Soul Body And Person In Ancient India

Author(s): Karin Preisendanz
Publisher: Karin Preisendanz

Page 17

words for "soul" point at notions connected with the pneumatic sphere, as he calls it. The background of this assumption is Heesterman's own, not expressly stated understanding of the Vedic arman as a 'soul in the sense of the individual human Self and thus individualized intrinsic human nature. This understanding of his is coupled with the supposition that in archaic thinking the "soul" is not uniform but multiform and divided by nature; the latter aspect explains, according to Heesterman, the many different Vedic notions of soul." The "soul," he claims in this connection, was conceived as something substantial and at the same time as a continuously changing process, being in constant flux in more than one sense. The pertinent linguistic derivation is still considered valid from the point of view of advanced Indo-European linguistics represented by contemporary scholars like Eichner who in his explanation of the word dtman
aning of breath assumes another relevant nuance of the underlying reconstructed Indo-European root, namely, "to return periodically."14. However, Eichner does not comment upon the possible relevance of such an assumption for our understanding of the special aspects involved in the ancient notion of dtman as a kind of soul."
Another relatively recent solution to the etymological problem has been suggested by a distinguished linguist and scholar of Vedic religion, the late Paul Thieme, who bases his hypothesis on the easily observable difference in the speed of the movement of wind and breath respectively, and assumes a verbal root meaning "to sncak, to move silently to account for the word diman as originally referring to breath.
Whatever the linguistic-historical truth may be, both hypotheses agree with the observation that in its oldest usage the word dman refers to breath as a concrete wind-like entity and that this usage involves already in the Rgveda a more
abstract conceptuality taking into consideration the vital aspect of breath. In the macrocosmic realm, for example, the divine powers Sun and Rain are each called man of the mobile and the immobile, presumably implying an understanding of Sun and Rain respectively as the source of all life and thus as a cosmic vital power. In the microcosmic realm, this macrocosmic vital power, con ceived as some more abstract principle, manifests itself in individuated form as the specific life that indwells animate beings or certain important events, such as the ritual, which were considered to be animate." There is textual evidence that life in this sense of individual vital force, again termed dtman, can be possessed and transferred by those in whom it dwells, and that it can be increased as well as diminished. Finally, there are contexts which are sometimes not easily distinguished from the previously mentioned ones in which the term atman may refer to what could be designated as a subtle, breath-like "vital soul. Just as in the case of the related notions that have already been addressed in this contribution, namely, as, dyus and präna, no cognitive or other psychical functions are ascribed to this dtman," in striking contrast to the conceptuality of atmar in the later religious and philosophical traditions where consciousness is the most important characteristic of atman or even its very nature. In the ancient period, dtman in the last-mentioned sense seems to be merely responsible for the body's being alive.
This dtman is addressed in a well-known, very complex hymn of the Rgveda, transmitted in the tenth and last cycle of hymns in this collection. It must have been used on the occasion of the cremation of the dead and refers to several, not necessarily disparate notions about the fate of a recently deceased person in the
H
160 Cf. Heesterman 1995: 30f.
Cf. Heesterman 1995: 29-31. It may be added, highly speculatively, that some transitive/causative derivation of the word atman from a verbal root to move back and forth would open up the possibility to see in the original concept of atman a reference to one of the vital functions manifesting the power of life inside a body that I have not yet ad dressed, namely, the controlled moving and manoeuvring of a body, there is an old, though certainly not universal equation in Indian culture between the mobile and the animate, as
opposed to the stationary and the inanimate. 12 Cf. Eichner 2002: 141, who reconstructs a verbal root V et(b). 10 Cf. Mayrhofer1988, s.v. aman. Mayrhofer rejects all previous suggestions and considers
Thieme's solution as the only acceptable one. 144 Cf. Arbman 1927a: 134 and 180, n. 1, and Willman-Grabowska1929-1930: 12-13; cf., ...
RV 7.87.2 (cf. Arbman 1927: 10, Geldner 1951-1957: vol. 2,258 and Maurer 1986: 99; cf. also Oberlies 1998: 503, n. 210, who seems to understand aiman as a subtle material vital power here, not (also) as concrete breath). This position is rejected in Bodewitz 1991: 48; Bodewitz further claims that the pre-Upanisadic deman is not concrete" and "unspecific and cannot be concretized as a soul-concept"; it is just the Self,"referring to an "undif. ferentiated personality-concept" (loc. cit.). However, Bodewitz does not refer to any specific passages in this connection.
145 Cf. Willman-Grabowska 1929-1930 passim and, e., Maurer 1986: 100, n. 2. 146 CE. RV 1.115.1 and 7.101.6, and Arbman's comments in Arbman 1927: 10. Geldner's
translation of doman with "Seele" is not very meaningful in such contexts (cf. Geldner 1951-1957: vol 1, 151, and vol. 2, 271): similarly, e.g., Loders 1951: 19 und 1959: 506, Lommel 1955: 4) and Maurer 1986: 172, who mentions, however, the vivifying role of atman in a note. The translation "vital breath" (cf. O'Flaherty 1981: 175) is more literal and context-sensitive, implying an understanding of dtman as a "breath-soul. Cf. also the re
mark in Oberlies 1998: 503, n. 210 ("subtle vital power preferred to "immaterial soul"). W Cf. Arbman 1927a: 10 for further passages. Similarly, the divine power Wind is said to be
the deman, the vital power, of the Gods in RV 10.168.4. Again, Geldner translates with "Seele," whereas Thieme interprets the term in a concrete way, translating as "Atem" (cf. Thieme 1964: 59; cf. also Willman-Grabowska 1929-1930: 12-13, O'Flaherty 1981: 176 and Maurer 1986: 215); cp. also Oberlies loc. cit. (cf. n. 146 above). Arbman (1927a: 10) sees the passage as testimony for the air/wind-like nature of the "vital soul" dtman which is
for him practically identical with prdna. 148 For this interpretation of Aman as concrete individual "[power/force of life" I include
those passages which are adduced by Willman-Grabowska (1929-1930: 13) to document a usage of the term aman referring to the principe essentiel et intérieur qui fait que l'objet
donné est ce qu'il est ...." 10 This has already been observed in Strauss 1925:39. 150 CE. RV 10.16. On the conceptual complexity of this hymn cf. O'Flaherty 1981: 47-49.
150
151