The present book contains a collection of articles by Henk Bodewitz concerning Vedic thinking about the destiny of man after death and related ethical issues. That heaven was the abode of the gods was undisputed, but was it also accessible to man in his pursuit of immortality? Was there a realm of the deceased or a hell? What terms were used to indicate these yonder worlds? What is their location in the cosmos and which cosmographic classifications are at the root of these concepts? Which paths lead to the hereafter and what is here the function of Vedic ritual in competition with knowledge? Who is qualified for which world? What ideas underlie the doctrine of karman, rebirth, and salvation? And to what extent do certain ideas originate in circles different from those of the Brahmin priests? These and other questions have challenged Bodewitz to a critical study and an in-depth investigation of Vedic texts, from the oldest to the younger ones, and to present what the texts are saying irrespective of large theoretical issues that have been formulated about the topic.
Ethical aspects became the main subject of his more recent studies. In the opening sentence of his article âThe Vedic concepts ÄÌgas and énasâ (2006b, ch. 21 in this volume), we read: âSome years ago I planned to write a monograph on virtues and vices, merits and demerits, and good karman and sins in the Veda, but soon discovered that several preliminary studies would be required.â He had already written two articles on merits and demerits in the early 1990s, and four more were to follow including the article just mentioned.
In appreciation of Henk Bodewitzâs work, we decided to realize his original plan to write a monograph on vices and merits in the Veda, and to extend it to his earlier research on how Vedic texts represent and refer to âyonder worldâ with its two extremes, âheavenâ and âhell,â as these mayâor may notâresult or be expected to result from merits and demerits in this life.
For this purpose, and in consultation with the author, we have selected twenty-three articles and classified these in two major parts with the themes Yonder World (seventeen articles) and Vices and Virtues (six articles). Within these two parts, the articles are arranged chronologically, with the exception of âThe Hindu doctrine of transmigration: its origin and background.â This article, originally intended as a lecture for a larger Dutch audience, viz. the members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 1992, was later on adapted for publication in a scientific journal (1997â1998). It turns out to be, in its last version, an excellent introduction to âVedic cosmology and ethics,â more particularly to the two themes of this book, Yonder World and Vices and Virtues. Because of its more general character, it is accessible to non-Vedic specialists as well and it is placed as the introductory article.
Articles 2 and 3 are written in German. To accommodate the readers not familiar with German, it was decided to translate these articles into English, including citations of and references to Geldnerâs German translation of the á¹gveda and those of other translations of Vedic texts not into English. These translations are included as Appendix 1 and 2. In the English articles, the citations in other than English languages are maintained in the original language, mainly German and French.
Because Bodewitz himself wrote the article which so excellently suits as an introduction to the whole volume, the editors confine themselves to a few considerations which highlight the wider background and current scientific importance of Bodewitzâs work on Vedic cosmology and ethics. In the work of Bodewitz, familiarity with the encyclopedic works that Jan Gonda (19782, 1975c and 1977) wrote on Indian religion and literature in general and on Vedic studies in particular, is often presupposed. In case an argument in one of his articles is not immediately clear, it may therefore be helpful to consult these manuals by his predecessor.
According to Bodewitz, many questions have remained underexposed in the handbooks on Vedic religion. In the twenty-three articles selected for this volume, he tries to fill this gap. The volume has become a rich source of Vedic text places made accessible by explanations and translations. The author combines accuracy in the treatment of the textual material with the conviction that this material is the main source for interpretation. To let the texts âspeak for themselvesâ is, of course, what his teacher and predecessor Jan Gonda (1905â1991) tried to achieve in his work. As Bodewitz (1994a, 12) wrote in an obituary of Gonda:
Gonda took the available texts as starting-point and sometimes declared that these were the only authorities, which could clarify what the people of the culture concerned had thought. The texts would speak for themselves.
