Soul Body And Person In Ancient India

Author(s): Karin Preisendanz
Publisher: Karin Preisendanz

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process of being cremated. The centrally relevant third verse may be analysed as follows: (8) caksus sight/"perceptive soul") sun (macrocosmic element)
atman ("vital soul" / "breathing-soul") wind (macrocosmic element) ??? ("free soul"?)
► heaven (upper world layer) ??? ("free soul"?)
→ earth (lower world layer) ??? ("free soul"?)
→ waters (macrocosmic
realm/element) compact bodily parts / bones (sarira) → plants (macrocosmic
constituent).151
sense faculty), (2) atman, and (3) the compact bodily parts or bones, mentioned later on in the same verse, with whom the deceased person is sent to the plants - the word used here is Sarira, which later on in the classical Sanskrit language refers in the singular number to the body as such. Because core constituents of the human person as a whole are expressly addressed in this triad, some reference to a "power of life" would be expected here in the second slot taken by dtman. I therefore think that it is justified to assume that the word arman refers here to the breath-like "vital soul" or "body-soul" still lingering next to the lifeless body. In continuation of the above discussion about as as an individuating "free soul or excursion soul," next to the vital soul, I would further like to suggest the possibility that such an individuating soul" is also involved here in the cremation hymn, after death conceived as a conscious entity: with words and phrases embedded in the injunctions directed at the triad, the dead person is addressed directly and sent, in conformity with the order of things () (dharman), to heaven, to earth and to the waters. 14 As nobody would think of addressing a corpse, the imperatives could be addressed to the "free soul that remains of the former person, essentially constituting the individual, nameable person in his/her continued existence - even imagined in a similar, although very subtle, not really physical shape or form-after death."
To explain, first, the cakşus of the dead person, that is, his/her sight, i.e., vital faculty of seeing (or: his/her perceptive soul"), 12 which is presumably not functioning any longer but considered to be still present in or near the corpse, is enjoined to go to the sun, in accordance with the ancient - almost universal - correlation of this subtle material sense faculty (or specialized "soul") with the most brilliant and illuminating heavenly body; this correlation grounded in the analogy between the "lamp of the microcosm and that of the macrocosm is also encountered in the Rgvedic hymn about Purusa. Then the doman of the dead person is dispatched to the wind, a clear indication of the fact that this microcosmi entity was conceived to be wind- and thus probably breath-like. It may be considered that the word atman refers here merely to concrete breath. This is improbable, however, because in contrast to the invisible vital faculty of sight (or: "perceptive soul") breath, i.e., concrete breath, should somehow be perceptible to be indirectly addressed here so that the injunction becomes meaningful; this is clearly not the case any more when the corpse has been laid out on the funeral pyre. Furthermore, concrete breath would not fit well in the triad encountered here, comprising (1) sight (or: the perceptive" "soul"), that is, the most prominent among the sensory vital faculties (or: forces) (subsequently conceived as a
151 CE. RV 10.16.3. 152 Cf. n. 85 above 153 CE. RV 10.90.13 (analysis [6]), treated above, pp. 146-147. 194 For the reworking of this verse in AV 18.2.7 d. p. 132 above. There seems to be a vague
reference to RV 10.16.3 in Taittiry-Samhita 3.1.4c (ed. Albrecht Weber, in Indische Studien 11 [1871]), in connection with the animal sacrifice (cf. also Krick 1982: 289,727); here, at man has been replaced with prona. In 3.1.4h, the prdna of the sacrificer is
mentioned in accordance with this terminology. ISS Horsch (1968: 470) assumes that the word dtman here simply refers to breath itself; cf. al
so Weber 1895: 846, Horsch 1971: 112, and e.. Lommel 1955: 108, Krick 1982: 48, Maurer 1986: 259, Dange 1995-1996: 26 and Oberlies 1998: 382, n. 218 (cf., however, n. 157 below). Oldenberg (1917: 524) does not translate the word d an in his rendering of the present verse, but his explanation in Oldenberg 1915: 52 suggests that he considers the term to refer to concrete breath here, as opposed to the following development of the term discussed by him.
156 Cf. also Arbman 1927a: 10 and Geldner 1951-1957: vol. 3, 147 ("Lebenshauch"); cf. also
O'Flaherty 1981: 49 ("life's breach") and her remarks on oman on pp. 47-48. Weber (1873: 210) probably thinks of a man as a "unitary soul" when he states that the soul"
enters the air, 19 The role of the "eye" would in this case be that of a prominent vital faculty. Given the con
text, it seems less probable that a man was conceived merely as a specialized "vital soul," namely, the "breathing-soul," here, together with the eye" as another such soul," i.e., the "perceptive soul." -Oberlies' translation of the word atman as "Atemkraft" (1998: 501; cf. also p. 503) suggests that he changed his mind (cf. 1998: 382, n. 218) and interpreted dtman
in this context as the vital faculty of respiration 19 I interpret the injunctive statement relating to the waters as a poetic variation of the pre
ceding twofold injunction relating to heaven and earth, ie, I understand bita in the sense of "placed, enjoined" (cf. also Geldner 1951–1957: vol. 3, 148, Horsch 1971: 112 and Maurer 1986: 259) with an allusion to the derived meaning "adequate, fitting agreeable." It would be difficult to explain why an ordainment or determination implied by the injunctive statement and maybe referred to by the word dharman should be modally or causally effeccive with regard to the future place of residence of the deceased person, and at the same time his/her liking or personal preference be decisive (cf. Lommel 1955: 108). Or should one understand this ordainment in the sense of a natural order of things (cf. the paraphrase in O'Flaherty 1981: 49:"if that is your fate") which is of such a character that the specific aspects within this larger framework which relate to oneself on the one hand and one's per sonal liking on the other hand would be (pre)supposed to harmonize? This latter under standing of the term dharman would probably go together with the interpretation of the term in this passage by Bohtlingk and Roth (1861, s.v. dharman 2): "(nach dem innern Ge
setz einer Sache usw.) naturgema." 199 O'Flaherty's statements are terminologically slightly confused here as she speaks at the
same time of the body dispersing or disintegrating into heaven, earth and the waters and of
152
153