Gods and Men in Vedic Ritualism: Toward a Hierarchy of Resemblance

Author(s): Brian K. Smith

Source: History of Religions , May, 1985, Vol. 24, No. 4 (May, 1985), pp. 291-307
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1062304

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 Brian K. Smith GODS AND MEN IN
VEDIC RITUALISM:
TOWARD A
HIERARCHY OF
RESEMBLANCE

GODS AND MEN

In rituals the world over, participants are often thought to

ontological change during the course of the ceremony.
something other than, or more than, they once were. As E
say, they become "sacred," at least for the duration of the
paradoxically, "by manifesting the sacred, any object be
thing else, yet it continues to remain itself."'
In Vedic India, the time distinguished by the ideology
mance of the fire sacrifices, this sacrality of the ritual par
expressed in terms of their divinity. Men were said "t
Brahmin priests were regarded as "human gods" (mdnus

This article was presented, in a somewhat different form, at a m

Columbia University Seminar on Oriental Thought and Religion, Mar
thanks to the participants of the seminar and to David Carpenter, M
Bruce Lincoln, Barbara Stoler Miller, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, and
for their comments on earlier drafts. All translations are mine unless otherwise
indicated.
I Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), p. 12.

? 1985 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

0018-2710/85/2404-0001$01.00

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292 Vedic Ritualism

were to be propitiated in the sacrifice along with other divinities:

"There are two kinds of gods. For the gods [are gods] and the Brahmins
who have studied and teach are human gods. The sacrifice of these
[sacrificers] is divided into two: oblations [are sacrifices] to the gods
and sacrificial fees [daksinas] [are sacrifices] to the human gods, the
Brahmins who have studied and teach. With oblations one pleases the
gods, with sacrificial fees one pleases the human gods, the Brahmins
who have studied and teach. Both these kinds of gods, when pleased,
place him in a condition of well-being" (Satapatha Brahmana 2.2.2.6).
The sacrificer also attained to a divine state as he was transformed in
the preliminary rites from an ordinary man into a god: "He passes
from the world of men to the world of the gods" (SB 1.1.1.4). Hubert
and Mauss, writing about the dTksita or one who has been consecrated
for a soma sacrifice, note that, "once his divine nature has been pro-
claimed, it confers upon him the rights and imposes upon him the
duties of a god."2
The sacrifice was thought to procure for the sacrificer a place in the
"heavenly world" (svarga loka) and obtain for him a "divine self"
(daiva atman) in that world after death. But the trip to heaven and the
attainment of divinity were also to be realized at every performance of
the ritual. For Vedic ritualism, it would seem, man became god in this
life (within the confines of the sacrifice) as well as in the next.
How are we to understand these claims of equivalence between the
human and the divine? I will argue here that, despite first appearances,
men and gods were kept ontologically distinct within a hierarchical
order of mutually resembling, but fundamentally separate, forms. The
divine self and the heavenly world constructed for men by sacrificial
work were but resembling counterparts to unconstructed prototypical
models, not true equals of them. And this ontological and soteriological
hierarchy was complementary to other hierarchical orders within
Vedic ritualism, all of which were based on the same organizational
principles.

THE SACRIFICIAL JOURNEY TO HEAVEN

The sacrificer attains to his daiva atman and svarga loka as p

ritual process the ancient Indian texts often liken to a kind of jo
the sacrifice itself playing the role of vehicle. The sacrificial
follows the course of the ritual procedure that Hubert and Maus

2 Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function, tra
Hall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), p. 21; cf. Sylvain Levi's
that "l'homme se fait surhumain" (La Doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brahma
Ernest Leroux, 1898], p. 9).

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History of Religions 293

described as a curve. It begins with a rising sacrality as the ritual

"ascends" toward heaven, reaches a peak coincident with the principal
oblation and equated with the "arrival" at the svarga loka, and then
begins a "descent" or a set of "exit rites" from the sacred world. This
curve is followed by both the sacrificer and the object sacrificed, the
two being linked by bandhus or connections, and, indeed, all objects
and personages of the sacrifice are carried along the same ascending
and descending path.3
In order to reach this world of heaven, the sacrificer is sometimes
said to adopt the form of a bird during the ritual, the chants (samans)
serving as wings (Paficavims,a Brahmana 5.1.10, 5.3.5; Aitareya
Brahmana 3.25). More often, however, it is the ritual as a whole,
the yajna, that acts as the vehicle in which the sacrificer is carried
to yonder world. It is the yajna, and not the sacrificer, that is re-
garded as a bird (SB 4.1.2.25). Elsewhere the sacrifice is said to be a
cart (anas) (gB 3.9.3.3), the two sacrificial spoons are "yokemates"
(yujas) (SB 1.8.3.27), or the meters of the ritual utterances are likened
to harnessed cattle who draw the sacrifice to the world of the gods
(SB 4.4.3.1).
Another image frequently drawn on depicts the sacrifice as a ship
(nau). The priests are its spars (sphyas) and oars (aritas), "the convey-
ances to the heavenly world. If there is one blameworthy [priest], even
that one [only] would make it sink. And, truly, every sacrifice is a
heavenly bound ship. Therefore one ought to keep a blameworthy
[priest] away from every sacrifice" (gB 4.2.5.10). In another instance,
other elements of the ritual are regarded as important parts of the
sacrificial vessel: "The agnihotra sacrifice is a ship bound for heaven.
The ahavanTya fire and the garhapatya fire are the two sides of that
heavenly bound ship, the agnihotra. The captain of the ship is the
priest who offers the milk oblation [ksTrahotr]" (9B 2.3.3.15). While
the sacrifice is thus a "divine ship" in the Brahmanas (cf. Jaiminiya
Brahmana 1.166), in the Upanisadic critique of ritualism in light of the
new emphasis on mystical knowledge alone the sacrifices are said to be