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Of course, Gonda was not entirely unbiased regarding the material in the texts, just like any other philologist. Unfortunately, he seldom explicitly formulated his basic assumptions. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of 1982 Karel Werner attempted to indicate what Gonda thought the ancient Indians thought and in this connection he suggested some of the sources of inspiration for his thinking.
In another obituary of Gonda, Bodewitz (1994b, 321) observed that Gonda, as a real philologist, âpreferred texts to theories and material to methodology.â In the article by Karel Werner to which Bodewitz referred, the author (1982, 16) tried to paraphrase the main views which were nevertheless, in spite of Gondaâs preference of texts to theories, guiding his philological approach to Vedic texts:
Vedic man experiences reality around and within himself as a structural and dynamic complex of meaningful processes which were mutually interdependent, and which provided the opportunity for numinous feelings to rise in him.
Like Gonda, Bodewitz prefers âtexts to theories and material to methodology.â Accordingly, Bodewitz formulated as a general guideline in interpreting Vedic ritual: âEvery explanation which bases itself on one factor, selected in the framework of a general theory, runs the risk of creating a smooth, but one-sided and more or less theoretic outline of development into which only part of the textual and other evidence fitsâ (Bodewitz 1973, 330). Unlike Gonda, however, Bodewitz is more interested in âVedic man,â in his human conditionâhis experience in life, his commitment to or relativization of the ritual system, and his beliefs regarding an afterlife and regarding the world in which he is livingâthan in the gods and powers that are supposed to surround him. In his study on the term dyumna in a passage in the JaiminÄ«ya BrÄhmaá¹a, he regards an interpretation which is too far removed from practical life (âzu wenig Anknüpfungspunkte mit der Praxisâ) as being, for that reason, suspect (âdaher verdächtigâ: this vol. p. 30). It is in this context noteworthy that the Vedic text to which Bodewitz devoted most of his scholarly career, the JaiminÄ«ya BrÄhmaá¹a, has as speciality its remarkable focus on âa modest plane of existence, human rather than cosmicâ (OâFlaherty 1985, 113) where other BrÄhmaá¹as give more space to myths in which gods and demons are central. The last in a long series of theses which were either guided by Bodewitz or in which he was a member of the jury, was the dissertation by Dr. Masato Fujii, âThe JaiminÄ«ya-Upaniá¹£ad-BrÄhmaá¹a: A Study of the Earliest Upaniá¹£ad Belonging to the JaiminÄ«ya SÄmavedaâ (Helsinki, October 2004), under the guidance of Prof. Asko Parpola.
Whereas Gonda dealt in masterly fashion with the entire domain of Vedic studies and Indian, mainly Hindu, religion and explored all accessible source texts, Bodewitz concentrated his scholarly work on a difficult and even now still insufficiently investigated subdomain of Vedic prose texts: texts of the BrÄhmaá¹a genre, which includes, in the large sense of the term, Äraá¹yakas and (the older) Upaniá¹£ads. These texts are linguistically later than the better known Vedic Saá¹hitÄs, i.e., collections of Vedic hymns, chants and ritual formulas, of the á¹gveda and the Atharvaveda, the SÄmaveda and Yajurveda. Familiarity with these collections is presupposed in the ancient discussions in the BrÄhmaá¹a texts.
