The Agnicayana Rite: Indigenous Origin? Hyla Stuntz, Converse History of Religions, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Nov., 1974), 81- Stable URL hitp:/flinks.jstor-org/sici?sici=0018-27 10% 28197411%2914%3A2%3C81%3ATARIOWSE2.0.CO%3B2-H History of Religions is currently published by The University of Chicago Press Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.orgijournalsuepress html. ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Fri Aug 5 13:13:33 2005Hyfa Stuntz Converse | THE AGNICAYANA RITE: INDIGENOUS ORIGIN? I. LITERARY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS Inthe last twenty to twenty-five years archaeological investigation has established the existence of two distinet, parallel cultures in northern India between about 1100 8.c. and 500 B.C. One of these cultures ineludes the Punjab and Doab areas and the lower Chambal valley. This is the ancient Vedic heartland known from geographical references in the Sarihitas and Brihmanas. Archaeo- logically this culture is characterized by a Gray Ware pottery, painted at first but evolving to an unpainted type. The second culture is characterized by a Black-and-Red Ware pottery. This culture, with some local variations, stretched from Kathiawar eastward in an are along the Narmada and up into the eastern Gangetic plain. By 800-750 p.c. such cities as Ujjaini, Kasi, Sravasti, and Ayodhya were in existence in the Black-and-Red Ware territory elose to the Gray Ware boundary. Other early Black-and-Red Ware cities were Chirand, Rajghat, Sonpur, Prahladpur, Rajghir, Vaisali, Bran, Nagda, and Maheshwar, to name a few. ‘The remarkable thing about the two cultures is that they lived side by side, but remained notably isolated from each other, with xno borrowings from each other of pottery techniques or styles, of ornament fashions or decorative patterns, until around 600-500 aAgnicayana: Indigenous Origin? p.c.t It is then that an exchange begins to be evident and a new pottery, the Northern Black Polished Ware, begins to appear in the major centers of both cultures. It is also between 500 and 300 8.c that Burrow finds a massive influx of Dravidian words into Sanskrit, indicating the probability that this new encounter and exchange between the intrusive Gray Ware people and the indigenous Black-and-Red Ware people was an exchange between Sanskrit-speaking Vedic people and indigenous Dravidian speak- cers. It is also between 600 and 500 ».c. that the new religious ideas of karma and transmigration begin to appear in the secret and elite Vedic lore of the Upanisads. And it is significant that, without exception, all of the original holy places of Jainism and Buddhism are located in the area of the Black-and-Red Ware culture, none in the Gray Ware area. It is against the background of the new archaeological evidence for the existence of two separate and isolated cultures in northern sudy: SK. Hao, B.D. Lal ‘Bxeavations at Rangpur and Other Explorations in Gajerat“aneion Ina, non 18, 10 (1062-89) (New Delhi Diestor General Of Archaeology, 1903) ae sep. pp. 17, 199-09. B. K- Thapar, *Praleashy 1009: ‘A Ghalealitte Sito in tho Taptt Valley.” Ancient India, nos, 20-21 (1684-63), (Kew Deine Director Gencrl of Avchacaig, 1067). B.B:Laly “From tho Mogul {hie to Harappas Tracing back the Graft on the Pottery.” Ancient Indio, 16 (1960) (New Dethis Diector General of Archaeology, 1968). tal, "Excavations at Hastingpura.” nein India, nox 10, 11 (New Dalhi Dieser General of ‘Archaoology, 1554, 1955) N.'R: Bannerjes, The Iron Age in India (Dei: Mon ‘ram Mancharlal, 1985) RB: Me Wheeler, Citations ofthe Indus Valey and ‘Beyond (New York: McGraw Hil Book Co. 1900), Wheeler Five Phowsand Years a Patisten (London: Royal India and Pakistan Society, 1950) The signcance Sf the Black-and-ftod Ware instil being debated, ‘The basi’ uestion is this foes the Blacicand-Red Waro realy cultural comple whose contin "ity can be eam in othor elemento ofthe cultural context ofthe pottery or the Black-andited Ware merely a technique that becamo widely daseminaied and ix {ound in widely diforng cultural contoxta? Aa more evidence comes iy especially fr the castor nga sal anf equation shld Se pombe However: my arsommint of the evidence that i alway in leads me to conc, forthe timo bong at lost thatthe ack. and ted Wart doos represent clturel compler and not junta floating technique, Tn any case, thor so doubt thatthe ‘Gray Wave culture was separate and difleret