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Art. XI.—Yama and the Doctrine of a Future Life, according to the Rig-, Yajur-, and Atharva- Vedas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
It is only in the ninth and tenth books of the Rig Veda that there is any very distinct and prominent reference made to a future life. It is true that the Ṛbhus, on account of their artistic skill, are said to have been promised, and to have attained, immortality and divine honours (i. 161, 2; iv. 35, 3, 7, 8); but this is a special case of deification, and does not prove that ordinary mortals were considered to survive after the termination of their earthly existence. There are, however, a few other passages which may be understood as intimating a belief in a future state of blessedness. Thus (i. 91, 1) it is said, that “by the guidance of Soma the sage ancestors of the worshippers had obtained treasures among the gods;” and again, in v. 18, “Soma, becoming abundant to (produce) immortality, place for us excellent food in the sky.”
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page 287 note 1 The same word which is employed here, pûthas, occurs also in iii. 55, 10: “Vishṇu, a protector, guards the highest abode, occupying the beloved, imperishable regions.”
page 288 note 1 Since this paper was written I have received Professor Max Müller's second series of lectures on the Science of Language. The learned and ingenious author there discusses at length the meaning of the myths regarding Vivasvat, Saraṇyû, and their offspring (pp. 481 ff., and 508 ff.). He understands Vivasvat to represent the sky, Saraṇyû the dawn, Yama originally the day, and Yamî, his twin sister, the night (p. 509). I shall briefly refer, as I proceed, to some of his further explanations, leaving the reader to consult the work itself for fuller information.
page 288 note 2 See ProfessorRoth's, remarks on Yama in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, iv. 426,Google Scholar and in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, iii. 335 f.Google Scholar “They are,” he says, “as their names denote, twin brother and sister, and are the first human pair, the originators of the race. As the Hebrew conception closely connected the parents of mankind by making the woman formed from a portion of the body of the man, so by the Indian tradition they are placed in the relationship of twins. This thought is laid by the hymn in question in the mouth of Yamî herself, when she is made to say: ‘Even in the womb the Creator made us for man and wife.’” Müller, on the other hand, says, (Lect., 2nd ser., p. 410): “There is a curious dialogue between her (Yamî) and her brother, where she (the night) implored her brother (the day) to make her his wife, and where he declines her offer, ‘because,’ as he says, ‘they have called it a sin that a brother should marry his sister.’” Again, p. 421, “There is not a single word in the Veda pointing to Yama and Yamî as the first couple of mortals, as the Indian Adam and Eve. …. If Yama had been the first created of men, surely the Vedic poets, in speaking of him, could not have passed this over in silence.” See, however, the passage from the A. V. xviii. 3,13,Google Scholar to be quoted further on.
page 289 note 1 This hymn is repeated in the A. V. xviii. 1, 1 ff.Google Scholar I am indebted to Professor Aufrecht for some improvements in my translation.
page 289 note 2 This verse occurs with variations in the Sâma Veda, i. 340.Google Scholar The sense of it is very obscure. If the sage (vedhas) mean Yama, his father may be Vivasvat, or the Gandharva, and the grandson of the latter may be the son whom Yamî was desirous to bear to her twin brother (Yama). Compare the first half of verse 3.
page 289 note 3 Compare Müller's, Lectures, second series, p. 483.Google Scholar He takes Gandharva for Vivasvat, and his aqueous wife (Apyâ Yoshâ) for Saraṇyû, in accordance with Sâyaṇa.
page 289 note 4 In like manner Tvashṭṛ is said, A. V. vi. 78, 3,Google Scholar to have formed a husband and wife for each other.
page 290 note 1 The Atharva Veda (xviii. 1, 13, 14)Google Scholar expands this verse into two: “I am not in this thy helper, O Yamî; I will not unite my body with thine. Seek thy gratification with some other than me. Fair one, thy brother desires not this. I will not unite my body with thine. They call him a sinner who sexually approaches his sister. This is abhorrent to my soul and heart, that I, a brother, should lie on my sister's bed.”