With his choice to focus, from the beginning of his scientific career onwards, on Vedic prose texts of the BrÄhmaá¹a genre, Bodewitz continued the preferred specialization of Gondaâs predecessor in Utrecht, Willem Caland (1859â1932): the study of Vedic ritual texts, especially BrÄhmaá¹as and SÅ«tras, including the JaiminÄ«ya BrÄhmaá¹a, which Caland helped to discover and which he partly edited and translated for the first time. This text became the subject of Bodewitzâs dissertation and of one other major publication, both published in Leiden (1973 and 1990). Even if a few scholars worked on Vedic ritual prose texts, these remained almost incomprehensible to the larger public and even to major Sanskrit scholars of the time, such as F. Max Müller (1859, 352â¯f.), who referred to the BrÄhmaá¹as as âa literature which for pedantry and down-right absurdity can hardly be matched anywhere ⦠These works deserve to be studied as the physician studies the twaddle of idiots and the raving of mad men â¦â
One of the characteristics of texts of the BrÄhmaá¹a genre is the importance of peculiar identifications in numerous passages. Such identifications are, accordingly, frequently discussed in the studies Bodewitz devoted to the BrÄhmaá¹a texts. It should be noticed that these identifications and their diversity were, in fact, not at all favourably received at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Sylvain Lévi observed in 1898, for instance, that the Vedic gods âMitra and Varuá¹a are, randomly, the intelligence and the will, the decision and the act, the waning moon and the waxing moon. The disparity between these interpretations demonstrates the fantasy in themâ (âMitra et Varuá¹a sont, au hasard des rencontres, lââ¯intelligence et la volonté, la décision et lââ¯acte, la lune décroissante et la lune croissante. Lââ¯Ã©cart de ces interprétations en démontre la fantaisie,â Lévi 1898, 152). Around twenty years later, Oldenberg continued the critical approach started by Sylvain Lévi and provided, for the first time, a systematic analysis of the way of reasoning followed in BrÄhmaá¹a texts. His work (1919) can serve as a preliminary âkeyâ to the interpretation of the BrÄhmaá¹a texts. He noted (p. 111) that the identifications in the BrÄhmaá¹as are often in the form of a god, invoked at the ritual that is to be explained, or a ritual tool (the sacrificial spoon, for instance), the substance to be offered, or any liturgical element (for instance a metre or a melody that is used in the recitation or chant) which is then identified with some natural phenomenon, with some element in the macrocosm or in the microcosm. Although Max Müller felt the presence of a strong dogmatism in the BrÄhmaá¹a texts, the discussions we find there are, in fact, ânot rigid, dogmatic but rather looseâ (Thite 1975, 48). The problem of how to interpret the ubiquitous and utterly divergent identifications has been discussed several times: Oldenberg (1919) emphasized the conceptual aspect of the identification, whereas Stanislav Schayer (1925) emphasized its magical implications; Gonda (1965c) integrated both perspectives in his position (Houben 1997, 65â¯ff.), and Parpola (1979) studied the BrÄhmaá¹ical identifications from a broader cultural anthropological perspective.
The identifications expressed in BrÄhmaá¹a texts in nominal sentences or through other syntactical means do not imply a full-fledged identity, A = B, but some kind of bandhu ârelationshipââwhich is the term the ancient authors of BrÄhmaá¹a texts themselves used when reflecting on their own arguments. The same authors also categorized their identifications. Frequently mentioned categories are those concerning the ritual (adhiyajñam, as an adverb), those concerning the macrocosm (adhidaivam) and those concerning the individual (adhyÄtmam). The identifications thus testify to a correlative mode of thinking and to the effort of the authors of BrÄhmaá¹a texts to classify the realities they encounter in the universe.
These âpre-scientificâ systems of classification are of considerable importance in the arguments proposed by the ancient authors of BrÄhmaá¹a texts, and they have hence frequently received the attention of Bodewitz in the form of detailed analyses. Thus, for example, the articles âThe waters in Vedic cosmic classificationsâ (1982, ch. 4) and âClassifications and yonder world in the Vedaâ (2000a, ch. 14) discuss respectively the vertical and horizontal positioning of three, four or more âworldsâ and the related identifications. The author emphasizes the significance of the fourth item in these classifications as being not only the fourth but also the totality of the three. The article âThe fourth priest (brahmán) in Vedic ritualâ (1983, ch. 5) shows how the function of this priest can be explained âwithin the framework of the classificationsâ (page 64 below). To be noted throughout is the advice of the author himself (page 174): âmostly some empathy with the associative way of thinking helps to solve the problems.â
In general, Bodewitz focuses on Vedic terms and their exact meaning, criticizing others who are going too far, and carefully avoiding reading too much in them himself. His criticism is extensive and his own conclusions are cautious accordingly. The results are illuminating and provide Vedic research with a solid basis to further build upon. In spite of all the technical details needed to clarify much-debated questions, all the articles of this volume deal with fundamental issues, such as a belief in an afterlife, the path leading to immortality, and questions whether âredeathâ (punarmá¹tyu) would lead to rebirth (punarjanman). By way of illustration, a few examples follow.
