Idea of Ahimsa and Asceticism in Ancient Indian Tradition

Author(s): Bansidhar Bhatt
Publisher: B J Institute

Page 23

14
THE IDEA OF AHMSĂ ....
transferring death-impurity and accepting purity is found in an episode of Praja pati and the seasons and the months. The seasons and the months as priests felt themselves cumbersome after having eaten the food and accepted the gifts in Praja pati's sacrifice. They in turn became the dikşitas and invited Prajapati as their priest in the sacrifice. At the end, both parties became balanced, firmly established in each other (cf. Ait.B. 4.25; Heesterman-1 pp.26-27; Heesterman-2 p.10).
The later idea of punar-mộtyu - recurring death - seems to have originated on the basis of ritual ceremonies which involved a sort of reciprocal obligation of the sacrificer-priest-axis for transferring and reversing death-evils, impurities, etc. Here lies also an origin of the later upanisa dic idea of transmigration of the soul and the mystery of the karma theory. Their development will be shown in course of the following discussions.
The mechanism of the ritual was rendered in a later phase more sophisticated with two rival parties competing with each other to win the sacrificial bounty. The deva-asura contests and the Season-Month and Praja pati contests should be evaluated from this perspective. Employment of the rival parties was also required for balancing their establishments ( Heesterman-2 pp. 1-10). Since the mutual dependence on each other could not yield an absolute benefit to any of the parties in the sacrifice, the system of rival-parties was eliminated and the sacrificial mechanism was made functioning only on one single party, the yaja mana himself, without involving anybody else. This is evident in the Prajapati-Mrtyu contest in the Jaim. B. (2.69-70; also PB 16.7), wherein Prajapati discovered the sampat (symolical) and samkhyana (numerical) equivalence and replaced thereby Mityu (death) who was to become Prajapati's participant in in rituals ( Heesterman-1 pp. 19-20, 27). The knowledge of equivalence and the single-yajamana concepts came into being for conquerring the recurring deaths (cf. SB. 10.5.2.23; 10.6.5.8; BĀ. Up: 1.2.5). As such, evils and impurities remained at a lower level of the hierarchy and the problem of their transfer or reversal ceased altogether. Heesterman calls it an individualization of the rituals.
6. Mrs.S.S.Dange's attempts in tracing non-Vedic rituals in the non
Aryan cultures on the basis of rivalry in sacrifices lack proper study of the Vedic rituals, see her views in: "Some non-Vedic Rituals in the Vedic Tradition", All-India Oriental Conference Proceedings, Poona 1987, pp. 163-168.