from the culture or cultures in which {headend Red Ware found 4 Burrow, The Sanat Language ton words, Burrow says. "tin ov of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan was ‘amety botwoon the (London: Pabor & Fabor, 1955) p.387.0f the “rom this rarvey hat the main indaence trated at-a particular historieal poriod, ta Vedic period ad the formation ofthe classeal language ‘the point of view of tho locality where the influence took placo. snot possible that at this period much infiuence could have been exeresed by tho Dravidian languages of the South. There were no intensive contacts with SOuth Indie baforo the Maury period, by which time the majority ofthese words had iroady’ been adopted by Indo-Aryan Ifthe influence took place inthe North in th eontral Gangetic plain and the clasleal Madhyadesn, the assumption that the pre-Aryan population of the azoa contained a considerable coment of Dravid- Tat necount for the Dravidion words in Sanslri The date ‘Sacuneel im this refoenes. a2History of Religions India during the Vedic period that my own studies have been undertaken. The archaeological model of strata has been used in reexamining the Rgveda, the Reveda Brihmanas, the Taittiriya Sarmhita, the Satapatha Brahmana, and the Brhadaranayaka and Chandogya Upanigads. ‘The study of the Agnicayana rite is part of this longer study. ‘The Agnicayana rite is found most fully developed in the Satapatha Brahmana (SB), Kandas vi-ix, with Kanda x pro further interpretation. In this section of the Brahmana, Sindilya is the authority cited, rather than Yajfiavalkya, and the language also distinguishes it from the rest of the Brahmans. The immediate practical purpose of the Agnieayana rite is to build up for the sacrificer an immortal body that is permanently beyond the reach of the transitoriness, suffering, and death that, according to this rite, characterize man’s mortal existence. The purpose is to be achieved by ritual analogy in the rebuilding of the “unstrung” body of the god Prajapati. The rite includes year’s preparation and then the placing of a minimum of 10,800 kiln-fired bricks (a sizable brick-making operation) in minutely prescribed sequence and position, in five layers, with the sacrificial fire placed on top.® At every point, with every brick, special mantras are to be recited, special actions carried out, and the religious meanings of each part, of the rite carefully explained. he question of bricks is of major importance. The Harappa civilization, whose last, flood-damaged strongholds in the north were overthrown by the i Aryans in battles commemorated in the Rg-Veda, was a brick-using culture, ‘The Harappans used nillions of kiln-fired bricks as well as countless sun-baked ones. In the Kathiawar peninsula, after the devastating flood of between 1700 and 1500 .c., the Harappan people rebuilt their cities, continuing their brick-making and pottery traditions, but with a slow deterioration of the ancient skills. The bricks of the Harappa, civilization in its mature phase were beautifully made, well fired, and standardized in size. ‘The basie size for the bricks was 11} inches long, 53 inches wide, and two or three inches thick. There were also double bricks 11 inches square, and special bricks for well copings, drain covers, corners, ete. Now, in the whole of the Rg-Veda there is no word for brick, nor any descriptive phrase for bricks. So far no ruins of brick dwellings have been found that can be attributed to the Aryans °4, Bagong, trans. ‘The Satapathabrahimara, pt. ia Saored Books of the Bast (heroiftr ited as STH) (Oxford: Clarondon Prom, 1882 8), 42:22, a: 1~ 83Agnicayana: Indigenous Origin? in the early Rg-Vedie period. The Rg-Vedie references to houses, indicate that they were made of perishable wood and thateh. Bricks were thus not part of the Rg-Vedie technical or ritual accomplishments. ‘There are also no references to bricks in the Rg-Veda Brihmanas and outside of the Agnicayana sections of the Samhits and Brahmanas of the Yajurveda tradition, no signifi- cant references to bricks occur in these or in the Simaveda Brahmanas. Thus, in the Brihmanas, when references to bricks degin to appear, their use is confined to one specialized rite, and the rite itself is found only in the Yajurveda tradition. The fire altars in other rites were made of packed earth, not bricks. ‘The size of the bricks to be used in the rite was one foot square, and half-bricks were also to be used (SB