3 "The religious condition of the sacrifier thus also describes a curve symmetrical to
the one traced by the victim. He begins by rising progressively into the religious sphere,
and attains a culminating point, whence he descends again into the profane. So each
one of the creatures and objects that play a part in the sacrifice is drawn along as if in a
continuous movement which, from entry to exit, proceeds along two opposing slopes."
(Hubert and Mauss, p. 48.) Compare Levi's description of the sacrificial journey
(pp. 130-31): "Les deux temps de l'operation correspondent aux deux movements du
sacrifiant: ascension au ciel et retour sur la terre. Le sacrifiant monte au ciel pour
s'assurer un corps divin et immortel; en retour, il fait abandon aux dieux de son corps
humain et p6rissable. Puis, sa place marqu6e et retenue au ciel, il aspire a redescendre
et rachete le corps qui'il avait sacrifi6."

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294 Vedic Ritualism

"leaky vessels" (plava adrdha), unsafe for the true voyage to moksa or
liberation from karman (Mundaka Upanisad 1.2.7).
Perhaps the most common image for the sacrifice as vehicle is that
which compares the ritual to a chariot (ratha). In the KausTtaki
Brahmana the sacrifice is a "chariot of the gods" (devaratha), the
introductory and concluding rites the two matching sides: "He who
makes them equal to one another, just as one can make a journey as
desired by driving a chariot with two sides, so safely he reaches the
world of heaven" (7.7). Similarly, the agnihotra sacrifice should be
performed after sunrise, according to one authority, so that it will be
like a chariot with both wheels: "Day and night are the wheels of the
year; truly, with them he goes through the year. If he offers before
sunrise, it is as if one were to go with [a chariot with] one wheel. But if
he offers after sunrise, it is as if one were swiftly to make a journey with
[a chariot with] both wheels" (AB 5.30).4
The sacrifice must be a sturdy, complete, and safely operated
"vehicle" because the ascension to heaven entails difficulty and danger.
"He ascends the difficult ascension [durohana]. The difficult ascension
is indeed the world of heaven" (AB 4.20). In one sense the difficulty
involved is the necessity to replicate the gods' paradigmatic sacrifice.
Men are called on to imitate the perfect sacrifices of the gods in their
own rituals, as is indicated by the programmatic statement, "It was
done thus by the gods. So it is done by men" (TaittirTya Brahmana
1.5.9.4). "Perfection" (samrddha or sampanna) is an attribute of the
gods, not of men. The human condition is often portrayed as the exact
opposite of the divine. In contrast to the perfection that characterizes
the gods and their heavenly locale, the earthly and human (manusya) is
said to be "imperfect" or "unsuccessful" (vyrddha) (SB 1.4.1.35). "What
is 'no' for the gods is 'yes' for them," says another Brahmana (AB 3.5)
by way of emphasizing the utter difference between the two ontological
conditions. In several passages we read that satya, here in the sense of
ritual exactitude, is a quality of the gods, while anrta ("error" or "dis-
order") is the distinguishing quality of things human (fB 1.1.2.17,
3.3.2.2, 3.9.4.1).
Although there are consecration rites to elevate temporarily man to
godlike status within the sacrifice, the fact that the Brahmanas refer to
the sacrificial process as a darohana or difficult ascension indicates

4 For the sacrifice as chariot, cf. Pan. Br. 16.1.13, where the sacrificial fees (daksinas)
are likened to "internal fastenings" (slesmas); Pan. Br. 8.5.16, where the chants (samans)
are said to be "reins" (rasmi); AB 2.37, comparing the recitations (sastras) to the "inner
reins" (antara rasmi); and esp. Jaim. Br. 1.129-30, where an elaborate metaphor links
the parts of the sacrifice to the parts of a chariot.

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 History of Religions 295

that there was more than a little worry that man could never quite shed
his humanity and truly replicate the perfect sacrifices of his divine
counterparts. Ritual exactitude was an ideal rather than a realizable
goal for the Vedic ritualists. There were simply too many things that
could go wrong. The sacrifice was always inclined to fall apart (skanna),
be cut (chinna), break (bhinna), or shatter (bhagna) or to become
defiled (dusta), inverted (viparTta), or defective (hTna), as one list
enumerates (Baudhayana Srauta Sutra 28.10). Thus, in one regard, it
is precisely the demand for exactitude and perfection that renders the
sacrificial ascension so difficult. As Walter Kaelber writes in his study
of the durohana, "In fact, the intricacies of the ritual constitute the
greatest source of danger for the sacrificer. No detail may be over-
looked, no act incorrectly performed .... Precisely because these ritual
intricacies characterize the entire sacrificial scenario, there can be little
question that it constitutes a difficult passage in every sense."5
The gods, through their superior aptitude and techniques, arrived
at their immortal condition and heavenly residence by successfully
avoiding the multitude of dangers and reaching heaven at the end of
the sacrificial journey. Certain rites and ritual utterances have this
elevating power, as was proven by the success they had in procuring
heaven for the gods: "By means of this the gods went to the world of
heaven; one who desires the world of heaven should use it for reach-
ing the world of heaven" (Pan. Br. 2.6.2; cf. 2.12.2, 2.15.2, 3.2.2, etc.).
The differences between gods and men, however, place obstacles in
the way of reaching this world, the culmination of the sacrificial
process, just as they make so difficult the perfect execution of ritual
action that makes possible the attainment of the goal. "The world of
the gods [deva loka] is concealed [antarhita] from the world of men.
'It is not easy to depart from this world,' they say. 'For who knows if
he is in the yonder world or not?"' (Taittiriya Samhita 6.1.1.1).
The journey to heaven is thus no easy thing. One needs not only to
"fall away from this world"-to leave the world of men-but also to
"arrive" at the heavenly world and establish the sacrifice where it "has
its only [true] foundation [pratistha], its one [true] end [nidhana]"
(SB 8.7.4.6). Rites and mantras are for ascending to the world of
heaven and, once there, for establishing the sacrifice and the sacrificer
in that world in such a way that they do not "slip" or "fall" from it
(see, e.g., Pan. Br. 2.6.2; Kaus. Br. 8.2). The ascent is not only diffi-
cult but also perilous. "Dangerous [varana] indeed are the paths that

