Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial 2.B.4. A Genealogy of the Philosophic Enlightenment in Ancient India: Chapter 2: The Vedic Religion (& the Mythical Origins of Indian Philosophical Concepts) ACADEMY | previous section | table of content | next section | GALLERY

The IE "tripartite ideology" was built up by Georges Dumézil: the trinity of the magico-juridical (kingship), the warring, and the cultivating functions which is supposed to show up both in the social structures of the diverse IE descendant cultures (e.g. as in the Indian caste system of the brahmans [priests], ksatriyas [warriors], the vaisyas [cultivators], and the low-grade sudras [servers of others]) and in their mythology (e.g. as in the Germanic Othinn-Tyr as the magico-juridical, Thorr as the warring, and Freyr, Freyja, and Njorthr as the fertility aspects; and in the Indic Varuna-Mitra, Indra, and the twin Nasatya [or the Asvins]; or in the Roman Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; c.f. Mircea Eliade, Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses, vol. 1, p. 204 - 7). Colin Renfrew has debunked this anachronistic and unhistorical speculation on the part of Dumézil (Archaeology and Language [1987], Ch. 10, "Indo-European Mythologies", p. 251 - 262). We do not assume the existence of some mysterious cultural structure exclusively belonging to the Indo-Europeans. Émile Benveniste, in Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, of which we have selectively made use, has also adopted this Dumézilian theme. In the end such tripartite structure is simply the standard social structure any advanced warring chiefdom might have developed under the pressure of an interaction sphere, be it Chinese, Japanese, Indo-European, or whatever.

We will discuss later the recent discovery by Renfrew and the various Russian linguists that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were most likely agriculturalists spreading out from Anatolia starting around 6,000 B.C. Owing to the second prejudice about PIE origin, the attribution of the sudden disappearance of the Harappan advanced urban civilization -- thoughtlessly identified as the ancestors of the modern day Dravadians -- around 1,800 B.C. to the violent "Aryan invasion" and destruction has been too entrenched among the previous generations of scholars. "However it is now recognized by scholars that the Aryan invasion theory of India is a myth that owes more to European politics than anything in Indian records or archaeology. ("The Politics of History", Hindustan Times, Nov. 28, 1993). The evidence against any such invasion is now far too strong [for it] to be taken seriously." (N. S. Rajaram, "Aryan Invasion", 1998) It is in fact very likely that the Harappan civilization was already Indo-European ("Aryan"). This is Colin Renfrew's "Hypothesis A" (ibid., p. 189 - 197): that "the arrival of Indo-European speakers in the Indian sub-continent was very much analogous to that in Europe" (p. 189), i.e. as farming dispersal. The beginning of Neolithic farming at such sites as Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (west Pakistan) preceding 6,000 B.C. and others in Turkmenia before the rise of the Harappan may well indicate the earliest migration of the Indo-European agriculturalist communities from Anatolia. The Indus Valley civilization then grew out from this Neolithic substratum. Its extinction later did not seem to have a single, simple cause, and was probably the result of "system collapse" -- the overstraining of the economic and political system to the point of collapse -- with the subsequent local movements of people: in other words, exactly like what happened with the Roman empire, the Mayan civilization, the pre-Doric Aegean civilization, and, frequently, the Chinese dynasties toward the end of their life. (The rather amateurish Rajaram attributes the collapse to drought, caused by a global climate change.) "This hypothesis that early Indo-European languages were spoken in north India with Pakistan and on the Iranian plateau at the sixth millennium BC has the merit of harmonizing symmetrically with the theory for the origin of the Indo-European languages of Europe. It also emphasizes the continuity in the Indus Valley and adjacent areas from the early neolithic through to the floruit of the Indus Valley civilization... Moreover the continuity is seen to follow unbroken from that time across the Dark Age succeeding the collapse of the urban centres of the Indus Valley, so that features of that urban civilization persist, across a series of transformations, to form the basis for later Indian civilization." (p. 196) The continuity refers to the presence in the Harappan religious life of what appear to be the ancestral traces of the later Vedic religion. (The old "invasion theory" on the other hand holds these traces to be evidence that the Vedic religion grew out of an admixture between the IE masters' and the Dravadian slaves' religious system.) That is, the Vedic religion itself was not the Harappan religion, with very good reason: since horses were first used to pull chariots between the first and second millennium BC -- just as in China -- but only ridden afterwards, the Veda, "which strongly suggest that by the time of their composition horses are being ridden", have to be of late origin, around 1,000 BC (p. 194). (Rajaram's identification of the Vedic religion with the Harappan, and the end of the Harappan civilization with the end of the Vedic age, is clearly wrong.) Renfrew sees the post-Harappan emergence of the Vedic religion as encoded in the Rig Veda to parallel the religious evolution in Hellas: "There is at least one other good example of the production of this kind of heroic poetry after a system collapse: the poetry of Homer. But Homer was writing sufficiently soon afterwards to have some memory of the pre-collapse Mycenaean age, probably because he was setting down what by then had become a strong oral tradition in poetry. The Rigveda could well stand in the same position in relation to the Indus Valley civilization, except that, perhaps taking shape rather longer after the collapse [i.e. almost a millennium after], it does not really hark back to the golden age before it. A much closer parallel for it in this respect than the Greek epics would be the Homeric Hymns, which in some ways are quite similar to it. They too relate primarily to their own time, and little in them refers back to the civilization of the earlier literate age." (p. 189) As he describes the "general parallel between the transition in Greece from the Mycenaean [who spoke, as shown in Linear B, an early form of Greek] to the Classical periods on the one hand, and the passage in north India and Pakistan from the Indus Valley civilization to the Vedic period, already implied when we compared the Homeric Hymns of early iron age Greece with the Hymns of the Rigveda", neither of which "gives any clear hint of the urban civilization which flourished in the relevant area some centuries earlier and then collapsed":

