Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices)

by Julius Lipner

  In the Vedic perspective, the texts ‘do not talk much ... about death ...[T]hey depict a human situation which is neither overwhelmed nor excessively worried by death ... [T]hey do not overstress the rupture and the discontinuity at the price of losing sight of the harmony and the continuity between life and death ... The beyond is the unfathomable ocean which makes the beaches on this side worth walking on and playing on’.

  (1977:543–44)

  In performing the sacrifice, which grew increasingly complex, the priests became more specialized. The hotṛ priest saw to the selection of the appropriate verses, etc., thus his special domain was the Ŗg Veda; the udgātṛ, who supervised the musical intricacies of the ritual chant, was expert in the Sāma Veda. The adhvaryu priest, who made the Yajur Veda his own, presided over the physical movements of all the priests involved. ‘The Brāhmaṇ priest, associated with the Atharva Veda, [was] in charge of the entire sacrifice, and his role [was] to sit in silence on a stool at the center, observing the proceedings and being consulted in moments of ritual error or confusion’ (Patton ibid.:41). In time, all the priests were known generically by this name, brāhmaṇa (Brāhmaṇ/Brahmin), though within this caste or class, different ritual statuses and socio-religious functions developed. When we inquire into the institution of caste’, we shall look more closely at this phenomenon.

  Thus, by the end of the ‘Saṃhitā’ period of the Veda, the notion had developed that the sacred Sanskritic word or Vāc, precisely as uttered through the sacrifice – no other utterance would do, no innovation, no translation, no dialect – had an inherent efficacy. The Vedic utterance was not an artefact at all. It had been ‘given’ from primordial times. This idea emerges, for instance, in the following verse of the Ŗg Veda: ‘By sacrifice they (the priests) walked the track of Speech (vāc). They found her entered within the Sages. Having fetched her, they distributed her manifoldly. Seven celebrants chant her together’ (10.71.3). Here Vāc is compared to a cow whose footsteps the priests follow. They discover her locked up within the seven primeval Sages and release her, ritually, in various beneficial ways. Note that Vāc is not composed, it is discovered as a given; it is transmitted by the primordial Sages down the human chain. This is why another term for the Veda is śruti, the ‘Hearing’. In the next chapter we shall inquire into how this was theologized by some Hindus. But the idea here is that Vāc existed originally in unmanifest form, as an inexhaustible, powerful river dammed up and unflowing which then streams forth through ritual utterance, its purity and power intact, in the form of the Vedic syllables for the benefit of humankind (see further Killingley, in Lipner 1986b). This notion of the sacred Word as an originally hidden, subtle power, which then manifests in creative manner, is quite pervasive in later Hinduism, and we shall return to it in the following chapter.

  But we are now in a position to appreciate the origins of the idea of the ‘sacred cow’ in Hinduism. In Vedictimes cattle were the symbol and currency of wealth. The cow produced milk and manure, and its energy could be harnessed for the production of food by tilling the earth, working irrigation wells, etc. Like the cow, Vāc gave prosperity and wellbeing if its power was properly harnessed – if, as tillers did in the case of the cow, human beings could follow in Vāc’s footsteps through the agency of the priests. This is where the idea of the ‘sacred’ cow likely originated in the Hindu psyche, rather than in some purely economic or material consideration.

  The patron of the yajña, the person who funded the elaborate sacrificial ritual, was called the yajamāna. Like the benefactors of universities and other organizations today at special functions, he sat there at the sacrifice in a prominent place with not a great deal to do (except for a small number of ritual acts). His duly wedded wife (patnī) sat at a certain distance from him, equally (in)active. But both had important symbolic value: the patron and his wife represented the larger community and its role in endorsing the interaction between the numinous powers (the devas and devīs) and society through the mediation of the priests, and it was the patron's wealth that enabled the yajña or sacrifice to take place with its consequences of maintaining right order in the cosmos, and the bringing of particular gifts (offspring, victory in battle, a good harvest, health, long life, etc.) by the divinities.