page 290 note 2 This verse is quoted and explained in Nirukta vi. 28.Google Scholar
page 290 note 3 It appears from ProfessorAufrecht's, Catalogue of the Bodleian Sanskrit MSS., p. 82,Google Scholar that the Narasinha Purîṇa, i. 13,Google Scholar contains a dialogue between Yama and Yamî; but I am informed by Dr. Hall, who has looked at the passage, that the conversation does not appear to be on the same subject as that in the hymn before us.
page 291 note 1 This is the rendering of the words pravato mahîr anu adopted by Roth in his Illustrations of the Nirukta, p. 138.Google Scholar In support of this sense of mighty (celestial) waters, he refers to R. V. ix. 113, 8Google Scholar (which I shall quote further on), and to verse 9 of this hymn. In his article on the story of Jemshîd, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, iv. 426,Google Scholar he had translated the words, “from the deep to the heights;” and DrHaug, , in his “Essays on the Sacred Language, etc., of the Parsees.” p. 234,Google Scholar similarly renders, “from the depths to the heights.” In the Atharva Veda, xviii. 4, 7,Google Scholar however, where the same words occur, tîrthais taranti pravato mahîr iti yajñakṛtaḥ sukṛto yena yanti, (“They cross by fords the great rivers, [by the road] which the virtuous offerers of sacrifice pass,”) they seem more likely to mean the mighty streams. Compare ProfMüller's, Lectures, ii. 515.Google Scholar
page 291 note 2 The following verses (as appears from ProfMüller's, Essay on the Funeral Rites of the Brahmans, Journal of the German Oriental Society for 1855, p. xi.)Google Scholar are addressed at funerals to the souls of the departed, while their bodies are being consumed on the funeral pile.
page 291 note 3 The A. V. xviii. 2, 21,Google Scholar substitutes here the words “may delightful, pleasant breezes blow upon thee. 22. May the water-bringing, water-shedding Maruts bear thee upward, and creating coolness by their motion (?), sprinkle thee with rain. 23 …. May thy soul go to its own (kindred), and hasten to the Fathers.”
page 292 note 1 This is differently explained by DrHaug, (Ait. Br., ii. p. 474, note)Google Scholar. Ishṭa, he says, means “what is sacrificed,” and ûpûrtta, “filled up to.” “For all sacrifices go up to heaven, and are stored up there to be taken possession of by the sacrificer on his arrival in heaven.” The words before us will therefore mean “join thy sacrifices which were stored up.” The Atharva Veda, xviii. 2, 20,Google Scholar expresses the sentiment here referred to by Dr. Haug in these words: “ May the oblations which thou offeredst while alive (now) drop thee honey.” And in A. V. xi. 1, 36,Google Scholar it is said, “ With these good deeds may we follow the sacrifice which abides in the heaven with seven rays.”
page 292 note 2 Müller (in the Essay just referred to, p. xiv.) translates this verse thus: “Leave evil there, then return home, and take a form,” etc. This rendering makes the departed return to this world to resume his body, though in a glorified state, which does not seem to bring out a good sense. Roth, on the other hand (in Jour. Germ. Or. Society, iv. 428Google Scholar), connects the word punaḥ with what precedes, and renders the verse thus: “Enter thy home, laying down again all imperfection,” etc.
page 292 note 3 The A. V. xviii. 2, 24,Google Scholar says: “Let not thy soul (manas), nor anything of thy spirit (asu), or of thy members, or of thy substance (rasa), or of thy body, disappear. 25. Let no tree vex thee, nor the great divine earth. Having found an abode among the Fathers, flourish among the subjects of Yama. 26. Whatever member of thine has been removed afar, or breath of thine has departed in the wind,—may the combined Fathers reunite them all with thee.”
page 292 note 4 These words, according to Müller, are addressed to evil spirits.
page 292 note 5 Avasûnam. Compare A. V. xviii. 2, 37,Google Scholar where Yama is said to recognize those who are his own: “ I give this abode to this man who has come hither, if he is mine. Yama perceiving, says again, ‘ He is mine, let him come hither to prosperity.’”
page 292 note 6 See Roth, , Journal German Oriental Society, iv. 428,Google Scholar at the foot, and his explanation of pari dehi s.v. dû. Müller, on the other hand (p. xiv.), translates: “ Surround him, Yama, protecting him from the dogs,” etc.
page 292 note 7 The two dogs of Yama are also mentioned in A. V. viii. 1, 9,Google Scholar where one of them is said to be black (ṣyûma) and the other spotted (ṣabala). In A. V. viii. 2, 11,Google Scholar the messengers of Yama who wander among men are spoken of in the plural, without being described as dogs.
page 293 note 1 Compare the word asura, “ Spirit,” and asunîti, in v. 14, below.
page 293 note 2 Compare A. V. xviii. 2, 49:Google Scholar “Let us worship with reverence those Pitṛs who are the fathers, and those who are the grandfathers, of our father, those who have entered into the atmosphere, or who inhabit the earth, or the sky.” See also A.V. xviii. 3, 59.Google Scholar
page 294 note 1 According to the A. V. xviii. 2, 28,Google Scholar evil spirits sometimes come along with the Pitṛs: “May Agni blow away from this sacrifice those Dasyus, devourers of oblations, whether they wear gross or subtile bodies, who come, entering among the Pitṛs, with the faces of friends.” Compare V. S., ii. 30,Google Scholar and commentary.
page 294 note 2 As Agni is addressed in the two preceding verses, it might have been supposed that he is referred to in this epithet of self-resplendent (svarûṭ) or sovereign ruler, especially as the same function is assigned to him in x. 16, 5, as is assigned to the deity addressed in this verse. But the commentator on the Vâjasaneyi Sanhitâ, 19, 60 (where the verse occurs, with most of the others in this hymn, though not in the same order), understands it of Yama: as does also Prof. Roth (see s.v. asunîti) in the passage of the A. V., where it occurs along with asunîti. See next note.
page 294 note 3 This word also occurs in the second verse of the next, the 16th hymn. In R. V. x. 59, 5, 6,Google Scholar it is personified as a god or goddess. In A. V. xviii. 3, 59,Google Scholar it is joined with svarûṭ: “May the monarch who bestows vitality fashion for the fathers and grandfathers of our father who have entered the wide atmosphere, and for us to-day, bodies according to our desire.”
page 294 note 4 According to Müller, (Funeral Rites of the Brahmans, p. xi. f.)Google Scholar some verses from this hymn are repeated after those from hymn 14th, while the remains of the departed are being burnt.
page 294 note 5 Compare A. V. xviii. 4, 10–13.Google Scholar In the sixty-fourth verse of the same hymn it is said:“Whatever limb of you Agni Jatavedas left behind, when conveying you to the world of the Pitṛs, that I here restore to you. Revel in heaven, ye Pitṛs, with (all) your members.” And in A. V. xviii. 3, 55,Google Scholar it is declared: “ Whatever (part) of thee any black bird, or ant, or serpent, or beast of prey, has torn, may Agni cure thee of all that, and Soma who has entered into the Brâhmans.” Compare v. 9 of the same hymn.
page 294 note 6 Compare A. V. xviii. 4, 12.Google Scholar
page 294 note 7 In A. V. viii. 2, 3,Google Scholar a man dead, or in danger of dying, is addressed in these words: “ I have obtained thy breath from the wind, thine eye from the sun; I place in thee thy soul {manas): have sensation in thy limbs; speak, uttering (words) with thy tongue.” Compare Plato, Repub. vi. 18,Google Scholar where he says of the eye: 
See also Atharva Veda, v. 24, 9Google Scholar; xi. 8, 31; xix. 43, 3.
page 295 note 1 In A.V. vi. 120, 1,Google Scholar Agni is prayed to deliver from sin and carry to the world of righteousness. Compare A. V. xii. 2, 45Google Scholar; xviii. 3, 71; and xviii. 4, 9, 10, where the different fires are besought to assume their most beneficent forms, and to become horses to bear the worshipper to heaven, after cremation. In xviii. 2, 36, Agni is entreated to burn mildly, and to spend his fury on the woods and on the earth.