vi,5,3,2; vii,7,2,17). This, size and shape corresponds very closely to that of the Harappa bricks described above. The lack of any bricks in the early Vedie tradition and the presence of bricks in large numbers and of the same size in the adjacent indigenous Black-and-Red Ware territory suggest that the Black-and-Red Ware culture is the source of the Agnicayana brick-making skill. ‘The word for brick also suggests a probable non-Aryan origi As a Sanskrit word, isfakd is related to the ritual use of bricks as an oblation, an isfi, and not to their general character as a build- material. This suggests that bricks first, came into Vedie usage through this ritual function, rather than through their usual building funetion. By contrast, the brick words in Dravidiat based languages such as Tamil are descriptive of the primary use of bricks for building, For instance, one Tamil word for brick is cengal; cennw means straightness, and kal or gat means stone or clay. Another ‘Tamil word for burt (fired) brick is culakal, sulakal; again kal means clay or stone, and cufu, sulu means to burn, to bake, to burn bricks.‘ It is possible that an early form of, sulakal was the foreign phonetic basis of what becomes Sanskrit ined into istaka: an inversion (not uncommon in the incorporation of Dravidian words into Sanskrit) of the s and the w, and the Aropping of the final 1 to conform to Sanskrit endings, would sive ustaka; the use of the bricks as isfi would tend to bring about ‘the change from the initial w (not common in Sanskrit) to the more common i.® Whatever the souree word, it was the Sanskrit 4-7. Burrow and M. B. Bmencau, A Dravidian Btymoloyical Dictionary (Oxford Crenvton Press, 1861), nos. 1091, 2136 5A similar inversion takes placo, fot instance, as the Dravidian word for the Indigenous tree, the ancred” ieus’riliiosn corner aver into Sanskrit; atavam (Tarn) becomes asvattha in Sanskrit, with tho inversion of the wand f a“History of Religions meaning of the approximate transliteration of the indigenous word that was emphasized, and this Sanskrit word, istakd, in no way reflects the building funetion of bricks but only their ritual use, ‘The question of the fire pan is as significant as the bricks them- selves. The first brick, three other special bricks, and the fire pan, which was a sort of squarish pot, were to be prepared and fired a year in advance of the actual building of the fire altar. ‘The fire lighted in the fire pan was then to be earried about by the sacri- ficer for part of each day during that year of preparation. The four special bricks and the fire pan were to be fired in a pit kiln and special instructions are given for this firing. And it is here ‘that an important detail comes to light. The fire pan was to be fired with the bottom turned up (SB vi,5,4,4). This may seem like ‘an insignificant detail. But it was specifically this inverted firing technique by which the Black-and-Red Ware, the distinctive trait of the indigenous non-Vedic culture, was made black and red! ‘The technique was not used in the making of the Gray Ware, except very sparsely at very late levels.* Inverting the pot during firing limits the oxidation in the interior of the pot, and this partial reduction leaves the interior black, while the outside fires to a red color because of the full reduction of the clays and washes, used. ‘The inverted firing technique is again required to be used in the making of the Mahavira pot for the Pravargya or Gharma rite (SB xiv,1,2,21), and it is explained there that the firing technique is the same as in the Agnicayana for the fire pan. This special reference to the inverted firing technique, linking it with the Agni- cayana, implies that this technique differed from that ordinarily followed, and T have found no other references to it. The Aévaliy- ana Srauta Satra, as Eggeling’s note on this passage points out, further explains that a substance, a wash, is to be rubbed onto ‘the pot before firing so as to make the outside of the pot red. tis clearly a Black-and-Red Ware pot. The legendary explanation of the Pravargya also suggests indigenous connections. It is stated that Indra overcame this sacrifice and forbade the telling of the secret by which the “head could be restored to it,” the secret, that would make it effective. But, in spite of Indra, the Asvins (through whom other indigenous practices and Dasa groups such tons.” Ancient India, nos. 18-10 (New Delhi: Director Concral of Archacdh 1963}, ppr 