Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/106

70 the exclusive, mode of disposing of the corpse. The dead were, however, sometimes buried, for the fathers are distinguished as those who are burned by fire and those who are not burned. The dead was burned with his clothes, etc., to serve him in the future life; even his weapons and his wife, it would seem, were once incinerated, although the Ṛgveda has abandoned that practice, of which only a symbol remains in placing the wife and the weapons beside the dead and then removing them from him. Agni bears the dead away, and the rite of burning is thus in part like a sacrifice; but as "eater of raw flesh" in this rite Agni is distinguished from that Agni who carries the oblations. With the dead was burned a goat, which Agni is besought to consume while preserving the body entire. On the path to the world of the dead Pusan acts as guide, and Savitṛ as conductor. A bundle of fagots is attached to the dead to wipe out his track and hinder the return of death to the living. Borne along the path by which the fathers went in days gone by, the soul passes on to the realm of light and in his home receives a resting-place from Yama. Though his corpse is destroyed by the flame, still in the other world he is not a mere spirit, but has what must be deemed a refined form of his earthly body. He abides in the highest point of the sun, and the fathers are united with the sun and its rays. The place is one of joy: the noise of flutes and song resounds; there soma, ghee, and honey flow. There are the two kings, Varuṇa and Yama, and the fathers are dear to the gods and are free from old age and bodily frailty. Another conception, however, seems to regard the fathers as being constellations in the sky, an idea which is certainly found in the later Vedic period.

Those who attain to heaven are, above all, the pious men who offer sacrifice and reward the priest, for sacrifice and sacrificial fee are indissolubly connected; but heroes who risk their lives in battle and those who practise asceticism also win their way thither. Of the fate of evil-doers we hear very little, and it would appear that annihilation was often regarded as their