It seems that the imperialist Europeans of the late 19th and the early 20th century were projecting their aggression upon their supposed ancestors "the Aryans", imagining these to be war-loving, aesthetically more beautiful (the "light skin" Aryas vs. the "dark skin" Dravadians), and physically superior to others, just as they liked to imagine themselves to be in regard to the "natives". This ideology about the past is attractive especially because it makes one feel "superior". This is borne out for example by the Japanese adoption of the Aryan invasion model to explain their own origin: while Western archaeologists (and Koreans) favour the view -- which is also confirmed by genetic studies -- that "Japanese are descendants of immigrants from Korea [the Yayoi] who arrived with rice-paddy agriculture around 4,000 B.C.", such view is "unpopular in some circles in Japan"; instead, "widespread in Japan is a theory that the Japanese descended from horse-riding Asian nomads who passed through Korea to conquer Japan in the fourth century, but who were themselves -- emphatically -- not Koreans." (Jared Diamond, "Japanese Roots", Discover, June 1998.) Here mixed with this Japanese fancy to make themselves "superior" in the same way as supposedly are the Western imperialists of the pre-WW II era -- whom they attempted to emulate earlier -- is their contempt for their Korean neighbours. This attempt to feel "superior" but in the "Western way" at the same time goes so far as to prompt, e.g. Atsuhito Yoshida to argue that the ancient Japanese, too, possessed the tripartite structure which their non-IE ancestors in Korea adopted during contacts with the IE Scythian nomads (Renfrew, ibid., p. 257). This is of course wildly absurd. In William McNeill's The Rise of the West the "invasion model", which is propped up only by the base sentiment of aggression and desire for superiority, never by evidence, has crystallized into a general theory for the origin of civilization, that all advanced civilizations, from Hellas to China, descend from the amalgam between the invading violent illiterate masters and the invaded cultured agriculturalist slaves. This invasion-obsession in fact fits into the general modern tendency since the mid-nineteenth century whereby the moderns obsessed with violence (and sex) project it upon the past primitives, as for example seen with Girard's projection of violence upon the primitive sacrificial religiousness in blatant contradiction with the natives' own explanation of their religiousness (i.e. that sacrifice is about offering food to the gods), or with Freud's view that "man" is originally (primitively) an anti-social, anti-cultural being, that civilization is the means by which humanity holds its primal urges in check (Civilization and its Discontent), or with the general view among many intellectuals until two decades ago that human beings are originally and innately aggressive beings.

2. The Indic Anima system. Arthur Anthony Macdonell in A Vedic Reader For Students classifies the Vedic deities thusly: "The Vedic gods may most conveniently be classified as deities of heaven, air, and earth, according to the threefold division suggested by the RV. itself. The celestial gods are Dyaus, Varuna, Mitra, Surya, Savitr, Pusan, the Asvins, and the goddesses Usas, Dawn, and Ratri, Night. The atmospheric gods are Indra, Apam napat, Rudra, the Maruts, Vayu, Parjanya, and the Waters. The terrestrial deities are Prthivi, Agni, and Soma." A few subordinate deities include the celestial "Trita, a somewhat obscure god, who is mentioned only in detached stanzas of the RV., [and] comes down from the Indo-Iranian period. He seems to represent the 'third' or lightning form of fire. Similar in origin to Indra, he was ousted by the latter at an early period. Matarisvan is a divine being also referred to only in scattered stanzas of the RV. He is described as having brought down the hidden fire from heaven to men on earth, like the Prometheus of Greek mythology. Among the terrestrial deities are certain rivers that are personified and invoked in the RV. Thus the Sindhu (Indus) is celebrated as a goddess in one hymn (x. 75, 2. 4. 6), and the Vipas (Bïas) and the Sutudri (Sutlej), sister streams of the Panjab, in another (iii. 33). The most important and oftenest lauded is, however, the Sarasvati (vi. 61; vii. 95). Though the personification goes much further here than in the case of other streams, the connexion of the goddess with the river is never lost sight of in the RV." Still others include Vishnu, destined for post-Vedic prominence, and Yama and his twin sister Yami, the primordial twin ancestral to humanity, not just also known in the Iranian mythology, but comparable as well with the Germanic equivalent twin *Alhiz and the Roman Castor and Pollux. Then finally there are the Ancestors (pitarah, "the fathers"). Our stance has been of course that all the deity Animae are originally hypostases of the ancestral Animae.