17, 198-89. * Seo the discussion by BB. Lal, “Excavations at Rangpur and Other Explora-Agnicayana: Indigenous Origin? as the Tugryas of book vii of the Rg-Veda had been brought into the Vedic community) got hold of the secret and told it to me ‘The secret to which Indra was opposed was thus a rite which in- volves the making of the pot by the Black-and-Red Ware inverted. firing technique. In the Agnicayana there is further evidence that the fire pan and the technique for making it were taken over from the alien indigenous culture. In the course of the ritual, the fire pan is addressed as follows: ““An Asura contrivance thou art, made in the wonted manner” (SB vi,6,2,7); in the Satapatha Brahmana (and in the Brahmana period generally) the Asuras were represented as the divine beings of the enemy indigenous peoples. The reference to the pot as an “‘Asura contrivance” and to the inverted firing technique as the Asuras’ wonted or habitual manner of making pots acknowledges that the making of the pot has been taken over from the enemy indigenous tradition. ‘Thus the text independently corroborates the archaeological evidence that the Black-and-Red Ware technique was identified with the non-Vedic indigenous culture, And this in turn underlines the close connection of the Agnicayana rite with that culture. If the Agnicayana was taken over from some form of indigenous ritual, then one would expect to find in the Brihmanas both opposition to it and explanations of the ways in which the Vedie adaptation was superior to other ways of doing it, Passages of both kinds do appear. A passage decisively denying the need for performing the Agnicayana rite at all is found in the more traditionally Vedie Yajnavalkya section of the Satapatha Brahm- ana (SB ii,3,3,17-18). Here it is stated that placing a stick on the Agnihotra fire corresponds to placing a brick on the Agnicayana, ‘the same Yajus verses being chanted for both: “Whoever knows this, just by offering the Agnihotra year by year, offers the equiva lent of the Agnicayana.” In another passage (SB ix,6,2,15) the Vedie gods are represented as doubting the effieaey of the buil of an Agnicitya by ‘Tura Kavageya, who was one of the ear in the accounts to build a fire altar according to this rite. “The gods asked him, ‘Sage, seeing that they declare the building of the fire altar not to be conducive to heaven, why then has thou built one?”” The answer is vague and inconclusive, ‘The text notes over and again that only the correct Sindilya form of the Agnicayana rite can be either effective or safe. At Satapatha Brahmana viii,4,2-3 the Asuras are represented having their own rules for the building of a fire altar, but it is 86History of Retigions pointed out that their efforts are bound to end in disaster because they do not use the Sindilya form of the rite, In another passage (SB x,5,5,8) some priests who were traveling about came upon a fire altar whose shape was different from that of the Sandilya fire altar: this one had “the head pulled out”; that is, it had a head ‘built out in front of the altar. The first of the five layers of the Sandilya fire altar does, indeed, have this shape: the altar is often spoken of as being in the shape of a bird, with body, two wings, a ‘ail, and a head; these are represented by slight oblong projections of the brick pattern on the north, south, and west; to the east on the first layer @ special series of bricks gives the appearance of a neck and head. By the time the altar is built up to the fifth layer it no longer has the appearance of having a neck and head on the eastward side as in the first layer, and this is intentional, as the fire itself, standing on the top of the altar, is to be the head. The “pulled out head” is still present even in the fourth layer, being obscured only in the fifth, and it is possible that the construction with the “pulled out head’” represents an original indigenous form.? ‘To build the fire altar in this way with the head pulled out, states, the text, results in the early death of the one who builds it This in turn is connected with another late Vedic use of the same Agnicitya construction—its use as a tomb or relic mound (SB xiii,8,1,1-4,12). In this case the head is to be built on the east side, but of the same size as the wings and tail, thus making it, symmetrical. At xii,8,1,5 appears a most important comparative statement: “The people who are godly® make their burial places four-comered, whilst those