The Rig Veda: An Anthology

This section contains six hymns focusing on death and funeral rites, reflecting the mythology and ritual surrounding early Vedic society’s treatment of the dead. The first poem (10.14) is a hymn urging Yama, the king of the dead, to grant happiness and health to the deceased in the afterworld. The poet invites Yama and the ancestors to the sacrifice, where the sacred drink Soma and a butter-rich oblation are offered to them with a prayer that the deceased’s survivors may live a long and happy life. Yama was the first man to die and lead the way to the afterlife; he rules the realm of the dead where the ancestors now dwell. The poet instructs the dead man to go forth and unite with Yama, the ancient fathers, and “the rewards of your sacrifices and good deeds, in the highest heaven” (44). Running past Yama’s four-eyed guard dogs, the deceased reaches heaven and receives a new body.

In the second hymn (10.16), the poet implores Agni, the personified sacrificial fire, to gently consume the dead man and return him to his ancestors. The poet alternately addresses Agni and the cremated corpse in this funeral liturgy. Paradoxically, the fire consumes, makes whole, and frees the dead man. The poet urges Agni not to devour the flesh of the deceased, but to cook him perfectly, while the dead man should cover himself with fat as a protection against the god’s raging flame. After offering Agni a goat as his portion of the sacrifice, the poet prays that the deceased’s eyes return to the sun and his breath to the wind, from whence they came. The poet-priest then banishes flesh-eating Agni to Yama, king of the dead, and kindles a new fire, through which Agni carries the purified sacrificial offering to the gods. Quenching this fire, the poet asks Agni to revivify the burnt ground with water-loving plants, causing life to sprout at the end of the funeral.

The “Burial Hymn” (10.18) is a benediction to the deceased and his mourners, describing the process of burying the corpse and encouraging the grieving family to return to the living. The poet begins by banishing death and consecrating the mourners, who he hopes will live long lives, “clean and worthy of sacrifice, swollen with offspring and wealth” (52). He marks off the world of death with a wall, so that the living may survive to old age and married women may attract their husbands with their beauty. The poet calls the widow, lying beside the corpse of her husband, to return to the world of the living. He enjoins the earth to receive the deceased’s body gently, like a house dripping with butter, and lays a clod of earth upon the corpse. After consigning the dead to his ancestors’ protection in the house Yama builds for him, the poet ends by anticipating his own burial, cutting his speech short lest he say something ill-omened.

In the “Funeral Hymn” (10.154), a short poem of five verses, the poet prays that the deceased may go to the realm of the religious—“those who are reborn through sacred heat” (55). The poet-priest distinguishes between the gods who drink Soma and the semi-divine ancestors who receive butter, praying that the dead man ascends to the higher level of the afterlife. Religious devotees and heroic warriors, those made invincible through their spiritual practice or by sacrificing their bodies in battle, occupy a privileged place in the afterworld. This realm is also for truth-loving poets who have cultivated the inner sacred heat (tapas) through intense discipline.

“The Boy and the Chariot” (10.135) dramatizes a cryptic conversation between a son and his deceased father. Longing reunite with his father, the son visualizes him among the ancestors under the tree where Yama drinks Soma with the gods. The father replies that his son, through his desire for his father, has made a new chariot that can travel in all directions. The son has unknowingly climbed into it, carrying a funeral chant to the heaven of the dead. The poet concludes by invoking Yama, whose dwelling place among the dead is the paradisal home of the gods.

The last hymn in this section, “A Spell to Turn Back the Departing Spirit” (10.45) is a litany of ritual incantations to draw the dying man’s spirit back into his body. The poet calls upon the heart, mind, and life-spirit of the dying soul to return from wherever it has departed to—the sky, the earth, the ocean, the plants, the sun, the dawn, the mountains, the universe, or beyond—and dwell again in the living human body.