3. Sacrifice. A. The energetic structure. Sacrifice in the Vedic religiousness is understood more precisely than in other mythic religiousnesses as, "as Haug notes '...a kind of machinery in which every piece must tally with the other,' the slightest discrepancy in the performance of even a minute ritualistic detail, say in the pouring of the melted butter on the fire, or the proper placing of utensils employed in the sacrifice, or even the misplacing of a mere straw contrary to the injunctions was sufficient to spoil the whole sacrifice with whatsoever earnestness it might be performed. Even if a word was mispronounced the most dreadful results might follow." (Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 1. p. 21) Throughout this work we have emphasized that the rituals of the ancients correspond to the technology of the moderns (engineering based on sciences), that both non-sacrificial and sacrificial rituals constitute the delicate man-performed mechanism of energy-conversion proper to the animistic worldview and which either sustains the order of the cosmos or produces in it a new structural state desired by the sacrificers. This is indeed usually practitioners' own explanation (in this case, c.f. Sayana's commentary on the Veda, 14th century). "This interpretation is supported by the fact that the ritual texts dutifully declare which desire will be fulfilled by the performance of a particular sacrifice: health, wealth (especially in cattle), progeny, headmanship, or, less materialistically, (access to) heaven. More important, the ritual system as such is given in the Brahmanas as a perfectly ordered mechanism to dominate and regulate the cosmic processes, both as regards the individual's life and the universe at large." (Jan C. Heesterman, "Vedism and Brahmanism", Encycl. of Rel., vol. 15, p. 233.) The Vedic practitioners here are merely more scrupulous with this mechanism. "Thus when Tvastri performed a [endergonic] sacrifice for the production of a demon who would be able to kill his enemy Indra, owing to the mistaken accent of a single word the object was reversed and the demon produced was killed by Indra." (Dasgupta, ibid.) In this world as the precise thermodynamic machine, the production of a new result requires an energy deposit beforehand, just like rolling the ball up the hill to set up a potential (energy) in order for it to roll down and acquire kinetic energy: the conversion of potential energy (deposited) into (the desired) kinetic energy. If not every detail of the sacrifice is exactly as it should be then the potential set up is of another leading to a different result. The Indic sacrifice follows the universal energetic structure of sacrifice everywhere else. "The creation of the world itself was even regarded as the fruit of a sacrifice performed by the supreme Being. It exists as Haug says 'as an invisible thing at all times and is like the latent power of electricity in an electrifying machine, requiring only the operation of a suitable apparatus in order to be elicited.'" (Ibid., p. 22) One can note the similarity of this mythic conception of the origin of the world -- as the result of an initial set-up of a potential and the later release of it into effect -- to the scenario of the origin of the Universe given in the inflationary model, that the energy that makes up all the matter in the Universe initially came from (as the inverse of) the gravitational energy of the false vacuum which is a potential set up. The similarity is due to the limitation of the way of creation by the law of Conservation of which the mythic consciousness is implicitly aware.

Such more precise understanding of the machinery of sacrifice thus makes the cosmos more impersonally mechanistic: "these rewards [of sacrifice, the effect of the potential released] are directly produced by the sacrifice itself through the correct performance of complicated and interconnected ceremonies which constitute the sacrifice. Though in each sacrifice certain gods were invoked and received the offerings, the gods themselves were but instruments in bringing about the sacrifice or in completing the course of mystical ceremonies composing it. Sacrifice is thus regarded as possessing a mystical potency superior even to the gods, who it is sometimes stated attained to their divine rank by means of sacrifice." (Ibid.)

What we have talked about so far is Indians' extreme version of the endergonic sacrifice in advance in order to obtain a future beneficial result: the expiatory sacrifice in reverse, the "do ut des", or in the Vedic proverb: "Here is the butter; where are thy gifts?" (J. Pohle, "Sacrifice", Catholic Encyclopedia.) The particular precision which Vedism holds in this regard thus imparts upon it the flavor of abuse which figures in Book II of Plato's Republic. Such is the evolution of Indic sacrifice, from the "devotionalism" of the original Veda -- where endergonic sacrifice remains a feeding of the gods in order to maintain the order (or low entropy state) of the cosmos and thereby ensure the prosperity of the group: the expiatory sacrifice in "normal" temporal sequence -- to the "magical coercion" of the later Brahmanas -- where the fulfillment of god's needs in the endergonic sacrifice is ("abusively"?) rationalized into an impersonal causal mechanism by which the gods are compelled by sacrifice as if by the laws of nature to fulfill the target of the sacrifice (endergony in reverse order: do ut des), so that they now appear to be subordinate to the sacrificer. The early devotionalism (pre-rationalized, "normal" sacrificial religiousness) is seen in many of the Rigveda hymns. Let's look at an example. The Indic sacrifice is never effected without fire, and its most famous is the soma sacrifice. (More below.) Indra is the most conspicuous consumer of the soma juice. As the "démiurge et fécondateur, personnification de l'exubérance de la vie, de l'énergie cosmique et biologique" (Mircea Eliade, Hist. des croy. et des id. relig., vol. 1, p. 217), he best embodies the order of the cosmos and thus its nourishability, and as such must be kept well-fed with this most nutritious (most energy-containing: most "sacred") "soma juice". C.f. Rig Veda, Book I, Hymn cxxx (Indra; R. T. H. Griffith's trans.):

Having had his full share of the most energetically rich soma juice, Indra has energy, has strength, and can thus keep the components of the cosmos well differentiated from each other and running smoothly; the Nature's ability to continually offer up the needed nutrients (game, crops, food) is thereby assured.

The energetic Indra is now capable of lightning and keeps river in motion. As the ancestor-protector he furthermore now has the strength to help his children, his "Aryan worshippers", in battle, ward off their enemies, shatter forts, etc.

B. The mechanical details. The thoroughly complicated and systematic nature of the Vedic sacrificial rituals is explained by Jan Heesterman (ibid.). "Unless stated otherwise each act is accompanied by a formula. The system is then built up in the way of nesting units, simpler acts being integrated to form ever more intricate complexes" (p. 227) in the fashion of "boxing in a unit on both sides by two other mutually connected or similar units" (p. 228). "The basic sacrificial unit is the pouring of a small portion of the oblational substance -- milk, ghee (clarified butter), cake, gruel, meat, or soma -- into the offering fire" to render it, presumably, into the smoky-airy form ingestible by the deity-anima (p. 227). This smallest unit is indicated by the verb juhoti, "he pours". (Ibid.) The sacrificial ritual is of two types, either the public (srauta) or the private, domestic (grihya).

