addressed to Agni, who is besought not to consume the dead man entirely, not to destroy his spirit, but to introduce him to the Fathers. Stanza 3 mentions the different elements of his body which will continue to exist in other realms of the world. In stanza 4 Agni is fervently asked to preserve the corpse and to burn the goat instead; 121 it is the goat that, after passing through thick darkness, announces to the Fathers the deceased’s arrival. 122 Stanza 5 alludes to the new and heavenly life where the deceased will have a new and perfect body. Agni and Soma are asked (stanza 6) to heal any wounds or bites inflicted on the dead man’s body by crows, ants, snakes, or wild beasts. In a very realistic way (stanza 7) the deceased is asked to protect himself with the fat of the cow (or goat) so that the Fire may not devour him. In stanza 9 a clear distinction is made between Agni the “body-consuming,” 123 who removes all stains from the departed, and Agni the “All-Knowing,” 124 who brings the offerings to the Gods.
Agni was invoked at the ceremony after the birth of the child, was with him again as a young man (especially at his initiation), witnessed the blessing of his marriage, and was always both host and friend in the man’s home. Now, faithful to this friendship, Agni accompanies the deceased to his last abode where he, Varuna, and the other Gods will remain with him forever, enjoying both happiness and one another’s company. The following stanza admirably summarizes the unique role of Agni among the living and the dead.
Prolong, O Agni, life’s span for the living.
May the dead proceed to the world of the Fathers!
True guardian of the home, consume all evil.
For this man may each sunrise be fairer than the last! 125
13
If the sick man has not been restored to life and dies, a suitable plot of ground facing the South or the Southwest should be selected by the relatives and well dug. 126 It should be covered with grass and the thorns pulled out; moreover, it should not be a damp spot. When the dead body has been shaved, bathed, and properly dressed, large quantities of sacrificial grass and clarified butter are prepared. The butter mingled with curd becomes the “sprinkled butter,” which is also used for the offering to the Fathers. 127
Then from the home of the deceased the funeral procession starts. The relatives carry the sacred fire and the sacrificial vessels of the dead man. As many people as possible follow, men and women in two different groups; the body is carried by those walking at the back or, according to some, is drawn by two oxen. A cow or a she-goat is taken to be sacrificed. 128 Among the relatives the elders come first, then the young men; they all wear the sacrificial cord around their waists and unloose their hair.
When the relatives and friends have reached the spot, the one who is to perform the rite 129 walks three times around the place and with a branch of shami 130 sprinkles water on the body to chase away the evil spirits. 131 Then he places the ahavaniya fire in the Southeast, the garhapatya fire in the Northwest, and the dakshina fire in the Southwest. When the funeral pyre has been prepared some sacrificial grass and a black antelope skin are spread out on it to receive the dead body. The wife of the deceased then lies on the north side of the body. Her brother-in-law or a student of her late husband or an elderly servant beseeches her to rise: “Arise, O wife, to the world of the living!” 132 If the deceased is a Kshatriya, instead of his wife his bow is placed by his side and then quickly taken away and broken into pieces. 133
Next, according to a strict order, the sacrificial utensils [for the agnihotra] which have belonged to the deceased are in turn touched against his different limbs. Those utensils that have a hollow are filled up with the melted butter previously prepared. The son of the dead person keeps for himself the millstones and the utensils made of copper, iron, and terra-cotta.
The goat or the cow is offered in sacrifice, its viscera extracted and put on the head and the mouth of the deceased, while a prayer is said asking that he should be protected against Agni the corpse-eater. 134
The two kidneys [right and left] of the animal are put into the right and left hands of the deceased, who is warned to avoid the two dogs of Sarama the keepers of the road going to hell; instead, he is told to follow the right path leading to Yama’s kingdom where the Fathers rejoice. 135 The heart of the animal is put on the heart of the dead man. The different limbs of the victim are placed on the corresponding limbs of the corpse and then are covered with the animal’s skin.