Bodewitz wrote five studies on the question to what extent the Vedic texts bear witness to a belief in an afterlife in heaven, a realm of the dead or a hell. In âLife after death in the á¹gveda Saá¹hitÄâ (1994, ch. 8), the author discusses the text places that the á¹gveda provides about this topic. These are scarce and give rise to different interpretations. On the basis of the little material that is available, the author comes to a cautious conclusion that there are indeed, though vague, references to a heaven and a realm of the dead or a hell. Ideas about an associated value judgment (punishment, sin) are mostly absent, certainly in the oldest family books. Five years later, a second article focusing on this subject, âYonder world in the Atharvavedaâ (1999c, ch. 11) was published.
Three other articles deal with particular terms referring to the netherworld. In âPits, pitfalls and the underworld in the Vedaâ (1999b, ch. 12) the author examines words like gárta, kartá, kÄá¹Ã¡ and others. These have the general meaning of hole or pit, but also refer to a subterranean world. Even in the oldest Vedic texts of the á¹gveda, passages occur where words for hole have this meaning. According to the author, these holes are not individual, man-made graves as Converse (1971) and Butzenberger (1996) assume. The article âDistance and death in the Vedaâ (2000b, ch. 13) focuses on the meaning of parÄvát, which is literally distance, a distant place associated with negativity. Based on ten text passages in the á¹g- and Atharvaveda, the author comes to the conclusion that in the á¹gveda the parÄvát is simply distance, but never the destination of people after their death. This last meaning it acquires in the Atharvaveda and it then becomes the realm of the dead. âThe dark and deep underworld in the Vedaâ (2002a, ch. 17) discusses five groups, among which demons, sick people and sinners, who are sent down or thrown down to deep and dark places along downward paths according to pre-Upaniá¹£adic text passages.
In âRedeath and its relation to rebirth and releaseâ (1996b, ch. 10), the author disputes the prevailing theory that the concept of punarmá¹tyu arose from the idea that, like on earth, life in the hereafter is finite, leading to the assumption that punarmá¹tyu is followed by punarjanman. On the basis of several observations and a discussion of the relevant text places, the author comes to the conclusion that punarmá¹tyu does not lead to rebirth, but its defeat leads to moká¹£a.