B. 1. The public sacrifice. The srauta is held outdoor and away from the community settlement. In keeping with the nesting principle, the complex sacrificial rite in this category is composed of the main offering (pradhāna) preceded by the fore-offering (prayāja) and followed by the after-offering (anuyāja). (p. 228) Heesterman describes the scheme for the "standard ghee libations preceding and following the main offering... in the vegetal sacrifice [sometimes, isitii; below]" (ibid.):

The structure of the Vedic sacrificial ritual system can thus be mapped out on the two axes of metonymy (horizontal) and metaphor (vertical, running down the main offering):

fore-offering ---- main offering ---- after offering
  (prayāja)          (pradhāna)         (anuyāja)
                          |    
                       vegetal
                          | 
                        animal
                          |
                         soma      

Modifications, in the matter of the sacrificial substance ("food offered"), the deity or deities addressed, and the invitations or offering verses recited, are made primarily in the pradhāna segment, others remaining unchanged. "Thus a particular sacrifice is said to be characterized by 3 criteria: dravya (sacrificial substance), devatā (deity, or deities, first addressed at the beginning when the sacrificial substance is taken out), and tyāga (the sacrificer's 'abandonment' formula, again specifying the deity after the offering; c.f. Kātyāyana Srautasutra 1.2.2)." (p. 229)

The hierarchical taxonomy can be mapped out:

(16 - 17 sacrificial   soma
   personnels)           |
                         |
                         |
(all previous 4,     pasubandha
plus maitravaruna        |
& pratiprasthatri)       |
                         |   
(adhvaryu, hotri,     isitii
agnidhra, brahman)       |
                         |
                         |
   (adhvaryu)         Agnihotra                      

As we have said, sacrifice marks off the meal time for the god-cosmos and the social organism, and as such delineates a cyclic temporality just as personal meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) do, with each cycle being a mundane interval of temporal degeneration from low entropy (having just been refuelled) to maximal entropy (now needing refuelling again) and boxed in on two sides by the sacred moments of refreshment back to low entropy (such "refuelling"). The periodic clusters (the monthly or 4-monthly cycle for the isitiis) are described by this. The ayana (the somas) somehow imposes a linear time on top of this -- can this have differentiated into a linearization such as Christianity represents?

B. 2. Details of the soma sacrifice. Heesterman also provides the mechanical details of the most important and conspicuous of the Vedic sacrifices, the soma sacrifice. Soma (cognate with the Avestan haoma), the plant from whose stalks the cultic beverage is made, is usually "bought from an outsider in exchange for a cow, after which the soma seller is beaten and chased." (p. 223) "[Soma sacrifice's] basic paradigm, the Agnistoma, consists of an elaborate concatenation of sacrifices spanning 5 days and involving a whole pantheon. The first day is marked by the consecratory bath (diksiā) of the sacrificer, who remains a diksiita (initiate) and as such subject to restrictions of diet and behaviour until the concluding bath (avabhritha, 'the carrying away', i.e. of ritual matter by means of the waters). Special libations and an isitii are connected with the diksiā." (p. 229) The traditional French manner (Hubert and Mauss) might interpret the initiating and concluding bath as "sacralizing" and "desacralizing" respectively. Literally it seems more comparable with washing one's hands before and after a meal. The purpose of these baths is then to keep oneself "clean" or "pure", i.e. to stabilize one's order away from equilibrium disorder (from "being dirty") before the order-restoring activity especially demanding such state -- initiating the sacred period of the meal or refuelling -- and then to return to the mundane period of the "burning of fuel" or temporal decline of order. "The next 3 days feature, in the morning and at midday, the ritual known as Pravargya and a ghee offering in the form of an isitii called upasad ('sitting near' or 'besieging'), after which these 3 days are called upasad days. The Pravargya ('to be removed,' referring to the implements after the last performance) centers on a special clay pot (called mahāvira, 'great hero', or gharma, 'heat'). Fresh milk is poured into this pot, which has been heated in the fire; of the milk boiled in this way a libation is made." (Ibid.)

B. 3. Domestic sacrifice. Heesterman is of the opinion that the domestic sacrificial ritual (grihya), with its own Angihotra, cake and gruel offerings (pākayajna), and animal sacrifices, "may be nearer to the common source of both types of ritual [the public srauta and the private grihya], the material of this common source having been 'recycled' and rigidly systematized in the srauta ritual." (p. 232) "The domestic ritual requires only the domestic fire (aupāsada or āmātya). It is, in principle, performed by the master of the house with the help of a house priest (purohita, lit., 'put forward', apparently to ward off evil)." (Ibid.) Next to this common endergonic sacrifice of the defensive type for warding off forces of disorder, there are the life cycle rituals -- for marriage, the birth of male progeny (Pumisavana), the birth rites (Janmakarma), first taking of solid food (Annaprāsana), first haircutting (Cudākarana, "making the hairtuft", cudā), and the initiation to the Veda (Upanayana) for the brāmanas, ksatriyas, and vaisyas. (Ibid.) What particularly interests us here is the next type of domestic ritual leading up to an "ancestor cult". Its first stage is the funeral rites, the Pitrimedha ("ancestor [father] sacrifice"), i.e. the cremation of the dead together with parts of the immolated cow (sacrifice for accompaniment) and the subsequent interrment under a tumulus: the very same already seen in the Germanic case. The next stage is the "mourning and impurity (āsauca) of the relative at the death of a full-grown family member" which "lasts for 12 days and is completed by a purificatory rite including a bath." (p. 233)

The ancestor could have spent a lot of energy in imparting the favour of the birth of a son, and therefore especially needs to be "refuelled". This is the energetic background to such thanksgiving offering. The pinda offering to the ancestor, when incorporated into the srauta ritual (pinda-pitri-yajnā), is enlarged to become the "great ancestor sacrifice" (Mahāpitriyajnā). A peculiarity of the Indian ancestor cult is that it is "characterized by the use of the left side and the left hand as well as by uneven numbers." (Ibid.) According to our framework, this ancestor cult is the lowest, basic stratum of any religiousness both logically and very probably historically.