While the sacrificial waters [pranita] are brought Agni is asked not to upset the cup from which the Gods drink. 136 The officiating priest pours four oblations into the dakshina fire, saying:
To Agni svaha!
To Kama svaha!
To the World svaha!
To Anumati svaha! 137
He then makes a last oblation on the chest of the deceased, saying:
In truth you have been born from this one.
May he now be born out of you, N. N.!
To the world of Heaven, svaha! 138
Now the performer of the rites gives the order to kindle the three fires. 139 It is said that, according to which fire reaches the body first, the dead person will first reach either heaven, the space world, or the world of the Fathers. If the three fires reach the body at the same moment it is an extremely auspicious sign and it means that the deceased will enjoy great happiness.
Then the body is consumed by the flames, while the deceased is told to follow the path of the elders which will take him to the kings Yama and Varuna. 140 It is believed that the smoke conveys the dead man to heaven.
When the cremation is finished the relatives, who are now ready to return home, are addressed in an exhortation that glorifies life and wishes them a long span of days. . . . 141 They turn around from right to left and leave the cremation ground without looking back. When they reach a bathing place they bathe in it once and take some water into their hands, pronouncing the clan [gotra] and name of the dead man; 142 they put on fresh clothes and remain at the bathing place until the stars appear in the sky. Then they return home in a procession in which the younger lead and the older follow. When they reach the house they touch a stone, the fire, cow dung, fried barley, sesame seeds, and water. On that night no food should be cooked; the meal has to be bought, or else it can be prepared before the rite takes place.
For three days the relatives must take no salt. If the deceased was a father, a mother, or a teacher, they may neither give alms nor study the Vedas. 143
On the eleventh, thirteenth, or fifteenth day of the dark fortnight 144 after the cremation, the relatives return to the cremation ground. The one who performs the rites walks around the ground [which should be dry] and with a shami branch sprinkles it with water, asking the plant “full of coolness” to fill Agni with gladness. 145
When the bones have been purified and gathered and placed in an urn, a hole is dug in the earth and the urn is placed in it. Mother Earth is earnestly beseeched to keep the deceased safe from the womb of Nothingness. 146 While a last prayer is addressed to the Fathers and Yama, 147 a lid is placed on the urn and the hole is filled up with earth. Then the relatives leave the place without looking back and take a bath. After some time they perform the shraddha 145 ceremony for the dead man.
14
1. Tvashtr prepares his daughter for her marriage.
On hearing the tidings the whole world assembles.
The mother of Yama, wife of great Vivasvat,
vanished while being conveyed to her dwelling.
2. From mortal man this immortal woman
was hidden by the Gods. Fashioning another
in her likeness, they gave this second to Vivasvat.
She, Saranyu, bore the two Ashvins
and then abandoned both sets of twins.
3. May the all-knowing Pushan, guardian of the earth,
whose cattle do not perish, dispatch you hence!
May Pushan consign you to the Fathers” keeping,
may Agni escort you to the Gods who know you!
4. Life universal shall guard and surround you.
May Pushan protect and precede you on the way!
May Savitri the God to that place lead you
where go and dwell the doers of good deeds!
5. May Pushan who knows all these regions conduct us
by ways that are freest from fear and danger,
preceding us, the shining one, giver of blessings,
wise and unerring, escort of all heroes!
6. On distant pathways Pushan is born,
on a road that stretches far from earth and from heaven.
He passes on his way, with perfect knowledge,
to both the realms that men hold most dear.
7. During the sacrifice the worshipers call
on Sarasvati. Sarasvati they worship.
May Sarasvati grant bliss to the giver--
Sarasvati, revered by pious works!
8. O Goddess Sarasvati, accompanier of the Fathers,
who joins them in rejoicing at our offerings, be seated
with joy on this sacred grass. Give food
that strengthens and ward off all sorts of sickness.
9. O Sarasvati, the one whom the Fathers invoke,
they who, coming from the right, approach the sacrifice,
grant to those who now sacrifice all good things,
a portion worth as much as a thousand of the offering!