The second part of this volume contains articles dealing with Vedic manâs view on âvices and virtues,â which to some extent result from his view on cosmology and âyonder world.â The two parts correspond to two subsequent major periods in Bodewitzâs work, which are, however, not disjunct but overlap for almost 10 years. Interest in the thematics of âvices and virtuesâ was reinforced when an overarching theme was formulated by researchers of the then Department of Languages and Cultures of South and Central Asia at Leiden University in the mid-1990s, namely: ânorms and values.â More precisely, the theme concerned âthe tension between values or norms on the one hand, and, on the other, the constraints of ordinary life or worldly aims leading to their non-observation, circumvention or even alterationâ in the various cultures and religions studied in the department. It motivated the organisation of guest lectures and seminars, and led to a collective volume with the title Violence Denied: Violence, Non-violence and the Rationalization of Violence (ed. Houben and van Kooij, 1999), in which the first article is the one devoted to âHindu ahiá¹sÄ and its rootsâ by Bodewitz. Although this article deals with one of the virtues discussed in the second part of this volumeâand a virtue which together with its English calque ânon-violenceâ has been famously interpreted, adapted and developed for modern contexts by Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and othersâit is mainly devoted to demonstrating how the term had an entirely different meaning in Vedic texts than in these later Indian and modern interpretations. In pre-Upaniá¹£adic Vedic texts, it never refers to ânot inflicting violence to othersâ but to ânot receiving any injury.â
With regard to the development or the rising of new ideas, the author constantly takes into account the possible influence from other than ritualistic groups (ascetics, mystics or non-Aryan autochthone populations) and the fact that some thoughts or ideas that are found only in later Vedic texts, may express old ideas. This point of view is visible in most of his work, but may be illustrated here by referring to two articles on the terms suká¹tá and karman published in 1993 (ch. 18 and 19), which are concerned with âgoodâ and âevil.â Gonda and others (e.g. Tull and Rodhe) did not assign any ethical meaning to suká¹tá, which qualifies for reaching heaven, nor to karman. They believed that the merits of suká¹tá have been obtained by correctly performed ritual and that karman is ritual activity. Bodewitz shows that in the oldest Vedic texts suká¹tá can also indicate merits obtained in a different way, for example through good behaviour. Likewise, he finds evidence for a good and a bad karman without relation to ritual but acknowledges that the connection between karman and rebirth is still missing.
In another important contribution with a much broader scope, âSins and vices: their enumerations and specifications in the Veda,â Bodewitz discusses the lists of cardinal and major sins in the Veda and their parallels in the Western and Christian tradition (ch. 22). These are preceded in the present volume by two studies on âVedic aghám: evil or sin, distress or death?â (ch. 20), and âThe Vedic concepts Ägas and énasâ (ch. 21), published in 2006. The positive side is treated in âVedic terms denoting virtues and meritsâ (2013, ch. 23), in which the semantic ranges of the terms suká¹tam and the âlatecomerâ puá¹yam are meticulously examined. The terms âdenote general qualifications for life after death,â in particular regarding entrance to heaven, at least in the oldest Vedic literature. The merit, Bodewitz argues, consisted of sacrifices, and the accompanying liberality and hospitality. These, however, might contain a moral connotation.
Finally, it may be noted that the reader will frequently encounter translations into German by Karl Friedich Geldner of the Vedic verses under discussion. His standard translation was published in 1951 in Harvard Oriental Series vols. 33â35. These German translations may seem at present somewhat odd when the rest of the argument put forward is in English. However, it only shows that at the time of writing no even just remotely acceptable scholarly translation into English was available. The only other scientific and heavily annotated translation of the á¹gveda that received the honour of being frequently cited, also by Bodewitz (and by his predecessor Gonda in his later work), is the one by Louis Renou into French, which remained, however, incomplete at around 90â¯% of the á¹gveda as a whole. Even if the publication of a new, scholarly translation into English by Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton in 2014 (Oxford) is an important contribution to the field, the references to Geldnerâs German translation of the á¹gveda obviously retain their value.
Editorial Notes
The twenty-three articles have been published in various scientific journals and collections over a period of more than forty years. As a result, both the general layout and the reference style used were quite different. It was obvious that these non-substantive aspects should be made consistent for the present volume.