4. Rita and Maya. Rita, "participe passé du verbe 's'adapter'" (Eliade, ibid., p. 213), like Dao or the (late) Egyptian maat, means "literally the course of things... This word is also used, as MacDonell observes, to denote the '"order" in the moral world as truth and "right" and in the religious world as sacrifice or "rite" and its unalterable law of producing effects." (Dasgupta, ibid., p. 21.) That is, the way things are and work, the "laws of nature", so to speak. Remember that in the compact consciousness of the functional perspective the laws or order of the cosmos are inclusive of the human social order and so of the human moral order. Rita is associated with the cosmocrate Varuna. The "sinner", i.e. one who has violated the law, damaged social order, and, by extension, broken the order of the cosmos, is brought before Varuna and required to make (expiatory) sacrifice to him, who, presumably with the energy endergonically deposited to him via the sacrifice, can re-establish the order of the cosmos. (Eliade, p. 214; compare the Israelite sin offering, Lev. 4.)

Varuna is equally associated with maya, but only with the good aspect of it. "Dans le Rig Veda, maya désigne [citing Dumézil] 'le changement destructeur ou négateur des bons mécanismes, le changement démoniaque et trompeur, et aussi l'altération de l'altération'. En d'autre termes, il existe de mauvaises et de bonnes maya." (Eliade, ibid.) Maya therefore seems to designate the experience of the arrow of time, the second law of thermodynamics. This at first sight does not seem to accord with its usual meaning as the magical, transformative power the devas (good gods) and asuras (countergods) possess to do their respective wonders or transform themselves. E.g. "Rigveda 6.47.18: 'By his powers of maya, Indra goes around in many forms', an oft-quoted phrase." (Teun Goudriaan, "Maya", Encycl. of Rel., vol. 9, p. 297) But if the "good gods" and the "evil gods" are supposed to symbolize the creative and dissolutive aspects of the thermodynamic nature of the cosmos, their respective powers should also correspond to the two aspects in some way. This is roughly indicated by the Vedic Indian differentiation between what seem to be the two earlier identified very different experiences of the functioning of the second law, the linear and non-linear entropy-increase. "Dans le premier cas, il s'agit de 'ruse' et de 'magies', principalement des magies de transformation de type démoniaque, comme celles du Serpent Vritra, qui est le mayin, c'est-à-dire le magicien, le trickster, par excellence. Une telle maya altère l'ordre cosmique, par exemple entrave le cours du soleil ou retient les eaux captives, etc." (Elaide, ibid.) Recall that the primitives interpret the disruption of the expected course or orderly conduct of the cosmos as the loss of proper differentiation among its components, as its reaching equilibrium or its state of higher entropy. The "bad maya" associated with Vritra thus seems to refer to the linear equilibrium process. "Quant aux bonnes maya, elles sont de deux sortes: 1.) les maya de combat, les 'contre-maya' utilisées par Indra lorsqu'il se mesure contre les êtres démoniaque; 2.) la maya créatrice des formes et des êtres, privilège des dieux souverains, en premier lieu de Varuna. Cette maya cosmologique peut être considérée comme équivalente à rita. En effet, nombre de passage présentent l'alternance du jour et de la nuit, le cours du soleil, la chute de la pluie et d'autres phénomènes impliquant le rita, comme résultat de la maya créatrice." (Ibid.) Here "maya denoted the faculty that transforms an original concept of creative mind into concrete form" (Goudriaan, ibid.). Maya thus represents also the dissolutive and creative aspects of the thermodynamic flux that is the cosmos, and the good, order-creative maya corresponds to the non-linear equilibrium process studied today by the theorists of self-organization and complexity.

"C'est donc dans le Rig Veda, quelque 1,500 ans avant le Vedanta classique, qu'on saisit le sens premier de la maya: 'changement voulu', c'est-à-dire altération -- création ou destruction -- et 'altération de l'altération.'" (Eliade, p. 215) It is during the Upanishads period that maya starts to deviate away from its original mythic meaning and differentiate into its first philosophical meaning, "the metaphysical principle that must be assumed in order to account for the transformation of the eternal and indivisible into the temporal and differentiated", the mechanism responsible for making a "derived reality" out of the Absolute eternal reality (Brahman). (Goudriaan, ibid.) Since then, as the temporal and differentiated reality becomes, within the salvational traditions (Buddhism or Hinduism [e.g. Vedanta]), the illusion to be saved from, maya, responsible for this illusory derivation, comes to mean "illusion", equivalent to the Greek doxa.