5 Walter 0. Kaelber, "The 'Dramatic' Element in Brahmanic Initiation: Symbols of

Death, Danger, and Difficult Passage," History of Religions 18 (1978): 63. Compare
Levi, pp. 123-24: "Dans ce d6dale de prescriptions minutieuses 1'erreur est aisee et les
consequences en sont terribles. Le danger est partout qui guette le sacrifiant."

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296 Vedic Ritualism

lie between heaven and earth" (9B 2.3.4.37). The sacrifice is considered
"razor sharp" (ksurapavi), and success or failure is unequivocal:
"Suddenly he becomes full of merit [punya] or perishes" (Taitt. Sam.
2.5.5.6; cf. Katha Upanisad 3.14). The gB refers to the "wilds and
abysses of the sacrifice" (yajn~iranydni yajnakrntatraini) and warns,
"if any venture into them not knowing the ropes, then hunger and
thirst, evil doers and fiends harass them, even as fiends would harass
foolish men wandering in a wild forest" (12.2.3.12). The path to the
other world lies between ever-burning flames. "They scorch him who
deserves to be scorched and allow him to pass who deserves to pass"
(gB 1.9.3.2).
But if the sacrificial journey to heaven is a "difficult ascension" and
a dangerous passage, the perils to the sacrificer do not cease when he
has attained his final goal at the climax of the ritual. Paradoxically,
the very success of the sacrifice, the winning of the svarga loka at the
summit of the sacrificial journey, is itself another part of the difficulty
and danger. It is from this world of heaven that the results or "fruits"
of the sacrifice are generated, for "the world of heaven is universal
sovereignty [svardj]" (Pan. Br. 4.6.24). But the attainment to this
world places man in a world in which he cannot, in his mortal state,
survive. A myth of origins explains why this is so: "Death spoke to
the gods. 'Now surely all men will be immortal. What will be my
share?' They said, 'From now on no one will become immortal with
the body [SarTra]. Only when you have taken that as your share will
he become immortal, either through ritual [karman] or knowledge
[vidya]' " (B 10.4.3.9).6
Because of this pact with Death at the beginning, in illo tempore,
only the disembodied win immortality and a place in heaven on a
more permanent basis. The sacrificial journey places the sacrificer in
that world only temporarily, reserving the spot in heaven that will be
assumed again after death. What I want to point out here is that the
sacrificial journey must be a two-way trip. For if the sacrificer does
exactly what the gods did and wins the heavenly world in the course
of the ritual but does not subsequently descend from that world, he
would, the texts assure us, die. Death would take its share, the mortal
body of the sacrificer. The gods "reached these worlds" through the
sacrifice, and "having reached these worlds by means of this, they

6 One is reminded here of the story of King Trisanku, who attempted to gain forcible
entry into heaven without shedding the physical body. His effort was strongly resisted
by the gods, and the king was eventually positioned halfway between earth and heaven,
suspended, head downward, as a constellation in the sky. (See Ramayana 1.56-59;
Visnu Purina 4.3.14-15.)

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History of Religions 297

finished the sacrificial session" (Pan. Br. 15.11.5); that is to say, they
did not descend again from the svarga loka. The human sacrificer
does not end the ritual at its highest point but rather embarks on the
second half of the procedure, regarded as a descent from this world
the sacrificer has so laboriously won. Heaven, having been attained,
is quickly renounced.7
The Brahmanas are quite blunt in their warnings to those who spurn
a round-trip ticket and do not descend from the svarga loka. The
sacrificer must descend or "fall away from this world" (Kaus. Br. 7.9);
he who does not leave heaven would "go to the farthest distance"
(Pan. Br. 15.7.2). Those who, like the gods, perform the ritual "in the
forward direction only" without the subsequent rites of descent may
"win the world of heaven, but they will not have long to live in this
world" (AB 4.2). They "vanish from this world" (Pan. Br. 4.3.5-6,
6.8.17-18). The danger of remaining in the world of heaven is particu-
larly acute for the royal sacrificer, the king who rules over this world.
In the rajasaya sacrifice the king must "go to the world of heaven"
first but then be sure to return to the earth, which is his "firm founda-
tion": "In that he is consecrated by the rajasiya, he ascends to the
world of heaven. If he did not descend to this world he would either
depart to a region which lies beyond [all] human beings, or he would
go mad. In that there is that sacrifice for shaving the hair [the
kesavapanTya] with reversed chants, [this serves] for not leaving this
world. Just as he would descend [from a tree], grabbing branch after
branch, so he descends by this [rite] to this world. [It serves, then] for
attaining a firm foundation" (Pan. Br. 18. 10. 10). In sum, men who
fail to return to their former state "go unto Prajapati," a euphemism
for death (Pan. Br. 4.8.9).
The sacrificial prototype-the heaven-procuring ritual of the gods-
is not ordinarily to be wholly replicated by men any more than the
exactitude of the divine ritual can be completely and literally realized
by the human sacrificer. Just as perfection in the sense of exactitude
must be viewed both in its transcendent or prototypical form and in
its relative, immanent manifestations or counterparts here on earth,
so too must the perfection represented as the "heavenly world" be
analyzed into its ideal and relatively realized forms. The full realiza-
tion of perfection is not for the human and the earthly; thus Levi's

