Agni-dagdha. — This epithet (‘burnt with fire’)
1 applies to
the dead who were burned on the funeral pyre. This is one
of the two normal methods of disposing of the dead, the other
being burial (
an-agnidagdhāḥ, ‘not burnt with fire’).
2 The
Atharvaveda
3 adds two further modes of disposal to those —
viz., casting out (
paroptāḥ), and the exposure of the dead
(
uddhitāḥ). The exact sense of these expressions is doubtful.
Zimmer
4 considers that the former is a parallel to the Iranian
practice of casting out the dead to be devoured by beasts, and
that the latter refers to the old who are exposed when helpless.
5 Whitney
6 refers the latter expression to the exposure of the
dead body on a raised platform of some sort.
Burial was clearly not rare in the Rigvedic period: a whole
hymn
7 describes the ritual attending it. The dead man was
buried apparently in full attire, with his bow in his hand, and
probably at one time his wife was immolated to accompany
him, in accordance with a practice common among savage
tribes. But in the Vedic period both customs appear in a
modified form: the son takes the bow from the hand of the
dead man, and the widow is led away from her dead husband
by his brother or other nearest kinsman. A stone is set
between the dead and the living to separate them. In the
Atharvaveda,
8 but not in the Rigveda, a coffin (
vṛkṣa) is alluded
to. In both Saṃhitās
9 occur other allusions to the ‘house
of earth’ (
bhūmi-gṛha). To remove the apparent discrepancy
between burning and burial, by assuming that the references to
burial are to the burial of the burned bones, as does Oldenberg,
10 is unnecessary and improbable, as burning and burial subsisted
side by side in Greece for many years.
Burning was, however, equally usual, and it grew steadily
in frequency, for in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad
11 the adornment
of the body of the dead with curd (
Āmikṣā), clothes, and
ornaments, in order to win the next world, is referred to as
something erroneous and wrong, and in the funeral Mantras of
the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā
12 only burning seems to be contemplated;
the verses which refer to burial here really alluding to the burial
of the ashes in the burying-ground (
śmaśāna).
13 The body was
wrapped in fat,
14 as we learn from the funeral hymn in the
Rigveda, a goat being apparently burned with it,
15 to act as
a guide on the way to the next world. According to the
Atharvaveda
16 a draft-ox was burned presumably for the dead
to ride with in the next world. It was expected that the dead
would revive with his whole body and all his limbs (
sarva-tanūḥ sāṅgaḥ),
17 although it is also said
18 that the eye goes to the sun,
the breath to the wind, and so forth.
Before burial or burning, the corpse was washed,
19 a clog
(
kūdī) being tied to the foot to prevent the deceased returning
to earth.
20 [Footnote] 1) Rv. x. 15, 14; Taittirīya Brāh-
maṇa, iii. 1, 1, 7;
dagdhāḥ, Av. xviii.
2, 34.
[Footnote] 2) Rv.,
loc. cit.; =
nikhātāḥ, Av. xviii.
2, 34.
[Footnote] 3)
Loc. cit. [Footnote] 4)
Altindisches Leben, 402.
[Footnote] 5) Rv. viii. 51, 2.
[Footnote] 6) Translation of the Atharvaveda, 841.
[Footnote] 7) x. 18. The interpretation of v. 8 is
a famous crux, see Patnī.
[Footnote] 8) xviii. 2, 25; 3, 70.
[Footnote] 9) Rv. vii. 89, 1; Av. v. 30, 14; xviii.
2, 52.
[Footnote] 10)
Religion des Veda, 571.
[Footnote] 11) viii. 8. 5.
[Footnote] 12) xxxv.
Cf. also Kauśika Sūtra,
80
et seq., which treats the Atharvaveda
hymns, xviii. 1-3, as intended for
burning only.
[Footnote] 13) Av. v. 31, 8; x. 1, 18; Taittirīya
Saṃhitā, v. 2, 8, 5; 4, 11, 3.
[Footnote] 14) Rv. x. 16, 7.
[Footnote] 15) Rv. x. 16, 4. But
aja may mean
‘the unborn part,’ as Weber prefers
to take it, Proceedings of the Berlin
Academy, 1895, 847.
[Footnote] 16) xii. 2, 48.
[Footnote] 17) Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, iv. 6, 1, 1;
xi. 1, 8, 6; xii. 8, 3, 31.
Cf. Av. xi. 3, 32.
This fact probably explains the use of
śeṣaḥ in Rv. x. 16, 5. The dead enjoy
sexual pleasures in the next world;
see Muir,
Sanskrit Texts, 5, 307, n. 462.
[Footnote] 18) Rv. x. 16, 3.
[Footnote] 19) Av. v. 19, 14.
[Footnote] 20) Av. v. 19, 12; see Roth,
Festgruss an Böhtlingk, 98; Bloomfield,
American Journal of Philology, 12, 416.
Cf. Zimmer,
Altindisches Leben, 401-
407; Roth,
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 8, 468
et seq.; Siebenzig Lieder, 150
et seq.; Olden-
berg,
Religion des Veda, 570
et seq.; Caland,
Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche; von Schroeder,
Indiens Literatur und Cultur, 40-42;
Hillebrandt,
Vedische Mythology, 3, 413-
423;
Rituallitteratur, 87
et seq.; Mac-
donell,
Vedic Mythology, 165, 166; Pro-
ceedings of the Berlin Academy, 1895,
815
et seq.