5. The mythic expression of the thermodynamic problem of order formation. Within the Indic Anima system the PIE inheritance, Dyaus from *Deiwos, or Dyauspitar ("sky-father"), just like the Germanic Tiw[az], was dropping out of usage, with Varuna taking the supreme place as the universal ruler (samraj; Eliade, ibid., p. 211). The Vedic mythology follows the universal pattern with the principal concern over the thermodynamic problem of the formation of order, expressing the process as the result of the battle (more than one) between the "good gods" and the "evil gods". The first battle, related mostly in the post-Vedic Brahmanas, was fought by the younger gods Devas, led by Indra, against the more ancient Asuras (like the Germanic Aesirs?). (p. 212) Since we have already dismissed the tripartism of the Indic system of ancestral animae, we will not see this mythic battle as reflecting the Aryan conquest, the Aryan gods battling against the Harappan indigenous gods -- and neither should the next theomachia, Indra against the Dasyus and the Vritra, be seen in this way. Rather: "Dans l'Inde, comme dans nombre de religions archaïques et traditionnelles, le passage d'une époque primordiale à l'époque actuelle est expliqué en termes cosmogoniques: passage d'un 'état' chaotique à un monde organisé, un 'Cosmos'." (Ibid.) In other words, the perennial theme of cosmogony: given that the natural state (downhill process) is disorder, that the beginning is homogeneity and undifferentiation, the formation within it of differentiated order (cosmos) cannot appear without intervention mechanism (uphill process), "without a fight". But this is more clearly expressed with the myths about Indra's battles.

In the second round Indra's fight as representing the triumph of order over disorder is thus comparable to the struggle between Israel and Nations, the Middle Kingdom and the barbarians, the Iranians and the Touranians (in the Shahnameh), etc. Soma, as the sacred or energy, nutritious, makes gods energetic and strong. Through the consumption of soma Indra then becomes energetic, as we have seen, and capable of unleashing storms, rains, etc. (p. 217 - 8), but also of defeating Vritra ("le dragon géant qui retenait les eaux dans le 'creux de la montagne'"), releasing its water: "Renforcé par le soma, Indra terrasse le serpent avec son vajra ('foudre'), l'arme forgée par Tvastri, lui fend la tête et libère les eaux, qui se déversent vers la mer 'comme des vaches mugissantes'." (p. 218) As we have seen, "[l]e combat d'un dieu contre un monstre ophidien ou marin constitue... un thème mythique assez répandu. Qu'on se rappelle la lutte entre Re et Apophis, entre le dieu sumérien Ninurta et Sag, Marduk et Tiamat, le dieu hittite de l'orage et le serpent Illuyankas, Zeus et Typhon, le héros iranien Traetaona et le dragon à trois têtes Azhi-dahaka... En somme, c'est par la mise à mort d'un monstre ophidien -- symbole du virtuel, du 'chaos'... qu'une nouvelle 'situation', cosmique ou institutionnelle, vient à l'être." (Ibid.) The water, symbolizing the substratum of being, the materia prima, akin to the "energy" of modern physics, stays in its natural state of formless homogeneity; the good (ordering) god, through an uphill process (the "battle"), frees it from the natural state -- "releases the energy" -- and uses it to create the differentiated order of the world (the "cosmos"): the usual mythic theme: "le monde et la vie n'ont pu naître que par la mise à mort d'un Être primordial amorphe" (p. 219); and within Indic mythology itself the thermodynamic theme is to repeat itself variously in the dismemberment of Purusa and the autosacrifice of Prajapati. Whether sacrifice or murder, the meaning is all the same, that energy has to be released and that an uphill process needs to be imposed to "order" the energy out of its natural amorphous state. "[L]a victoire d'Indra équivaut, entre autres, au triomphe de la vie contre la stérilité et la mort, conséquence de l''immobilisation' des eaux par Vritra." (Ibid.) Indra then separates the heaven from the earth, lights up the sun, etc. The uphill process is complete. This initial "winding up" of the cosmos of course has to be regularly repeated, as an order system needs periodic refuelling or winding up. "Il est probable qu'à l'époque ancienne, le combat entre Indra et Vritra constituait le scénario mythico-rituel des fêtes du Nouvel An, qui assurait la régéneration du monde." (p. 220) Indra's combat with Dasyus is to be similarly interpreted.

6. Brahman. At the stage of Rig Veda "[t]he meanings that Sayana the celebrated commentator of the Vedas gives of the word [Brahma] as collected by Haug are: (a) food, food offering, (b) the chant of the sama-singer, (c) magical formula or text, (d) duly completed ceremonies, (e) the chant and sacrificial gift together, (f) the recitation of the hotri priest, (g) great. Roth says that it also means 'the devotion which manifests itself as longing and satisfaction of the soul and reaches forth to the gods.'" (Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, p. 20) The etymology of the term is uncertain. Proposal ranges from Dumézil's equation with the Latin flamen, through Louis Renou's derivation from barh (or brah), thus meaning "speaking in riddles", and Jan Gonda's from brih ("to be strong"), to Paul Thieme's meaning of "form(ing), formulation." (Heesterman, "Brahman", Enc. of Rel. vol. 2, p. 294.) If we recall that the original human conception of the sacred is what makes healthy, energetic, or low entropic, i.e. food or nourishment, we would want to favor the derivation from brih. Soma and Brahman are both "sacred", i.e. nutritious, and so offered to the gods as feed, and as such contain magic power. They are both also themselves personified as gods. We "eat god" -- as during the totemic feast -- because god is sacred (nutritious), and for the same reason god also eats god to keep himself strong, as when Indra drinks soma or Egyptian gods eat Maat. As the "sacred" or "energy", Brahman is thus also the substratum of being. As mythic consciousness wanes and, in our view, the memory of Conservation awakens, or, in the traditional parlance of metaphysics, the consciousness of Being becomes explicit and articulate, "[with] Satapatha Brahmana... the conception of Brahman has acquired a great significance as the supreme principle which is the moving force behind the gods. Thus the Satapatha says, 'Verily in the beginning this (universe) was the Brahman (neut.). It created the gods; and, having created the gods, it made them ascend these worlds: Agni this (terrestrial) world, Vayu the air, and Surya the sky... Then the Brahman itself went up to the sphere beyond. Having gone up to the sphere beyond, it considered, 'How can I descend again into these worlds?' It then descended again by means of these two, Form and Name. Whatever has a name, that is name; and that again which has no name and which one knows by its form, 'this is (of a certain) form,' that is form: as far as there are Form and Name so far, indeed, extends this (universe)..." Brahman thus evolves in the same fashion as does Maat, from the mythic concrete "nourishment" to the more abstract and philosophic principium omnium. "In another place Brahman is said to be the ultimate thing in the universe and is identified with Prajapati, Purusa and Prana (the vital air [the soul-air again!])." This is simply repeating Brahman's status as the substratum. "In another place Brahman is described as being the Svayambhu (self-born) performing austerities, who offered his own self in the creatures and the creatures in his own self, and thus compassed supremacy, sovereignty and lordship over all creatures." (Dasgupta, ibid., p. 20-1) Brahma as the source of being and which is in and as beings (either as the conserved substrate in the thermodynamic sense or Being in the metaphysical sense) is to gradually disengage from these mythical, personalized, or otherized descriptions of it and to serve as the basis (the "source") for a second mode of salvation.