10. These Mother Waters, which cleanse the holy oil,
with this selfsame oil shall cleanse all our stains.
Their divinity washes off all defilement.
I rise up from them purified and brightened.
This hymn is directed to many deities and has no internal unity. Many of the stanzas are to be found in AV XVIII, 1, a hymn for funeral use. We omit the last four verses which deal with the drops of Soma which may have fallen to the ground during the sacrifice (vv. 11-13) and with the singers aspirations (v. 14)
1-2. These verses give in condensed form the story of Yama’s parents, Saranyu and Vivasvat. According to this account, the Gods abduct Vivasvat’s wife (or she escapes with their help) and put another in her place. Saranyu is the mother of both sets of twins, the Ashvins and Yama and Yami (cf. RV X, 10; § V 1); according to another interpretation the “real” Saranyu, who is immortal and the daughter of the Ordainer, Tvashtr, is the mother of Yama and Yami, whereas her “duplicate” is the mother of the Ashvins.
3. Pushan is invoked as anashtapashu, one whose herd does not perish, and as bhuvanasya gopa, lit. shepherd of the earth.
Hence from this world to the next.
Gods who know you: lit. the Gods who are easily accessible or easy to find or into whose presence it is easy to enter.
4. Life universal: ayu, life personified in a divine being, giver of life. Ayur vishvayuh refers to Pushan.
7-9. These verses are very similar to AV XVIII, 1, 41-43, and are used in the KausS LXXXI, 39, for the cremation. Cf. RV VI, 61, and VII, 95, addressed to Sarasvati.
9. All good things: rayasposha, increase of riches.
15
1. Pursue, O Death, the distant path,
the path that is yours, not trodden by the Gods.
I charge you, who can both see and hear:
do not harm our children or our comrades.
2. When, effacing the traces of Death,
you return to prolong your span of days,
may you, enhanced with offspring and riches,
live lives pure and bright, bringing honor to the Gods!
3. Separated from the dead are these, the living.
Our appeal to the Gods has been vouchsafed.
We now repair to dancing and laughter,
returning to prolong our span of days.
4. I fix a barrier around the living,
so that none of them this boundary may pass.
May they live a span of a hundred years,
penning in Death beneath this mound!
5. As days follow days in orderly succession,
as seasons faithfully succeed one another,
so shape the lives of these, O Supporter,
that the younger may not forsake his elder.
6. Attain your prime; then welcome old age,
striving by turns in the contest of life.
May the Ordainer, maker of good things,
be pleased to grant you length of days!
7. The women with husbands still living and strong
advance, anointed with fragrant balm,
tearless and free from sorrow. They mount first,
adorned with their jewels, to the resting place.
8. Arise, O lady! To the world of the living
return! He is dead by whose side you are lying.
Your marriage is over to this your husband
who held your hand and ardently wooed you.
9. I take from the hand of the dead this bow.
It will bring us valor and prestige and power.
You depart, we remain and are eager, as heroes,
to frustrate all the snares and assaults of our foes.
10. Subside into the lap of Earth, your mother,
this Earth wide-spreading, this kind and gracious maiden
who is soft as wool to the generous giver!
From the womb of Nothingness may she preserve you!
11. Make a vault, O Earth; do not press down upon him!
Grant him easy access. Afford him shelter.
Cover him up with the skirt of your robe,
just as a mother envelops a child.
12. May Earth, arched over him like a vault,
lie lightly, propped by a thousand pillars.
May this be a home for him dripping with fatness,
a place of refuge to him forever.
13. I prop up around you the earth in a mound.
May I ever myself be free from harm!
May the Fathers support firmly this pillar!
May Yama grant this to be your dwelling!
14. In days to come they will affix me
like a feather on an arrow. I, however,
restrain my speech, as the rein does a horse.
1-7. These stanzas are said after the cremation, corresponding to the shantikarman (the rite of appeasement).
1. The distant path; or “the other path.” Death is sent away, far from the living.
2. The survivors are addressed. The traces of the funeral procession are effaced with a branch.
Bringing honor to the Gods: yajniya, eager in worship, devoted to sacrifice, hence pious, holy.
3. Vouchsafed: bhadra, lit. auspicious.
5. Supporter: Dhatr, establisher, creator, ordainer.
Younger: apara, lit. Iater one.
Elder: purva, lit. earlier, previous one.
6. The Ordainer, maker of good things: tvashta sujanima, lit. the Fashioner, giving good origin ( good birth).
Be pleased: sajoshas, agree, be in unity, be like-minded with you.
7. Women with husbands . . . avidhavah lit. the unwidowed.
Resting place: yoni, usually interpreted as referring to the funeral couch, but it may refer also to the marriage couch. The stress is on the return to normal life.
9. Bow: distinctive sign of the Kshatriya, whose power is now transferred to the living.
10. To the generous giver: dakshinavate, the one who offers the priestly honorarium, the one of generous gifts.
Nothingness: nirrti, destruction, perdition (personified as a Goddess).
12. Refuge: sharana.
14. Obscure verse susceptible of various interpretations. It is the prayer of the poet who wants to avoid the evil consequences of his contact with death.
16
1. Do not burn him or utterly consume him,
O Agni. Do not scatter his limbs and his skin!
Perfect him, O you who survey men’s deeds,
and send him on to the abode of the Fathers.
2. When you have prepared him, O All-Knowing One,
then deliver him up to the Fathers.
When he arrives in the realm of the spirits
he will become a controller of the Gods.
3. The Sun receive your eye, the Wind your spirit!
Go, as is your merit, to earth or heaven,
or, if that be your lot, to the waters,
with your body diffused in the plants of the field.
4. Your share is the goat--burn him with your heat!
May your blazing light and flame consume him!
By these your auspicious forms, All-Knowing One,
convey this man to the world of the saints.
5. Release him again, O Agni, to the Fathers.
The one offered to you now proceeds to his destiny.
Putting on new life, let him approach the surviving,
let him reunite with a body, All-Knowing One!
6. Whatever wound the black bird has inflicted
upon you, or the ant, the snake, or the jackal,
may Agni, the all-consuming, make it whole,
and Soma, who has entered within the priests.
7. Shield yourself from Agni with the parts of the cow
and smear your body with fat and oil,
so that the daring Agni, eager to devour you,
may not embrace you with his fiery blaze.
8. O Agni, do not overturn this chalice,
dear to the Gods and to those deserving Soma.
From this chalice the Gods quench their thirst;
in it the immortals find delight.
9. The body-consuming Fire I send far away!
Removing all dross, let him go to Yama’s realm!
But may the other, the All-Knowing, the skillful,
convey this offering direct to the Gods!
2. All-Knowing One: jatavedas throughout.
Realm of the spirits: asuniti, the life of the deceased in the world of spirits. Cf. asu in AV VIII, 2, 1 (§ V 11).
Controller of the Gods: devanam vashanih. Here deva refers to the powers given to man which he must seek to master.
4. Your share is the goat: Agni’s share is the sacrificial goat.
Heat: tapas, ardor.
Auspicious forms: shivas tanvah, gracious bodies.
Saints: sukrtah, those who have done good deeds, the pious, etc.
5. Destiny. svadha, own nature, own will, determination, etc. Later it means the sacrificial drink.
The surviving: shesha, referring either to the bones left after the cremation or to the survivors of the deceased.
6. Black bird: crow.
8. Chalice: camasa, the cup from which the Gods drink (made of wood).
Those deserving Soma: somyanam. Cf. note on somya in § III 17 Introduction.
Immortals find delight: deva amrta madayante, the Gods are inebriated, rejoice, etc.
9. Body-consuming Fire: kravyadam agnim, the flesh-eating Agni; Agni in his terrible aspect at the funeral pyre.
All-Knowing: jatavedas is the less fearful aspect of Agni.
The skillful: lit. knowing well.
10-14. The four following stanzas repeat the main thrust of the hymn.