  Several features of these early religious practices – investing the sacred (Sanskritic) utterance with transformative power, privileging ritual status, using fire to purify, transform and renew, studying the heavens to determine the course of events, sharing the ucchiṣṭa or remnant of the offering to establish communion with the deity, affirming and sacralizing life in this world while anticipating a new form of existence in the next, and so on – have persisted in one way or another as key elements of Hindu tradition down to the present day. We shall return to these matters in due course. First we must complete our task of discussing the textual development of the Veda; once this is done, we shall be in a better position to understand the philosophical idea of the sacred utterance as a conduit of power and knowledge. With this in mind, we turn to Chapter 3.

  3

  The voice of scripture as Veda (II): discerning the Word

  Thus, by about midway into the first millennium B.C.E., four Saṃhitās, largely in verse – the Ŗk, the Sāma, the Yajur and the Atharva – had been established as a canonical bloc. These are known collectively as the Veda(s). But already a new process of thinking had emerged, which led to the composition of prose texts called the Brāhmaṇas. Politically, the various Vedic tribes were being united under the leadership of several overlords, which gave rise to a period of social and religious change. This generated new religious preoccupations in some circles of the Brahmin elite. This does not mean that the yajña had ceased to be performed. It would continue as an important feature of Hindu religious life for centuries to come. But new questions were being asked of the solemn or śrauta ritual1; there was a need to explain and justify its various parts, and to re-assess the tracery of connections between the numinous powers and the human world that the performance of the Vedic sacrifice had already established.

  The Brāhmaṇas are discursive texts in Sanskrit that offer answers to questions about the origins, the proper performance and hidden meanings of the śrauta ritual(s);their overall goal is to define self by setting the human apart from evil and polluting influences in the world, and eventually to enable participation in the blissful immortality of the heavenly realm, arising from its one source (anthropomorphized in the figure of Prajāpati, ‘the Lord of all creatures’). This would be done by controlling the brahman, the inner power of sacrificial utterance or Speech (vāc), which would enable one (a) to achieve a viable existence in this world (again, the affirmation of mundane life), and (b) to reach ultimate wellbeing in the next. But especially with respect to the final goal, in the myths and stories of the Brāhmaṇas one can discern a note of somewhat strident competitiveness between the higher powers (Prajāpati included) and human aspirations.

  It is in this context that one can advert to an observation of Michael Witzel's, that a distinctive expression gains currency in the Brāhmaṇ, viz. ya evaṃ veda, ‘He who knows thus’ (2003:81). It is only ‘he’ who knows (it is doubtful if women had a parallel role) the inner workings of the ritual, its esoteric connections and etymologies and word-meanings, that can achieve appropriate success in this life or the next. Thus he who knows the secret heat-connections between Prajāpati, Fire/Agni, and (cooked) food, has power over food and will never go hungry. More, he has a grasp over the hidden essence of food and Agni, who as a deva, is intimately connected to Prajāpati; this hold on Agni will lead, by a knowledge-lifeline that informs the practice of the sacrificial ritual, to a share in the bliss of Prajāpati. Or again, he who knows the connections between intervals of time and Death, will triumph over the ravages of age and, finally, over mortality. So we have readings in the Brāhmaṇ such as the following:

  (i)

  Truly, Prajāpati alone existed here in the beginning. He tho
ught, ‘How can I bring forth creatures?’ He exhausted himself and produced heat. He gave birth to Agni, fire, from his mouth. Since he created him from his mouth, therefore Agni is an eater of food. And whoever knows that Agni is an eater of food in this way, he himself becomes an eater of food. Thus he gave birth to him first of the gods; since agni is the same as agri (‘first’), he is called Agni ... By making an offering, Prajāpati gave birth to himself and saved himself from Agni, from Death, who was about to eat him. And whoever knows about this and offers the Agnihotra oblation, he gives birth to himself in his progeny, just as Prajāpati gave birth to himself. And in this very same way, he saves himself from Agni, from Death, when he is about to eat him.

  For when he dies, and they place him on the fire, then he is born out of the fire, and then the fire consumes only his body. And just as he is born from his father or from his mother, in that very way he is born from the fire. But whoever does not offer the Agnihotra oblation, he never comes to life again. And that is why the Agnihotra must be offered.