7 See Levi's comment, p. 88: "Le m6canisme du sacrifice est clairement r6present6
par le rite du durohana, 'lascension difficile.' I1 se resume en deux periodes, l'une
ascendante, l'autre descendante. I1 s'agit d'l1evar d'abord le sacrifiant au monde celeste;
mais la terre a ses charmes, et le sacrifiant ne demande pas a la quitter trop tot. Assure
de l'immortalit6 a venir par la premiere operation, il reprend par la seconde operation
sa place entre le vivants."

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298 Vedic Ritualism

comment that "the true voyage to heaven is not accomplished until

after death" and that "the only authentic sacrifice would be suicide."8
And, as the gB warns, the premature death of one who is overeager
to reside in the world of heaven is counterproductive: "One ought not
to yield to his own desire and pass away before [he has attained] the
full extent of life, for [such a shortening of life on earth] does not
make for the heavenly world" (10.2.6.7). The realization of the heav-
enly world and divinity within the sacrifice of humans transformed
temporarily into "gods" is, again, a kind of counterpart or resembling
form of the realization of svarga loka and the daiva atman on com-
pletion of life on earth.
We have seen that the svarga loka attained during the course of the
ritual process is not only difficult to reach-it is not simply a world
fraught with danger for the sacralized but still mortal sacrificer-but
also only a constructed and temporary counterpart to the transcen-
dental world of the gods strictu sensu.9 But perhaps it is the case that
the world of the gods awaits the sacrificer after death. Perhaps the
daiva atman the sacrificer fabricates for himself through ritual action
is indeed a full-fledged divinity for those who shed the body and take
the final and one-way trip to heaven, having given Death his share.
Can men become gods after death, if not in this life? Is the world of
heaven attained by the sacrificer at the end of his life the same "world"
as is occupied by the Vedic deities?

8 Ibid., pp. 93, 133. While the general Vedic position forbids suicide, there seems to
be an interesting exception. An example of a ritual performed "in the forward direction
only" is that of the sarvasvara sacrifice described in several Brahmanas and grauta
Sutras. It is a ritual apparently meant for an old man, probably an accomplished
ritualist, "who is desirous of having an end to his life" (Katyayana grauta Sutra 22.6.1).
When various chants designed to make "him go to the endless, to yonder world," or
"from this world to the world of heaven" (Pan. Br. 17.12.3, 4) are completed, the
sacrificer lies down with his head covered while another chant is recited over him.
"And he dies at that time.... The rites of the sarvasvara come to an end as soon as the
sacrificer dies as there is no purpose of sacrifice left to be achieved" (Katyayana Srauta
Sutra 22.6.6-8). Another text goes so far as to instruct as to what one should do if,
perchance, death does not arrive at that time: "If he lives, he should perform the final
oblation of the soma sacrifice and, thereupon, seek his death by starving" (Latyayana
Srauta Sitra 8.8.40).
9 For this point, see Jean-Marie Verpoorten's description of the transcendent or
prototypical svarga loka "oui regne une unite qui n'a rien d'un agr6gat construit, mais
est celle d'un tout indivisible. Chez les dieux, rien qui soit ndna, vikrsta, '6parpill6.'
Tout es 'parfait,' samrddha." The counterpart heaven made by human ritual construc-
tion is characterized by samdna, the "constructed unity of parts." "Quant au samdna, il
se situe, a l'instar des hommes dont il est le lot, a michemin entre la distinction et
l'unit6 sans parties.... Samina est... le chiffre de l'homme et de son activit6 rituelle.
11 tient le mileau entre le nana ["multiplicity"] qui est sa condition, et l'eka ["oneness"]
qui est son modele." ("Unite et distinction dans les speculations rituelles v6dique,"
Archiv fur Begriffsgeschichte 21 [1977]: 76, 84.)

