Still more is this the case when we have to form our opinions of the religion of the Hindus and Persians. We have their sacred books, we have their own recognized commentaries; but who does not know that the decision whether the ancient poets of the Rig-Veda believed in the immortality of the soul, depends sometimes on the right interpretation of a single word, while the question whether
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the author of the Avesta admitted an original dualism, an equality between the principle of Good and Evil, has to be settled in some cases on purely grammatical grounds?
Let me remind you of one instance only. In the hymn of the Rig-Veda, which accompanies the burning of a dead body, there occurs the following passage (x. 16, 3):
“May the eye go to the sun, the breath to the wind,
Go to heaven and to the earth, as it is right;
Or go to the waters, if that is meet for thee,
Rest among the herbs with thy limbs.
The unborn part—warm it with thy warmth,
May thy glow warm it and thy flame!
With what are thy kindest shapes, O Fire,
Carry him away to the world of the Blessed.”
This passage has often been discussed, and its right apprehension is certainly of great importance. Aga means unborn, a meaning which easily passes into that of imperishable, immortal, eternal. I translate ago bhaagah by the unborn, the eternal part, and then admit a stop, in order to find a proper construction of the verse. But it has been pointed out that aga means also goat, and others have translated—‘The goat is thy portion.’ They also must admit the same kind of aposiopesis, which no doubt is not very frequent in Sanskrit. It is perfectly true, as may be seen in the Kalpa-Sutras, that sometimes an animal of the female sex was led after the corpse to the pile, and was burnt with the dead body. It was therefore called the Anustarani, the covering. But, first of all, this custom is not general, as it probably would be, if it could be shown to be
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founded on a passage of the Veda. Secondly, there is actually a Sutra that disapproves of this custom, because, as Kaatyaayana says, if the corpse and the animal are burnt together, one might in collecting the ashes confound the bones of the dead man and of the animal. Thirdly, it is expressly provided that this animal, whether it be a cow or a goat, must always be of the female sex. If therefore we translate—“The goat is thy share!” we place our hymn in direct contradiction with the tradition of the Sutras. There is a still greater difficulty. If the poet really wished to say, this goat is to be thy share, would he have left out the most important word, viz. thy. He does not say, the goat is thy share, but only “the goat share.”
However, even if we retain the old translation, there is no lack of difficulties, though the whole meaning becomes more natural. The poet says, first, that the eye should go to the sun, the breath to the air, that the dead should return to heaven and earth, and his limbs rest among the herbs. Everything therefore that was born, was to return whence it came. How natural then that he should ask what would become of the unborn, the eternal part of man. How natural that after such a question there should be a pause, and that then the poet should continue—Warm it with thy warmth! May thy glow warm it and thy flame! Assume thy kindest form, O Fire, and carry him away to the world of the Blessed! Whom? Not surely the goat; not even the corpse, but the unborn, the eternal part of man.
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