7. The beginning of philosophical cosmogony in the Veda. The cosmogony of the Rig Veda begins, as in every other cultures, with the intuition that "Being is one". This of course can be understood in the traditional metaphysical manner (... beginning with the intuition that the being-process of all things is One...) but we do it thermodynamically. "The supreme man as we have already noticed above is there said to be the whole universe... he is the lord of immortality who has become diffused everywhere among things animate and inanimate, and all beings came out of him; from his navel came the atmosphere; from his head arose the sky; from his feet came the earth; from his ear the four quarters." (Dasgupta, ibid., p. 23) We have already clarified the meaning of this "transmythological theme" -- in the Chinese Pangu, the Germanic Ymir, the Mesopotamian enumma elish -- as recapitulating the thermodynamic constraint on the energy-transformation that is necessary for order-formation and -maintenance, such that the destruction of a primordial order (e.g. the sun) is required in order for the order of the cosmos (e.g. the biospheric order) to arise. "The supreme being is sometimes extolled as the supreme Lord of the world called the golden egg (Hiranyagarbha)." (Ibid.) Again, compare it to the myth of Pangu. This supreme, "Prajapati is sometimes spoken of as the creator while at other times the creator is said to have floated in the primeval water as a cosmic golden egg." (Ibid., p. 25) As the pre-metaphysical mythic consciousness passes into the metaphysical more adept with the articulation of Being or, here, of the memory of Conservation as the source of being, there appears then the 129th hymn of the Rig Veda, the celebrated Nasadiya "in which the first germs of philosophic speculation with regard to the wonderful mystery of the origin of the world are found":

The articulation here is the same as that of Dao, the source of being as the undifferentiated and not-a-being; and same as that of Parmenides' estin with none outside, since outside of Being there is only non-Being, i.e. non-to-be which is not to be. Thermodynamically it is the conserved substrate, Conservedness pure and simple before the rise of anything that is to be conserved. "Neither being nor non-being" presumably refers simply to the Source's undifferentiatedness and not-a-being-ness; this is borne out below and by the commentary on this in the Satapatha Brahmana: "in the beginning this (universe) was as it were neither non-existent nor existent; in the beginning this (universe) was as it were, existed and did not exist; there was then only that Mind." (Ibid., p. 24) Note that the theme of the identification of the universal substrate with a universal "mind", expressed in Hellas as the universal nous, also appears. "[T]he hymn is too early for the concept of being in its full-fledged, ontological sense [i.e. the traditional notion of Being of Guerrière]. So it is highly likely that sat here stood for something midway between the world and pure being [traditional Being], and asat, obviously, for the opposite of it." (J. G. Arapura, "Some Special Characteristics of Sat (Being) in Advaita Vedanta".)¹ Namely, not yet beings but certainly not non-Being that cannot be. The consciousness of the Source is as yet indistinct and sees no point in making any distinctions.

Water -- together with air -- as always has been the best symbolization which the striving mythic consciousness has for the undifferentiatedness and not-a-thing-ness of the Source. Further, I still maintain that the Grundfrage of metaphysics, as below, does not make sense except against the memory of Conservation:

8. The transition to the second mode of salvation. A. The origin of the doctrine of karma. As Heesterman explains, "[i]n the Brahmanas karman is the sacrifice. Originally this sacrificial 'work' had a social context. It rested on the competitive reciprocity of hosts and guests, the latter having to redeem themselves by acting in their turn as hosts." We have already explored the relationship between karmic thinking and economic reciprocity, seeing the roots of both in the (mis)application of thermodynamics to the level of human affairs (c.f. "The Thermodynamic Origin of Justice, Karma, and Guilt"). "The individualization of the srauta sacrifice, however, put an abrupt stop to all exchange and reciprocity. This meant that now the sacrificer had to exchange his karman with himself alone, one's karman inexorably bringing the next karman in its wake. This, combined with the not exclusively Indian notion of an unending alternation of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara), created the urge to terminate the endless chain of ever-renewed karman that could no longer be transferred to the rival." ("Vedism and Brahmanism", p. 237) The budding of the human salvational pursuit. However, as we have seen, karmic thinking develops along this line in other civilizational centers as well, whether Hellas or China. This Indic equivalent to the Hellenic Orphic thinking becomes visible specifically at the late mythic stage. "In the Satapatha Brahmana it is said that those who do not perform rites with correct knowledge [i.e. do not adequately restore the cosmic order after the causation of interruptions within -- a "potential" for something to happen] are born again after death and suffer death again [karma as paying debt, as automatic, natural restoration of equilibrium]." (Dasgupta, ibid.) Note that the word for soul here is manas.² "In many of the hymns there is also the belief in the existence of another world, where the highest material joys are attained as a result of the performance of the sacrifices [energy deposited during sacrifice in this world can be harvested, 'withdrawn', when one reaches the other world] and also in a hell of darkness underneath where the evil doers are punished [justice as the restoration of the equilibrium of pain and happiness]. [Here] we find that the dead pass between two fires which burn the evil doers, but let the good go by; it is also said there that everyone is born again after death, is weighed in a balance [the exact symbolism of the necessary equilibrium as the function of the intuition of the thermodynamic laws], and receives reward or punishment according as his works are good or bad." (Ibid.) The karmic thinking -- paying one's debt or reaping one's reward before the next reincarnation -- we see everywhere. It is thus that "the conception of rita, and the unalterable law which produces the effects of sacrificial works, led to the Law of Karma and the doctrine of transmigration." (Ibid. p. 26) Here is seen again the development in Hellas where animism passes naturally into the orphic thinking that underlies as well the Platonic salvation (Phaedo) as the ideal model of the second mode of salvation.