  (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 2.2.4.1–8; O'Flaherty 1988:10–11)

  (ii)

  It is Death who is really the Year. For the Year is the one who wears away the life-span of mortals by means of day and night, so that they die ... And if someone knows that Death is the Year, the Year does not wear away his life-span by means of day and night before old age, and so he lives out a full life-span ... The gods were afraid of this Ender, Death, the Year, who is Prajāpati; they thought, ‘Let him not go to the end of our life-spans by means of day and night’ ... They performed ... sacrificial rituals ... They went on singing praises and exhausting themselves, for they wanted very much to achieve immortality. Then Prajāpati said to them, ‘You are not laying down all my forms; either you overdo it or you leave something out. That is why you do not become immortal’. They said, ‘Tell us yourself, then, how we can lay down all your forms’ ... [Prajāpati told them and they became immortal] ...

  Death said to the gods, ‘All men will become immortal in precisely this way, and then what share will be mine?’ They said, ‘From now on, no one else will become immortal together with the body. But as soon as you have taken (the body as) your share, then, after separating from this body, he will become immortal – if he is someone who has achieved immortality through knowledge or through action (karma)’. Now, when they said, ‘through knowledge or through action’, they meant by ‘knowledge’, the knowledge of the fire(-altar), and by ‘action’, the ritual of the fire(-altar). And those who have this knowledge, or who do this ritual, they come to life again when they have died, and as soon as they come to life again they come to immortal life. But those who do not have this knowledge or who do not do this ritual, when they die they come to life again, but they become the food of this (Death) again and again.

  (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 10.4.3.1–10;ibid.:12–13)

  At the risk of sounding ungracious, let me say that this hardly makes for gripping reading. But I have quoted these long excerpts to bring several things to attention. Note the attempt to explain in (i) how Agni got his name. The Brāhmaṇ are full of these etymologies, most of which are not accepted by modern specialists in language, but they are given as yet another dimension of the secret, controlling knowledge. The śrauta ritual is not rejected; in fact it is affirmed in its various forms. But mere unthinking performance is not enough to bring about its proper ends. One must know how to release its inner power to achieve its goals. This is not just a cerebral knowledge, and it is not available to everyone. It is an esoteric wisdom, gained by deep study of and reflection on the meaning of the ritual; probably by practice of a physical and mental discipline too – a form of yoga. Thus was launched a tradition of Vedic study, and of special reverence and privileged ritual status for the practitioners of this study – the Brahmins in particular.

  Note, too, the presence of a somewhat pronounced competitive or antagonistic edge in the relationship between the divinities, Prajāpati and humans. In the process, the world of human living (and by implication, of human individuality, in contrast to tribal identity), was being affirmed. Nevertheless, a web of interaction between all three levels remains, just as in the Saṃhitās. It has taken a slightly different turn in the direction of affirming that, if one has the appropriate knowledge, one can overcome any unpredictability in the response of the devas and devīs to prayers for worldly success and immortality. This is why even the divinities are portrayed as not having been immortal in the first place; the gift of immortality is not intrinsically theirs to give. It derives from Prajāpati and it is unlocked by the informed performance of the ritual. If one knows what should be known, and performs the ritual, results should follow. For knowledge is power. Finally, there is a reference to what seems to be a belief in reincarnation at the end of the second passage. This characteristic belief of later Hinduism seems to arise in the period of the Brāhmaṇ. We shall return to this belief later in the book (Chapter 12).

  This genre of composition, viz. the Brāhmaṇ, was produced over a period of time (say, from the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E. or a little later), and to each Vedic Saṃhitā was appended its own Brāhmaṇ, in the form of more than one school or ‘branch’ (sakha) of interpretation, many of the texts of which have doubtless been lost. Yet some remain. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa belongs to a branch of the Yajur Veda known as the ‘Bright’ Yajur Veda. This Brahmanna, which has two recensions (the Kāṇva and the Mādhyaṃdina), is the lengthiest available and is usually taken to be the most representative of this genre of sacred composition.2 The Ŗk Saṃhitā has the Aitareya and the Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇ; the Pancavimsa and the Jaiminīya represent the Brāhmaṇ of the Sāma Veda, while the Atharva Veda has the Gopatha Brāhmaṇ. This is not an exhaustive list, but note that the orderly pattern of Vedic oral tradition was continuing. The bulk of Brāhmaṇ text would have been redacted by about 600 B.C.E. One must remember that the compilation of the Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇ, and indeed of what followed as part of the canonical text, would have been a staggered process without neat boundaries of space and time. Thus the earlier Brāhmaṇs were no doubt being composed in various places while portions of the Saṃhitās were still being finally edited, and compositions reflecting continuing interpretation of the solemn ritual came into existence while the later Brāhmaṇs were still being redacted.

  What were these post-Brāhmaṇ compositions of the Vedic canon? The thinking of the Brāhmaṇ phased into a more symbolical reflection on the sacrificial ritual, which was expressed in mainly prose collections called Āraṇyakas (texts that were produced and/or reflected upon in secluded places or forests, from araṇya, ‘forest, wood, wilderness’). Various tendencies are noticeable in the Āranṇyakas, which need to be understood collectively. First, why the name? Witzel avers that ‘these texts are not texts meant for ascetics [as perhaps suggested by the name ‘Wilderness texts’] but, as regular Brāhmaṇ style texts, discuss the more secret and dangerous rituals. Therefore, they have been prescribed to be learned and recited outside [settlement areas]’ (ibid.:82). He names the Mahāvrata and Pravargya rituals as the main focus of the texts, but does not expatiate here as to why they are ‘secret’ and ‘dangerous’. In fact, these rituals were just that, rituals, with symbolic enactments, though there may well have been also ritual sexual intercourse as part of a fertility rite.3 They were ‘secret’ because they were part of esoteric lore, of the kind inculcated and transmitted by the Brāhmaṇs. The Āranṇyakas continue this tradition, developing further the practice of experiencing or realizing (supposedly) real ‘connections’ between the microcosm or human world and focal points of the macrocosm, or higher world, to which the microcosm had to be aligned. These ‘connections’ (bandhus) are called ‘homologies’ – correspondences between these two realms – knowledge of which bestowed power and eventually immortality to the practitioner in the manner described above for the Brāhmaṇs. Here is an instance of the making of such connections taken from th
e Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, perhaps the earliest Upaniṣad on the whole,4 and representing the final literary genre in the development of the Vedic canon. The opening text of the Upaniṣad runs as follows:

  Oṃ. The head of the sacrificial horse is the dawn. Its eye is the sun, its vital force is wind. Its open mouth is fire in general. The body of the sacrificial horse is the whole year. Its back is the heavens, its belly the atmosphere, its lower belly the earth. Its flanks are the directions, its ribs the intermediate directions. Its limbs are the seasons, its joints the months and half-months, and its feet are night and day. Its bones are the stars, its flesh the clouds. Its stomach-contents are sand and gravel, its entrails are the rivers, its liver and lungs the mountains. The hairs on its body are the plants and trees. Its forepart is the rising sun, its hind part the setting sun. There is lightning when it yawns, thunder when it is agitated, rain when it urinates. Its neighing is speech.

  One notes here the correspondences made: the horse of the aśvamedha sacrifice is no ordinary horse; it is an oblation, made sacred in the solemn ritual. As such it meshes with and encapsulates the numinous realm, the intermediate regions, and the mundane world. Those who make this sacrifice in the appropriate way will have its various fruits: at one level, territorial sovereignty in this world, and at the level of secret lore, sovereignty over the cosmic realm and access to immortality. But this is not the whole story. While Witzel's comment that the Āranṇyakas were not meant for ascetics’ may be true, this does not mean that a measure of self-discipline was irrelevant to ‘make them work’ in the way we have described. For we must take into account the increasing influence on the Vedic scene of groups of ascetics called śramaṇas (‘exerters’, ‘strivers’). These ascetics were imbued with the idea that life in this world is essentially sorrowful, that even its joys and pleasures breed a false consciousness and lead us away from our own best interests. These satisfactions increase egoism and perpetuate a constant return to this world after death in the form of bodily rebirth, for by this time (ca.800 B.C.E.) this doctrine was taking hold among the populace. The goal of human living is liberation from this world of false, egoistic consciousness, and the means to this end is renunciation of self brought about by the purging effect of rigorous bodily and mental discipline (hence their ‘striving’). These sramannas rejected the ethic of Vedic sacrifice, which they regarded as a self-serving attempt to attain worldly success and/or a form of personal immortality, and often practised their austerities in secluded places.