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History of Religions 299

LIFE AFTER DEATH: VEDIC CONCEPTIONS OF HEAVEN

AND THE DIVINE SELF

The gods are in permanent possession of immortality

Man, on the other hand, "depends on his own (ritual)
karman," writes Jan Heesterman.'1 Or as the SB put
born into a world [loka] made by himself" (6.2.2.7). M
(his daiva atman) is forged by the ontological power o
his heavenly world is also made by sacrificial labor, b
reached in every successful sacrifice and the heaven
sacrificer finally attains after death.
Perhaps it would be better to translate the terms at
not as "self" and "world" but as "character" and "stat
tively. The atman in Vedic texts before the Upanisads
conjunction of personality, individuality, self, and bod
corporeal and the spiritual sense and in the role of t
society." The daiva atman, then, refers to the extraco
tion of the atman in a loka other than the earthly on
"world" in the sense of ontological condition, status,
influence. The loka is thus the arena in which the at
"locus" or "level of reference."12 It is sacrifice that establ
foundation" in various ontological spaces for the sacrif
the "world of men" (minusya loka), that is, he realiz
tialities and social standing in this world, and he gai
"heavenly world" (svarga loka) that he inhabits after
conditions are constructed through the rituals he perf
ontological places are in some ways equivalent. The ea
tions of life are an accurate index of the conditions on
to find in the particular heavenly world, for the two
counterparts of each other. "Svarga loka," writes Jan
something or some state which could be, or had to be
the effects of the ritual acts of the sacrificer .... The con
for convenience may be called 'immortality' belongs
concerned already in his earthly existence, before his

10 J. C. Heesterman, "Brahmin, Ritual and Renouncer," Wiener Z

Kunde Siud- und Ostasiens 8 (1964): 15.
1I For the Vedic concept of atman, see H. G. Narahari, Atman in
Literature (Adyar: Adyar Library, 1944); and Louis Renou, "On th
Vak 2 (1952): 151-57.
12 "The whole world, or universe (viSvam) ... corresponds to the ens
sibilities of manifestation, whether informal, formal, or sensible; a w
is a given ensemble of possibilities, a given modality" (Ananda K.
"Vedic Exemplarism," Harvard Journal of Asian Studies 1 [1936]: 45

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300 Vedic Ritualism

svarga loka."13 "Yonder world is the corresponding form [anurupa]

of this world," notes one text, and "this world is the corresponding
form of that" (AB 8.2). Because the two worlds "correspond," the
svarga loka is realized in this ontological setting. In this world, as
Paul Mus puts it, there is "the anticipated image, or the real base of
the other world and of the immortality in that beyond."'4
Because the svarga loka that men enter with daiva atmans is,
like other lokas, ritually made, sacrificers with different capabilities
(different "characters" correlative to their competency or adhikara)
realize different "heavens" and different "divine selves" both within the
sacrifice and after death. In this universe of resemblances and inter-
connected forms and counterforms, the complex atman-yajna-loka
projected simultaneously on different ontological planes. The atm
that is constructed/represented in the sacrifice is a construction
representation of the atman in this world (the sacrificer's social
persona) and in the other world (the sacrificer's daiva atman). In li
manner, the sacrificer's "world" is at once the sacrificial world, th
earthly world in the sense of social standing, and also the particu
heavenly world that is reached temporarily at every sacrifice an
attained after death on a more lasting basis. Both loka and atma
then, are particularized conceptions linked to the particular sacrifi
who fabricates them in his ritual activity. Svarga loka and daiva
atman are not unitary concepts but are tailored to fit individua
sacrificers.
The Rg Vedic hymns seem to reflect a belief in a future life in t
same world as that occupied by the gods; one attains proximity
and eternal communion with the deities of the Vedic pantheon.'5 B
in post-Rg Vedic sacrificial texts, the svarga loka becomes multip
and individually shaped. A cynical view of this innovation is given
A. B. Keith, who writes that in later texts there are "diverse degr
of good acquired by different modes of sacrifice": "It was obvious
necessary to admit that every sacrificer would receive reward b
admission to the happiness of the world to come, but the Brahma
had to consider the claims of the richer of the patrons, and had
promise them more in the world to come than the poorer, who offere

13 Jan Gonda, Loka, the World and Heaven in the Veda, Verhandelingen d
Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkund, Nieuw
Reeks, Deel 73, no. I (Amsterdam: N. V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeure Maatschap
1966), p. 97.
14 Paul Mus, Barabadur: Esquisse d'une histoire du Bouddhisme fonde sur la critique
archeologique des textes (Paris and Hanoi: Paul Geuthner, 1935), pp. 135-36.
15 The fullest depiction of the Rg Vedic concept of heaven occurs at RV 9.113.7-11;
cf. RV 10.14.10-12.

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History of Religions 301

and gave less."'6 A somewhat less jaded view of the shift from an
egalitarian reward system to the hierarchical one is reflected in Paul
Deussen's summary of the Brahmanical calibration of heavens with
individual sacrificers: "The chief aim of the Brahmanas is to prescribe
the acts of ritual, and to offer for their accomplishment a manifold
reward, and at the same time sufferings and punishment for their
omission. While they defer rewards as well as punishments partly to
the other world, in place of the ancient Vedic conception of an indis-
criminate felicity of the pious, the idea of recompense is formulated,
involving the necessity of setting before the departed different degrees
of compensation in the other world proportionate to their knowledge
and actions." 7
In the early Upanisads the lokas composing the universe are many,
indicating that by this time at the latest there was a multitude of
possible ontological and soteriological spaces or situations. There is
first of all a distinction made between the deva loka or the "world of
the gods" and the pitr loka or "world of the ancestors."'8 But in the
Chandogya Upanisad (8.2) we also learn of "worlds" of mothers, of
brothers, of sisters, of friends, of scents and garlands, of food and
drink, of song and music, and of women. Elsewhere (Brhad-Aranyaka
Upanisad 4.3.33; cf. Taittiriya Upanisad 2.8) there is provided a map
to the ontological hierarchy of worlds and inhabitants of them:

If one is fortunate among men, wealthy, a lord over others, well provided
with all human enjoyments, that is the most perfect [sampannata] bliss
[ananda] of men. Now one hundred times the bliss of men is one bliss of
those who have won the world of the ancestors [pitr loka]. One hundred
times the bliss of those who have won the world of the ancestors is one bliss
in the world of the demigods [gandharvas]. One hundred times the bliss in the
world of the demigods is one bliss of the gods created by ritual work [karma

16 Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads,
2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), p. 572.
17 Paul Deussen, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, trans. A. S. Geden (New York:
Dover Publications, 1966), p. 324.
18 Already in the RV (e.g., 10.18.1, 10.2.7, 10.15.1-2) and the Ath. Sam (e.g., 18.4.62)
the "path" leading to the world of the ancestors is distinguished from that leading to
the deva loka. In the SB the gate to the deva loka is said to be in the northeast
(6.6.2.4), while that to the pitr loka is located in the southwest (13.8.1.5). As opposed
to the celestial locale of the gods' world, the ancestors live in the atmosphere or middle
space between heaven and earth (they take the form of birds, according to Baudhayana
Dharma Sutra 2.14.9-10) or in the earth (see RV 10.16.3; SB 13.8.1.20). In the
Upanisads, the pitr loka is associated with the moon, darkness, sacrificial action, and
rebirth (the world of the ancestors being a way station in the recycling of souls), while
the deva loka is connected with the sun, light, mystical knowledge, and eternal libera-
tion (see Br. Ar. Up. 6.2.15-16; Chan. Up. 4.15.5-6, 5.10.1-3; KausTtaki Upanisad 1.2).

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302 Vedic Ritualism

devas]. One hundred times the bliss of the gods created by ritual work is one
bliss of the gods by birth [ajana devas].... One hundred times the bliss of
the gods by birth is one bliss in the world of Prajapati.... One hundred
times the bliss in the world of Prajapati is one bliss in the world of
Brahma.... This truly is the highest world.

This passage emphasizes the difference between the "world" and the
"bliss" of the so-called gods created by ritual work and those of the
gods by birth. Here we have a clear and unequivocal distinction
between divinity constructed and divinity eternally possessed. Again
we see that there is no confusion between prototypical deities and the
counterpart available to men who make their own divine status
through sacrifice.
Still more specifically shaped are the worlds of punishments for the
wrongdoer, the naraka lokas in contradistinction to the svarga lokas
(see Atharva Veda Samhita 12.4.36). In general, hell is considered the
opposite of heaven. It is a realm of darkness, whereas the heavenly
world is one of light. A person who reviles, strikes, and draws blood
from a Brahmin apparently is sent to the naraka loka, for he "will not
see the world of the ancestors for as many years as are the grains of
dust on which the blood falls" (Taitt. Sam. 2.6.10.2). Those who spit
on a Brahmin, or flick on him the mucus from the nose, spend their
afterlife sitting in a stream of blood, devouring their hair for food
(Ath. Sam. 5.19.3). Those who consume food in this world without
first sacrificing some of it will enter specific hells, "for whatever food
a man eats in this world, by the very same is he eaten again in the
other [world]" (gB 12.9.1.1; cf. Kaus. Br. 11.3). In the myth of Bhrgu's
journey to various hells (Jaim. Br. 1.42-44; gB 11.6.1.1-13), lokas
are described in which the punishment fits the crime. Those who in
this life cut down trees without sacrificing in the sacred fire are eaten
by those trees after death in one loka. In another, those who cook
animals for themselves without sacrificing are consumed by those
animals, and in yet another world, unsacrificed rice and barley feed
on the transgressor.19
In sacrificial Vedism, one obtains a "good" loka through ritual
activity, a "bad" one through misdeeds or failure to perform good
deeds. In this sense Levi is right when he observes, "The good act is
the act that conforms to the cultic prescriptions; the bad act is the act
that transgresses those prescriptions."20 The sacrificer at death goes

19 For a translation and analysis of the Jaim. Br. variant of this myth, see Wendy
Doniger O'Flaherty, Tales of Sex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the
JaiminTya Brdhmana (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
20 Levi (n. 2 above), p. 100.

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History of Religions 303

to the sky or the earth-perhaps an allusion to the deva and pitr

lokas, respectively-"according to his nature [dharma]" (RV 10.16.3).
In the SB, there is a kind of judgment that occurs in the yonder world
in which good deeds and bad deeds are weighed, although the exact
consequences of the test are not spelled out and one can apparently
stack the deck in advance: "Whatever good [sadhu] one does, that is
inside the altar; and whatever evil [asadhu] one does, that is outside
the altar. Let him therefore sit down and touch the right edge of the
altar. For in yonder world they place him on the scale, and whichever
of the two will rise that he will follow, whether it be the good or the
evil. And whoever knows this gets on the scale even in this world, and
escapes being put on the scale in yonder world. For his good action
rises, not his bad action" (SB 11.2.7.33). In the Jaim. Br. we learn
that "the good that man does during his life passes into his breaths,
the wrong into his body. When the one who knows thus departs from
this world, his good deeds rise up together with his breath and his
wrong deeds are left with his body" (Jaim. Br. 1.15). Elsewhere in
that text we read that the breath ascends to the deva loka and
"announces to the gods the quantity: 'so much good, so much ev
been done by him"' (Jaim. Br. 1.18), this evidently determinin
kind of loka the daiva itman will occupy.
If, then, the particular loka or ontological space a person inh
in the next life is to a large degree determined by the good or
sacrificial acts of the individual, this is also the case when one turn
the contours of the particular character (atman) one assumes in
particular world. The daiva atman, like the svarga loka, is a rela
tic term. As we have seen, there is a critical distinction made betw
karma devas, those who construct their divinity in the next w
through ritual acts in this one, and the so-called ajaina devas,
"gods by birth" or the eternal and unconstructed deities. The d
atman, no less than the svarga loka, is fabricated or made by
sacrificer and his officiants. In the course of the ritual, the p
construct, prepare, or perfect (sam + kr) a self for the sacrificer.2
The daiva atman is sometimes contrasted to the merely human
that is produced from the mother's womb. "There are indeed
wombs. The divine womb [deva yoni] is one, the human w
[manusya yoni] the other.... The human womb is [related to]
human world.... And the ahavanTya fire [the fire in which obl
to the gods are placed] is the divine womb, the divine world..
who knows thus has two atmans and two wombs. One atman and one

21 See, e.g., AB 6.27; Kaus Br. 3.8.

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304 Vedic Ritualism

womb has he who does not know this" (Jaim. Br. 1.17; cf. Jaiminiya
Upanisad Brahmana 1.259; SB 7.4.2.20). The sacrificer's divine self is
thus "born out of the sacrifice," that is, it is a ritual construct. Sacri-
fice specifies the particular dimensions of the daiva atman; the ritual
resume of the individual sacrificer translates into the special contours
of the divine character. "The sacrifice becomes the sacrificer's atman
in yonder world. And, truly, the sacrificer who, knowing this, per-
forms that [sacrifice] comes into existence with a whole [sarva] body"
(SB 11.1.8.6).22 The sacrificer "is united in the other world with what
he has sacrificed" (Taitt. Sam. 3.3.8.5), his ritual accomplishments on
earth the precise measure of his daiva atman. Or, as the RV puts it,
the sacrificer is joined after death to his "treasury"-a kind of savings
account in the next world composed of sacrificial deposits made
during the ritual life in this world-and to a "splendid body" of his
own making: "Unite with the fathers, with Yama, with the treasury of
your sacrifices [istiiapirta] in the highest heaven. Abandoning defects,
return home; unite with a splendid body [tanu suvarcas]" (RV 10.14.8).
Uniting with the heavenly self one has forged for himself in the
next life is not always easy. Just as there is danger involved in the
passage to the heavenly world during the ritual journey, so too is
there a certain risk involved in the transition from a human atman to
the daiva atman. Self-knowledge and recognition of one's "own world"
are necessary: "Truly, sbme one, after having left this world knows
[his] atman [saying], 'This I am.' Another one does not recognize his
own world [sva-loka]. Bewildered by the fire choked with smoke
[i.e., the fire of the funeral pyre], he does not recognize his own
world. But he who knows the savitra fire, he indeed after having left
this world knows the atman [saying], 'This I am,' and he recognizes
his own world. And then the savitra fire carries him to the heavenly
world" (TB 3.10.11.1-2).
Recognizing one's "own world" and identifying one's true divine
self is a matter of realizing and adopting the tailor-made life after
death that one has created in ritual action over the years. The collec-
tive oblation he offers, the quantity and quality of his sacrificial his-
tory, determines the daiva atman as it is transmuted from offering
into character: "Whatever oblation he sacrifices here, that becomes
his atman in the other world. When he who knows thus leaves this
world, that offering that follows him calls out to him, 'Come here.

22 For the emphasis on the "wholeness" of the new body, see Ath. Sam 11.3.32;
B 4.6.1.1, 11.1.8.6, 12.8.3.31; Jan Gonda, "Reflections on sarva- in Vedic Texts,"
Indian Linguistics 16 (1955): 53-71.

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History of Religions 305

Here I am, your [divine] atman"' (9B 11.2.2.5). Or, in another pas-
sage, it is the collective sacrificial fee (daksina) that constitutes the
particular nature of the daiva atman: "He who sacrifices sacrifices
with the desire that he may obtain a place in the world of the gods.
That sacrifice of his then goes forth toward the world of the gods.
After it follows the sacrificial fee that he gives [to the officiants], and
holding on to the sacrificial fee [follows] the sacrificer" (9B 1.9.3.1).23
Finally, we might note that there is a nutritive value to the various
sacrifices. Each of the different rituals has a different sustaining power
for the atman in the next world, the hierarchically superior sacrifices
providing more enduring sustenance than that provided by the inferior
ones:

And now for the powers of the [various] sacrifices [yajn

[regularly] performs the agnihotra eats in the evening and
yonder world, for so much sustenance is there in that sacr
[biweekly] performs the new and full moon sacrifice [eats]
He who [quarterly] performs the caturmasya [eats] ever
who [every half year] performs the animal sacrifice eats ev
who performs the soma sacrifice [yearly] [eats] every year.
the fire altar optionally eats every hundred years, or not a
is as much as immortality, unending and everlasting. [SB 1

Here we see again the notion that life in the other wor
to the sacrificial performances in this world; that
feeds on the "treasury" built up in the other world an
by the sacrificial resume of the individual sacrific
available to men is made by sacrifice and is contoure
of the individual ritual history. There is, then, a hi
tion between gods made and gods born, and within
gory there are also hierarchically ordered degrees
accordance with the ritual hierarchy here on earth.

CONCLUSION: RITUAL, RESEMBLANCE, AND HIERARCHY

We have seen that the ritually obtained divinity and heavenly wo

were not the true equivalents of the ontological and metaphysic
states of the gods. Unlike the later Upanisadic and Hindu situatio
where asceticism could be used to gain access to the divine condit
or where gods took on human form out of their grace and love f

23 The creation of the particular daiva atman and the placing of it in its appropri
space can also be compressed into a single rite (see, e.g., gB 1.8.3.1ff.).

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306 Vedic Ritualism

their devotees,24 in sacrificial Vedism the gods remained gods and

men essentially remained men. While the participants in the ritual
might become godlike for the duration of the ceremony, their funda-
mental mortality precludes anything more than a temporary, resem-
bling form of true divinity. Furthermore, they must quickly descend
from the ritually created "world of heaven," abandoning their ersatz
divinity and returning to their firm foundation here on earth: "He then
touches [the earth] with this [little finger]. Nonhuman [amanusya] he
becomes when he is selected for the office of officiant. This earth is a
firm foundation. He thereby stands on this firm foundation and he
thereby again becomes human. For this reason he touches [the earth]
with this [little finger]" (9B 1.9.1.29). And even after death the daiva
atman and svarga loka one adopts are but replicated, ritually con-
structed, and hierarchically differentiated creations of the sacrifice.
Both are calibrated according to the resume of the cumulative rituals
performed over the course of a lifetime, and both are distinguished in
all cases from the hierarchically superior, prototypical originals. The
distinction between gods made and gods born, and the "worlds"
appropriate to each, remains firm.
The hierarchical nature of Vedic ritualism is only just becoming
a part of the Indological discourse-one of the many wakes created
by Louis Dumont's seminal work on the caste system and homo
hierarchicus.25 One set of important beginnings has been taken by
J. F. Staal.26 Despite the tendentiousness of his principal thesis of the
"meaninglessness" of Vedic rituals, Staal has brought out some crucial
points regarding the ways in which rituals are systematically and
hierarchically related one to another. Concentrating on the "syntax"
(while denying any "semantics") of ritual, Staal rightly insists that
"we must start with the observation that the srauta rituals constitute a
hierarchy."27 The ritual order, as it is laid out in the Srauta Sutras,
forms a sequence of rituals moving from the simple and inferior
(those providing minimal sustenance to the daiva atman in the next

24 For an examination of the mythological and theological problems engendered by

these ideas in Hinduism, see Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu
Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 57-93, and Women,
Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980),
pp. 65-76.
25 See Louis Dumont's magnum opus, Homo Hierarchicus, complete rev. English
ed., trans. Mark Sainsbury, Louis Dumont, and Basia Gulati (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1980).
26 See esp. J. F. Staal, "Meaninglessness of Ritual," Numen 26 (1979): 2-22, and
"Ritual Syntax," in Sanskrit and Indian Studies, ed. M. Nagatomi et al. (Dordrecht:
D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979), pp. 119-42.
27 Staal, "Meaninglessness of Ritual," p. 15.

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History of Religions 307

world) to the complex and superior: "This sequence is not arbitrary.

There is increasing complexity. A person is in general only eligible to
perform a later ritual in the sequence, if he has already performed the
earlier ones. Each later ritual presupposes the former and incorporates
one or more occurrences of one or more of the former rituals. Some-
times these embedded rituals are abbreviated. In general, they undergo
modifications."28 Hierarchy here, like in the later caste hierarchy as it
is described in Dumont's work, operates on the basis of the encom-
passment of the inferior (the "embedded" and prior rituals) by the
superior and more complex.
Staal has explicitly stressed the ritual hierarchy with only passing
interest in the hierarchy of ritualists and nothing to say about the
hierarchy of ritual "fruits" or results. In Vedic ritualism, I believe,
there was a correlation-that is, a relationship of mutual resemblance-
between these three registers of the hierarchical order. There was,
then, a linkage between (1) the scale of ritual performance (the rela-
tive size, complexity, duration, and inclusivity of the sacrifice both as
an individual performance and as a collective term for a sacrificial
history), (2) the relative quality and realization of the sacrificer's
adhikara (the complex nexus of innate and acquired ability or com-
petency made up of inherent proclivities, degree of learning, prior
ritual accomplishments, wealth, desire, and willingness), and (3) the
ontological and soteriological results of the ritual. In this article I
have focused on the third of these parallel registers as a contribution
to the continuing project of delineating and coordinating the inter-
locking hierarchical orders that compose Vedic ritualism.
As Dumont has noted for the caste system, and as Staal observes
for the ritual order, hierarchy is based in part on the principle of
relative encompassment or inclusion. But as we have argued here, a
complementary principle in Vedic ritualism is resemblance, which is
often expressed in statements of apparent identity. Men "are" gods in
the sense that in certain circumstances and in certain ways men come
to resemble gods, as counterparts resemble their prototypes. Thus,
ritually constructed svarga lokas and daiva atmans more or less nearly
resemble, but are not identical to, their superior and unconstructed
models, the world and divinity of gods by birth. Divine and human
are interrelated by resemblance, but the hierarchical order of things
and beings depended on the separating aspects of resemblance as
much as it did on the connecting aspects.

Barnard College

28 Staal, "Ritual Syntax," p. 125.

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