B. Atman. "The words which denote soul in the Rig-Veda are manas, atman, and asu. The word atman... is generally used to mean vital breath. Manas is regarded as the seat of thought and emotion, and it seems to be regarded, as Macdonell says, as dwelling in the heart." (Ibid.) These finer distinctions within the basic idea of the soul derived from breathing and breath (which is then identified with consciousness) correspond to the same Chinese jing (essence or fluid vitality [精]), qi (breath [氣]), and shen (神). "It is however difficult to understand how atman as vital breath, or as a separate part of man going out of the dead man came to be regarded as the ultimate essence of reality in man and the universe." (Ibid.) We have shown how easy this can be understood given the imagery of the "primal scene of death" (Thermodynamic Genealogy of Primitive Religiousness): the last breath of the dying, upon exiting the body, is seen blending into the cosmos to become re-conserved back into the universal air (atmosphere) serving as the eternally conserved substrate of all existence. Thus "[i]n Taittiriya Brahmana the atman is called omnipresent [as the universal substrate of existence in the Anaximenean manner: air], and... in the pre-Upanishad Vedic literature atman probably was first used to denote 'vital breath' in man, then the self of the world, and then the self in man. It is from this last stage that we find the traces of a growing tendency to looking at the self of man as the omnipresent supreme principle of the universe, the knowledge of which makes a man sinless and pure": the recognition of Atman = Brahman that is to become the pivot of the Hindu style of the second mode of salvation.

C. The interiorization of the ritual. This means that "[w]hat... takes priority [now] is no longer the faithful execution of the ritual but knowledge of the ritual and of the identifications on which it rests. This is already prefigured in the recurrent Brahmana phrase that a particular ritual act is effective only for him 'who knows thus,' that is, for him who knows the relevant identification. It is thus possible to perform the ritual in thought alone (manasā). The transcendent order of the ritual is realized internally in the way of discipline meditation." (Heesterman, "Vedism and Brahmanism", p. 236) Dasgupta provides an example from the Aranyakas (the beginning of Brihadāraniyaka): "instead of the actual performance of the horse sacrifice (asvamedha) there are directions for meditating upon the dawn (Usias) as the head of the horse, the sun as the eye of the horse, the air as its life, and so on." (Ibid., p. 14) Such interiorization is a common phenomenon in the evolution of religion. Paul, for example, in his Roman letters, when trying to dissuade Peter from restricting the new Christian religion to only the Jewish people (the "circumcised"), argues that it is the circumcision in the heart that matters and not in the physical exterior (people who are not physically circumcised can therefore also join the religion of the circumcised).³ Interiorization is simply the logical conclusion of any ritual. If the purpose of words is to point to the meanings they are meant to convey, then once the meanings are grasped the words themselves can be discarded. (Controversy then erupts as to whether, once one has achieved in the interior the meaning of sacrifice, one still has obligation to perform the sacrifice outwardly.) Heesterman calls such interiorization "individualization". With the individualization of karma, atma, and the sacrificial ritual, and the linearization of the target of rituals -- instead of periodically repairing the damage, why not repair it once and for all? -- there now emerges the pursuit to transcend this material worldly existence altogether and to escape from its causal mechanism once and for all: salvation. "From the individualized sacrificer and his internalized sacrifice there runs a straight line leading to the extramundane world renouncer (samnyāsin), who gives up the 3 aims of mundane life -- the socioreligious duties of the householder (dharma), the acquisition and management of wealth (artha), and sensual gratification (kāma) -- to devote himself single-mindedly to a strict inner discipline that results in his liberation from earthly life (moksa). Though there is a wide variety of such inner disciplines they all share the ritualistic strictness of an internalized transcendent order." That is, they all veer toward the second mode rather than the first. "The renouncer's discipline obviously goes beyond, and in many if not most cases even rejects, Vedic ritualism. But it is the desocialization and individualization of Vedic ritual that has prepared the ground for the institution of samnyāsa, or renunciation", i.e. salvation of the second mode. The first stage in this new development is the movement of Upanishads, as we shall see next.

Footnotes:

1. "Sat is the present participle of the root as, to be." (Ibid.) The other root for to-be is bhu, both Indo-European cognates showing up everywhere. For their meanings, c.f. the section on Heidegger's notion of Being.

2. Manas is in fact probably cognate with the Polynesian "mana", as it certainly belongs to the universal cognate identified by Merrit Ruhlen as MENA, "to think (about)" (On the Origin of Languages, p. 312). C.f. "The Origin of the Sacred, Animism, Totemism...", ftnt 6.

3. Rom. 2: 25 - 29: