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verbal root meaning "to breathe," which would suggest that the term originally refers to a breath-like "vital soul." However, two more recent linguistic explanations suggest different derivations resulting in quite different interpretations which have not yet been commonly accepted. In the following, I would like to present and briefly discuss them.
of life" leaving the body altogether. The connection between life and breathing can be observed most immediately, this may have been responsible for the frequent more specific conceptualization of the "vital soul" as a "breath-soul," i.e., an entity which is identical with breath or imagined as being based on it and which is itself of a subtle, breath-like material nature. For the archaic religious traditions e.g., of ancient Israel and Rome, we can assume such a conceptualization behind the original notions of nefel and anima because both words are derived from verbal roots meaning "to blow, to breathe."
In the earliest Indian religious poetry, in the collections of the Rgveda as well as of the Atharvaveda, we hear of an entity called as, sometimes modified as joah asuh, literally: the "living asw," which may refer to such a "vital soul" or "body-soul." The context is generally that of disease and the loss or restoration of life ("de-animation and re-animation), and of the events and situation after death. In the latter context, the rather graphic term asalti, literally:"the leading away of sw, relates to the fate after death when ass is taken away to some other place by the personified funeral fire. In the same context, two frightening canine messengers of Death (Yama) that appear when a person dies are mentioned; they are characterized as "robbers of ash" and at the same time implored to return as, "for viewing, for the sun." According to the indigenous understanding and the etymology suggested for the term in traditional scholarship in and on India, similar to the word anima the word as has to be derived from a
The first explanation, by the Indo-Europeanist Bernfried Schlerath, goes back to an early etymology which was suggested by the Iranianist Bartholomae, but generally disregarded in Indian studies, and assumes a derivation from the very common verbal root meaning "to exist";Schlerath postulates that ass should therefore mean "(unspecified) life and individual) existence" (also after death and in the other world). However, from the point of view of a scholar of the history of religion and philosophy, such a meaning, or rather, such meanings, if applied to the relevant passages, are problematic because in most occurrences asu obviously denotes something very concrete, and not at all abstract, be it an abstract potency or a state." Admittedly, the transition from a postulated original notion of abstract (unspecified) life" to that of a concrete, individualized "vital force" and thus to the notion of a "vital soul," although not intended by Schlerath himself, would be conceivable, just as when we say "There was no more life in him," or when we speak metaphorically of "much life" being in some object of artistic expression, such as a painting. However, no matter whether the term as would refer to abstract "life" or a concrete, individualized "vital force," the modification of the noun as, with the adjective jiva, undoubtedly meaning "living" or "alive," would not make much sense; in the first case, it is hard to imagine how an abstract notion such as (unspecified) life could be specified as "living," in the second case the specification would be redundant without the simultaneous assumption of some "life," that is, vital force," which is not living or alive, for which there is no evidence in the sources. Furthermore, an even
1 Cf. Bremmer 1983: 22-24. 16 Cl. Eichner 2002: 141. The Latin word spiritus - and within the English "spirit" -
obviously also goes back to such a verbal meaning. For some non-Indo-European examples cf., e.g. Arbman 1926: 180-182. On the etymology of prych and the meaning of this term in Homer cf. Arbman 1926: 194-198 and Bremmer 1983: passim (pp. 21-24 on etymol
ogy); cf. also the contribution by Hans Schwabl in the present volume. "Onhu cf. also below, p. 167–168. 18 Cf similarly Schlerath 1968: 147 and 150. " C., e.g. Rgveda (RV) 10.16.2; cf. also Arbman 1927a: 52-53 and Bodewitz 1991: 45. More
on a nti cf. below, pp. 139-140, with n. 92. 30 CERV 10.14.12; cf. Arbman 1927 16, with n. 2and 58. Arbman 1928: 216, with n. 2, and
Dange 1996-1996: 24. Cf. also Acharude (AV) 18.2.13 (according to the Roth-Whitney edition of 1855). The death of a relative or friend may have effected loss of 'soul for those left behind; alternatively, there may have been the notion that they were already marked for death" (cf. Maurer 1986: 252). In any case, the restoration has to be understood as a metaphorical expression here unless one assumes that the passages provide evidence for the fact that also in ancient India there was the belief that the "free soul" can leave the body during life independent of the special circumstances and without the consequences mentioned above (p. 125); cf., e.g., Arbman 1926: 110, 136, 156-157, 159 and 177 and Arbman 1927: 170-171, with reference to manar understood as the "free soul. Cf. also Krick (1982:80) who rightly assumes that the mass of those who participate in ancestral rites actually enter the world of Death owing to the close contact with the ancestors established during the ritual (cf. also n. 96 below). More on aintp cf. below. p. 139, and n.
offerney
on that
21 Van; cf. Mayrhofer 1956, s.v. asurah, relying mainly on studies by Güntert and Dandekar.
This common opinion is rejected on linguistic grounds in Schlerath 1968: 145. 2 Cl. especially Oldenberg 1916: 526 who understandsas, especially the living , as
"breath in the function of the support of life" ("Lebensträger") and Arbman 1927: 14ff. ("Lebenshauch," "Lebensprinzip," "Leben(sessenz)." "Lebenskraft," "Lebensgeist"). CE the passages adduced in Arbman 1927: 14 and, eg. the passage Jaimin Ba-UpanipadBrahmana 1.41.2 (cf. Oertel 1894: 118), pointed out in Oberlies 1998: 504, n. 215, where the ass - according to 1.41.1 clearly a 'vital soul- of ritual chants (saman) is identified i with präna.
Vas; cf. Schlerath 1968: 146 and 150. * Cf. Schlerath 1968: 146-148 and 150; cf. also Mayrhofer 1987: 147, referring to Schlerath
1968, and Burrow 1973: 180. * Cf. also Arbman 1927a: 16, with n. 1. 2 Cf. Tuxen's interpretation of as according to Arbman 1927a: 17-18 and 35. 27 Schlerath concedes that in later Vedic works the abstract meaning "life" was reinterpreted
as "breath"; cf. Schlerath 1968: 148.
90.
126
127