The Taittirîya Brâhmana has the following passage: iii. 10, 11, 1: “ One man departing from this world knows himself that ‘this is I myself.’ Another does not recognize his own world. Bewildered by Agni, and overcome by smoke, he does not recognize his own world. Now he who knows this Agni Sâvitra, when he departs from this world knows himself, ‘ that this is I myself.’ He recognizes his own world. This Sâvitra carries him to the heavenly world.” A few lines further on it is said that the days and nights suck up in the next world the treasure of the man who does not possess a particular sort of knowledge, whilst he who knows Agni Sâvitra finds his treasure not sucked up.
page 295 note 2 Journal of the German Oriental Society, iv. 426;Google ScholarJournal of American Oriental Society, iii. 335.Google Scholar Illustrations of Nirukta, p. 138. As Professor Müller denies that Yama was regarded as the first man, he explains as follows (Lectures, 2d Series, p. 515 f.) the process by which he came to be transformed into the monarch of the dead: “Let us imagine, then,” he says, “ as well as we can, that yama, twin, was used as the name of the evening, or the setting sun, and we shall be able perhaps to understand how in the end Yama came to be the king of the departed and the god of death. As the East was to the early thinkers the source of life, the West was to them nirṛti, the exodus, the land of death. The sun, conceived as setting or dying every day, was the first who had trodden the path of life from East to West—the first mortal—the first to show us the way when our course is run, and our sun sets in the far West.” … “ That Yama's character is solar, might be guessed from his being called the son of Vivasvat. Vivasvat, like Yama, is sometimes considered as sending death. R.V. viii. 67, 20:Google Scholar ‘ May the shaft of Vivaswat, O Adityas, the poisoned arrow, not strike us before we are old!‘” [on the other hand Vivasvat is sometimes spoken of as preserving from Yama. Thus in A. V. xviii. 3, 62,Google Scholar it is said: “ May Vivasvat place us in a state of immortality. May death pass away, and deathlessness come to us. May he preserve these men from decay. May their spirits not depart to Yama.”—J. M.] … “ His (Yama's} own seat is called the house of the gods (x. 135, 7); and these words follow immediately on a verse in which it is said: ‘ the abyss is stretched out in the East, the outgoing is in the West.” (In a note the following are referred to as additional passages to be consulted, viz., R.V. i. 116, 2;Google Scholar vii. 33, 9; ix. 68, 3, 5; x. 12, 6; x. 13, 2, 4; x. 53, 3; x. 64, 3; x. 123, 6.). “These indications, though fragmentary, are sufficient to show that the character of Yama, such as we find it in the last book of the Rig Veda, might well have been suggested by the setting sun, personified as the leader of the human race, as himself a mortal, yet as a king, as the ruler of the departed, as worshipped with the fathers, as the first witness of an immortality to be enjoyed by the fathers,” etc. I may remark that in the Ṣ. P. Br. xiv. 1, 3, 4,Google Scholar Yama is identified with the sun; but he is, a little further on, xiv. 2, 2, 11, similarly identified with Vâyu.
page 296 note 1 See Prof. Roth's observations on this dialogue in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, iii. 335 f.Google Scholar
page 296 note 2 See Prof. Roth's remarks on these passages in the Journals, etc., above referred to. In the Journal of the German Oriental Society, iv. 427,Google Scholar he remarks on these hymns: “We here find, not without astonishment, beautiful conceptions on immortality expressed in unadorned language with childlike conviction. If it were necessary, we might here find the most powerful weapons against the view which has lately been revived, and proclaimed as new, that Persia was the only birthplace of the idea of immortality, and that even the nations of Europe had derived it from that quarter; as if the religious spirit of every gifted race was not able to arrive at it by its own strength.”
page 296 note 3 In A.V. xviii. 4, 3,Google Scholar the Âdityas are said to feast on honey in heaven (madhu bhakshayanti).
page 296 note 4 According to the Purâṇas, “Yama fulfils the office of judge of the dead, as well as sovereign of the damned; all that die appearing before him, and being confronted with Chandragupta, the recorder, by whom their actions have been registered. The virtuous are thence conveyed to Swarga or Elysium, whilst the wicked are driven to the different regions of Naraka, or Tartarus.” (Wilson, , Vishṇu Purâṇa, p. 207 of 4to. ed. note 3Google Scholar). Chitragupta is described in the following tasteless and extravagant style in the Vṛhannâradîya Purâna, quoted in ProfAufrecht's, Catalogue of the Bodl. Sansk. MSS. p. 10,Google Scholar note: “The dreadful Chandragupta, with a voice like the clouds at the mundane dissolution, gleaming like a mountain of collyrium, terrible with lightning-like weapons, having thirty-two arms, as big as three yojanas, red-eyed, long-nosed, his face furnished with grinders and projecting teeth, his eyes resembling oblong ponds, bearing death and diseases.”
page 298 note 1 In the Ṣ. P. Br. xi. 1, 9, 1,Google Scholar a man is said to be thrice born; first from his father and mother, the second time through sacrifice, and the third time when, after death and cremation, he once more emerges into life.
page 298 note 2 A.V. ix. 5, 1:Google Scholar “Convey him; carry him; let him, understanding, go to the world of the righteous. Crossing the gloom in many directions immense, let the unborn ascend to the third heaven… 3. Wash the feet of him who has committed wickedness: understanding, let him ascend with cleansed feet. Crossing the gloom, gazing in many directions, let the unborn ascend the third heaven.” In the Vâj. Sanh. xxxi. 18,Google Scholar also, the great Purusha of sunlike brightness (âditya-varṇa) is said to dwell above the darkness (tamasaḥ parastât). See also Manu, iv. 242Google Scholar. The commentator on this passage, however, as well as Roth, s. v. tamas, understands the phrase dustaram tamas, “darkness hard to cross,” as referring to hell. Compare the phrases adhamam tamas and andham tamas, to be referred to further on.
The word aja seems to have different senses in the hymn of the A.V. just quoted. In verses 1 and 3, it may mean the same as ajo bhâgaḥ, the “unborn part” of man, in R.V. x. 16, 4.Google Scholar In A.V. v. 7, it is said “Agni is unborn (aja); they call light unborn (aja); they say that an aja is to be given by a living man to the priest. An aja when given in this world by a believing man, disperses the gloom afar.” In the latter part of this sentence aja is some kind of offering. In the same way it is said in v. 10: “The aja panchaudana, given to a priest, places him who bestows it in the third heaven, in the third sky, on the third summit, on the top of the heaven,” and in v. 21: “This aja panchaudana is an illimitable offering.”
“The world of the righteous” (sukṛtâm lokaḥ) referred to in the preceding passage (A.V. ix. 5,1Google Scholar) is also mentioned in the Vâjasaneya Sanhitâ, xviii. 52: “With those fleet, undecaying, pinions wherewith, O Agni, thou slayest the Rakshases, let us soar to the world of the righteous, whither the ṛshis have gone, the early, the ancient.” In the A.V. xviii. 2, 48,Google Scholar there are said to be three heavens: “The watery (udanvatî) heaven is the lowest, the pîlumatî is the intermediate heaven, and the third is the pradyaus, in which the Fathers dwell.” This agrees with, the mention of the third heaven in A.V. ix. 5, 1.Google Scholar
page 299 note 1 In A.V. ix. 5, 22–26Google Scholar it is said that the man who bestows an aja panchaudana illuminated by largesses (dakshiṇâd-jyotisham: compare hiraṇya-jyotisham, A.V. x. 9, 6Google Scholar), shall not have his bones broken, or his marrow sucked out, but shall be introduced whole and entire (into heaven).
These passages in which the departed are said to recover their bodily organization in all its completeness form a striking contrast to the representations in the Homeric poems regarding the unsubstantial nature of the ghosts of the departed. The passage of the Odyssey, xi. 488,Google Scholar is well known in which Achilles tells Ulysses that he would rather be the slave of a poor man on earth than rule over all the departed.
page 299 note 2 In regard to the celestial body, see Roth, in the Journal of the Amer. Orient. Society, vol. iii. p. 343Google Scholar.
page 299 note 3 In the later Indian writings the widow who burns herself on her husband's funeral pile is supposed to rejoin him in Svarga. See the texts cited by Cole-brooke, Essays, i. 116 f.Google Scholar
page 300 note 1 “In heaven he acts according to his pleasure.”—Taitt. Br. iii. 12, 2, 9.Google Scholar
page 300 note 2 Roth is, however, of a different opinion. He says (Journ. Amer. Orient. Soc. iii. 343Google Scholar): “The place where these glorified ones are to live is heaven. In order to show that not merely an outer court of the divine dwellings is set apart for them, the highest heaven, the midst or innermost part of heaven, is expressly spoken of as their seat. This is their place of rest; and its divine splendour is not dis-figured by any specification of particular beauties or enjoyments, such as those with which other religions have been wont to adorn the mansions of the blest… There they are happy: the language used to describe their condition is the same with which is denoted the most exalted felicity.” He then quotes the verses of ix. 113, 7 ff. already adduced, and adds: “what…shall be the employment of the blest, in what sphere their activity shall expend itself; to this question ancient, Hindu wisdom sought no answer.”
The words used in v. 11 of hymn ix. 113 to denote the gratifications of paradise, viz. ânandâh, modâḥ, pramudaḥ, are employed in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa ii. 4, 6, 5 fGoogle Scholar. to signify sexual enjoyment on earth.
page 300 note 3 This, no doubt, alludes to the fire of the funeral pile.
page 300 note 4 Compare Mahâbhârata, xii. 3657Google Scholar: “Thousands of handsome Apsarases run up in haste to the hero who has been slain in battle, (exclaiming) ‘be my husband.’” And again, v. 3667: “Behold, these shining worlds belong to the fearless, filled with maidens of the Gandharvas, and yielding all kinds of enjoyments.” In like manner,. the Kaṭha Upanishad, i. 25,Google Scholar appears to refer to the Apsarases: “Ask at thy pleasure,” says Yama to Nachiketas, all those pleasures which are difficult to be had in the world of mortals, those fair ones with their cars and instruments of music—for such as they are not to be obtained by men,—receive them from me, and allow thyself to be waited on by them.” See also the Kaushîtakî Upanishad, as translated by Weber, , Ind. Stud. i. 398Google Scholar, and Cowell, , Bibliotheca Ind. p. 147.Google Scholar
page 301 note 1 It may be objected that the texts which I have cited from the A.V. furnish no proof of the meaning of those in the Rig Veda, as the former collection is of later date than the latter. But (1) the hymns of the A.V. are probably not much posterior to those of the tenth book of the R.V., with which I have been dealing; and (2) the state of opinion reflected in the texts of the A.V. need not be supposed to have originated contemporaneously with its expression in these particular hymns, but was probably handed down from a previous period. We ought not to be too incredulous as to the early existence, in an elementary form, of ideas which appear at first sight to bear the character of a later age. Thus we find in the A.V. x. 8, 43,Google Scholar a reference to three qualities (guṇas) as enveloping the lotus with nine gates; and there is perhaps no reason to doubt that here the three guṇas, so well known in later cosmogonies, are referred to. Rajas and tamas, two of these qualities, are mentioned together, A.V. viii. 2, 1.Google Scholar The “name” and “form” (nâuma and rûpa) celebrated by the Vedantists, are also alluded to in A.V. x. 2,12,Google Scholarand xi. 7, 1.
page 302 note 1 These verses form part of the funeral liturgy of the Brahmans. See Müller, , on the funeral rites of the Brahmans, p. xi.Google Scholar
page 303 note 1 In R. V. x. 68, 11,Google Scholar it is said that “the Fathers have adorned the sky with stars as a dark horse with golden ornaments, and have placed darkness in the night, and light in the day.”
page 303 note 2 Compare on the offerings to the Pitṛs, , Colebrooke's Essay on the Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus. Mis. Essays, i. 180 ff.Google Scholar
page 304 note 1 Manu, however, viii. 94, connects andham tamas with hell, saying that a lying witness goes to hell in “blind darkness.”
page 304 note 2 Compare Vishṇu Purâṇa (Wilson, 4to. ed. p. 211) “Heaven is that which delights the mind: hell is that which gives it pain; hence vice is called hell; virtue is called heaven,” (manaḥ-prîti-karaḥ svargo narakas tad-viparyayaḥ| naraka-svarga-sañjñe vai pâpa-puṇye dvijottama).
page 306 note 1 CompareṢ. P. Br. x. 4, 3, 1,Google Scholar where the expression purâ jarasaḥ is found; as it is also R.V. viii. 56, 20,Google Scholar and A. V. x. 2, 30;Google Scholar xi. 3, 56. Purâ ha âyusho mriyate occurs in Ṣ. P. Br. ii. 1, 4, 9Google Scholar; napurâ âyushao svakâmî preyât in x. 2, 6, 7; and sarvam âyur eti in x. 2, 6, 19.
page 306 note 2 The passage (xi. 2, 7, 33) to which Weber has referred, runs as follows: “For in the next world they place (his good and evil deeds) in a balance. Whichever of the two shall ascend, that he shall follow, whether it be good or evil. Now, whosoever knows this, places himself in the balance in this world; and is freed from being weighed in the next world: it is by good deeds, and not by bad, that (his scale) ascends.
page 306 note 3 x. 1. 5, 4. “Then as regards the powers of the sacrifices. In the next world the offerer of an Agnihotra eats morning and evening. So much nourishment resides in that sacrifice. The performer of the Darṣapûrṇamâsa sacrifice eats every fortnight, the performer of the Châturmâsya every four months, the performer of the Paṣubandha every six months, the offerer of the Soma every year, whilst the kindler of fire eats every hundred years, or abstains at his pleasure. This means that during this period of a hundred years, he enjoys an immortal, unending and unlimited life. He who so knows this, enjoys in the same way this immortal, unending, and unlimited existence. Whatever part of him is separated even as if by a straw becomes immortal, unending, and unlimited.”
page 306 note 4 iv. 6, 1, 1. “This sacrificer is born with his whole body (sarvatanûḥ) in the next world.”
xi. 1, 8, 6. “This sacrifice becomes in the next world the soul of the sacrificer. The sacrificer who, knowing this, sacrifices with an expiation, is born with his whole body in the next world.”
xii. 8, 3, 31. “He who is consecrated by the Sautrâmaṇî enters the worlds, and among the gods. He then ……. and is born entire with his whole body and limbs (kṛtsna eva sarvatanâḥ sângaḥ sambhavati).” In the A.V. xi. 3, 32,Google Scholar and 49, it is said: “This odana (boiled rice) is complete in its limbs, joints, and body. He who knows this is born complete in limbs, joints, and body (sarvângaḥ sarva-paruḥ sarva-tanûh).
page 307 note 1 xi. 6, 3, 11. “Do not scrutinize too far the deity which ought not to be too far scrutinized. Thou shalt die before such a time: not even thy bones shall reach thy home. So he died; and robbers carried off his bones, taking them for something else. Wherefore let no man be contentious.”
xi. 6, 9, 28 (=Bṛhad Aranyaka Upanishad, iii. 9, 26;Google Scholar p. 210 f. of Roer's English translation). “I ask thee regarding this Purusha of the Upanishads. If thou shalt not explain him to me, thy head shall fall off. Ṣâkalya did not understand this Purusha. So his head fell off; and robbers carried off his bones, taking them for something else.” (Compare 1 Kings xiii. 22Google Scholar; and Jeremiah viii. 1, 2).Google Scholar
page 308 note 1 xi. 5, 6, 3 f. “Study of the Vedas in the Brahma-sacrifice. …. Whoever, knowing this, practises the study of the Vedas, conquers thrice as vast a region— and that, too, undecaying—as the region which he conquers who bestows this whole earth filled with wealth. Wherefore study of the Vedas is to be practised. 4. Verses of the Ṛk are oblations of milk to the gods. He who, knowing this, daily studies the Rig Veda, does in fact satisfy the gods with oblations of milk: and they, when satisfied, satisfy him with prosperity, with breath, with seminal fluid, in his entire being, with all pure possessions, and bring streams of butter, and honey, and oblations to the Pitṛs.” (Compare Ṣatap. Br. xi. 5, 7, 6;Google Scholar and A. V. iv. 34, 6, 7.)Google Scholar
page 308 note 2 vi. 2, 2, 27. “Hence they say that a man is born into the world which he has made.”
x. 6, 3, 1. “Now truly this man is composed of sacrifice. So many sacrifices as he has when he departs from this world, with so many is he born in the other world after his death.”
page 308 note 3 Compare Taitt. Br. iii. 12, 2, 6Google Scholar: “In the waters all objects of desire are contained.”
page 308 note 4 This verse is quoted in Sankara's, Commentary on the Brahma Sûtras, pp. 911 and 952,Google Scholar of the edit, in Bibl. Ind.
page 309 note 1 Weber does not give any reference here.
page 309 note 2 x. 3, 3, 8: “Whoever departs from this world knowing this, goes with his voice to fire (Agni), with his eye to the sun (Aditya; compare R.V. x. 16, 3 quoted above),Google Scholar with his mind (manas) to the moon, with his ear to the regions, with his breath (prâṇa) to the wind (Vâyu; compare R.V. x. 16, 3).Google Scholar Having attained such a nature and become any one of these deities that he desires, he rests.”
page 309 note 3 i. 9, 3, 10: “The rays of him who shines (the sun) are the pious. The light which is above is Prajâpati, or the heavenly world.”
page 309 note 4 vi. 5, 4, 8: “These (the stars) are the lights of the practisers of holy acts who go to heaven.” It is not clear whether this means that the lights belong to, or that they are, the practisers of holy acts. The passage of the Indralokâgamana (Mbh. iii. 1745 ff.) referred to by Prof. Weber is as follows: “The sun shines not there (in Indra's heaven), nor the moon, nor fire. There the righteous shine by their own light, acquired by their own virtue. Arjuna beheld there, shining in their own spheres, luminous and beautiful, those bright forms of the stars which, when seen from the earth, appear from distance to be as small as lamps, although they are very vast.” These, as Arjuna's conductor explained to him, were the righteous occupying their own spheres, whom when on earth he had seen in the sky in the form of stars.”
page 310 note 1 See DrHaug's, Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, ii. p. 242.Google Scholar I differ from that scholar in translating parastât “above,” and not “on the other side.”
page 310 note 2 See Weber, , in the Journal of the German Oriental Society, ix. 243, 308.Google Scholar
page 312 note 1 See my Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 41.Google Scholar
page 312 note 2 Ibid., p. 394; and Râmâyaṇa, i. 45, 35 (ed. Schlegel, ),Google Scholar and i. 46,2 (Gorresio).
page 312 note 3 See Mahâbhârata, iii. 1821 ff.;Google ScholarRâmâyaṇa, Uttara Kâṇḍa, xxvi. 16 ff.Google Scholar (Bombay ed.).
page 315 note 1 See the other passages quoted, s.v., by Böhtlingk and Roth, from Brâhmanical writings where this word is used. Its employment by Buddhists to express the highest destiny of mundane creatures is well known.