The general layout and presentation have been adjusted on the following points:
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the numbering of the subheadings is indicated everywhere with 1, 2, 3, etc.: both letters (a, b, c, etc.) and Roman numerals (I, II, III, etc.) have been replaced; subheadings without numbers are numbered; in article 11 and 13, subheadings have been added;
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endnotes have been converted to footnotes;
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extra space between paragraphs has sometimes been introduced, whether or not to replace a previously used asterisk;
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text titles have a starting capital and are non-italic;
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abbreviations of texts have no periods;
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some variation in the rendering of Vedic and Sanskrit terms (by means of the stem or, in the case of a neuter, the stem + ending, e.g. suká¹tá or suká¹tám) is accepted and left as it is;
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a special remark is required on the indication of Vedic accents in this volume, which follows everywhere the system adopted in his articles by Bodewitz, which, in turn, is generally in accordance with the system followed by his predecessors such as Willem Caland, Louis Renou, Armand Minard, Karl Hoffmann, etc. Some Vedic texts are transmitted with accent, others without; and for those Vedic texts which are transmitted with accent, a few different systems have been used, traditionally and in editions, to indicate accent, even if the underlying, linguistically relevant accent of a wordâwhich allows us to infer, for instance, whether a compound was intended as a bahuvrÄ«hi (exocentric) or as a tatpuruá¹£a (determinative) compound, or whether a finite verb belongs to the main clause or to a subordinate clauseâis generally the same. The words pitá¹Ì âfatherâ and mÄtá¹Ì âmotherâ have the accent on the same syllable, whether they occur in the á¹gveda or in the Åatapatha-BrÄhmaá¹aâand even the accent on corresponding words in other Indo-European words are on the same syllable, for instance in old Greek and even in modern Greek: patéras, mitéra. (The proposal that in the case of the Åatapatha-BrÄhmaá¹a the current recitational accent should be indicated instead of the normalized linguistic accent (Chaubey 1975 and 1978, Cardona 1993) was never accepted by Bodewitz. Justly, as it would require the acceptance of the bhÄá¹£ika-sÅ«tra, a late Vedic appendix, a pariÅiá¹£á¹a of a pariÅiá¹£á¹a, as old.) In his earliest publications, however, the one on âDer Vers vicaká¹£aá¹Äd á¹tavo â¦â (1969) and his dissertation JaiminÄ«ya BrÄhmaá¹a I, 1â65 (1973), the quotations are only indicative and the reader has to find the accent in available editions of the á¹gveda, Atharvaveda (Åaunaka), Åatapatha-BrÄhmaá¹Ä. This was the usual style of Jan Gonda, up to the early seventies and often even later, as indicating the accent on a typing machine was quite laborious, and not regarded as indispensable in discussions of semantic and stylistic issues.
The application of a uniform reference style had more consequences. Some of the older articles mentioned the full title of the consulted books or articles in the current text or in a foot- or endnote. In that case, later references to the same publication made use of l.c., o.c. or op. cit. These references have been converted to the author-date system and the full title is included in the joint reference list. With these adjustments some notes became unnecessary and these are removed. On the other hand, notes have also been added. For in some places it has been decided to move a long list of text places or a long quotation to a (new) footnote.
As a result, the number of footnotes of some articles has changed. This change means that already existing references by other authors to a particular note are no longer correct. This is taken for granted. Of course, cross-references by the author himself have been adapted. If an article referred to is included in the present collection, the comment [this vol. p. â¦] is added.
All articles had, of course, a separate bibliography. A joint reference list has now been made for the entire volume. This merger made it necessary to use the extensions a, b, etc. after the year, if there were several publications from the same year by the same author. A common list of abbreviations has also been made with the necessary adjustments.
By re-editing these twenty-three articles we believe to do justice to Henk Bodewitzâs work and at the same time present a valuable contribution to the field of Indology and related religious and cultural studies, and to the history of ideas as well. For a complete survey of his work, see the website
Finally, we thank Henk and Janneke Bodewitz for their hospitality and cooperation during the preparation of this volume and making relevant books available from their private library. We thank Hans Bakker for having accepted our invitation to write a preface in which he has very well captured Henk Bodewitzâs character, his humour and determined fighter spirit in four decades of Dutch Indology. We thank the J. Gonda Fund Foundation (KNAW) for awarding a grant for this project. We also thank Carmen Spiers for checking the translations from German into English. We thank the editors of the journals and the collections for their permission to republish the articles. And we kindly thank the editorial board of the Gonda Indological Series for accepting the volume in this prestigious series, co-founded, ca. 25 years ago, by Henk Bodewitz.
The editors
November 2018