who are of the Asura nature, the Easterners and others, (make them) round.” ‘The same sort of comparison occurs again at xiii8,2,1: “Whenee those who are godly people make their sepulehres so as not to he separate (from the earth), whilst those (people) who are of the Asura nature, the Easterners and others, (make their sepulchral mounds) so as to be separated (from the earth), either on a cami or some such thing.” It should be recalled that the archaeological evidence shows the presence of Black-and-Red Ware cities in the eastern Gangetic plain during the late Brihmana period. ‘The “people of the Asura nature, those Easterners and others” were evidently non-Vedie people in the Black-and-Red territory, who were already at this early date in the habit of building round, solid, retie mounds raised * Bggeting, Satapathabrahmena, pt. 4,in SBE, vol, $9, Soo diggrasnain the notes on pp. 17.34, 4 31, 08 We, the Vedio pope, aAgnicayana: Indigenous Origin? up off the ground, on a brickwork base of some kind. The Vedie mounds were to be square, and, as the text goes on to say, they were also to be much smaller (only three or four feet high) so as not to attract the attention of marauders. Both kinds were solid, and in them only the bones of the deceased were deposited, between ‘the bricks which were laid out like a bird at the lowest level. While the Vedic forms are different, they parallel larger and more com- plex types attributed to the neighboring culture, types which from their description very much resembled the later stups ‘A number of lines of evidence have been cited which indicate ‘the indigenous connections of the Agnicayana rite: the use of & lange number of kiln-baked bricks of approximately the same size as those of the neighboring Black-and-Red Ware culture, although, ‘the Vedie Aryans were not a brick-making. people; the ritual meaning of the word for brick in Sanskrit, rather than an ordinary functional meaning; the instructions for the firing of the fire pan, involving the very technique by whieh the indigenous Black- and-Red Ware is made black and red; the opposition of Indra to the only other rite in which this firing technique is to be used; the toxt as it addresses the pot, calling it an Asura contrivance made in the habitual way; the opposition to the Agnicayana found other sections of the Satapatha Brihmana; the insistence that while those Easterners and others of the Asura nature might be engaged in larger, more complex constructions, only the Sandilya rite was effective, showing indirectly the presence of developed fire altar and relie-mound practices among the Black-and-Red Ware people to the south and east. II, THEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS d to show that the Sandilya. tradition, centering around the Agnicayana, had many indigenous characteristies and a probable indigenous source, although it had been adapted to Vedie use, the building of an immortal body so that at death the saerifiect could go to “yonder world,” to the Vedic gods and fathers. ‘The indigenous connections of the Sindilya tradition markedly heighten the importance of the fact, noted by Baxeling and others, that the religious conceptions found in the Sindilya section of the Satapatha Brihmana, as well as vocabulary and grammar, differ significantly from the earlier Rg- Veda, the Rg-Veda Brihmanas, and the Yajfiavalkya section of 88History of Religions the Satapatha Brahmana.’ It is possible that the peculiar theology of the Agnicayana may also represent indigenous influences. In the Satapatha Brahmana the Agnicayana with its special religious views (which will be referred to as the Prajipati theology) appears to have been a distinet and developed tradition, added to the Vedie Soma sacrifices. But the Prajapatilegends and the conceptions they eonveyed had already been known before the two lines were brought together. Eggeling points out that this accounts for the occasional presence of Prajapati legends in the Rg-Veda, Brihmanas, where, however, they are bodily inserted and often conflict with the context, and in the Yajiiavalkya section of the Satapatha Brahmana, where the references are often perfunc- tory.10 ‘The purpose of the Agnicayana rite is to build up for the saeri- ficer an immortal self that is permanently beyond the reach of the transitoriness, suffering, and death that are held to characterize his mortal existence. This is done through the placing of the bricks in the fire altar and an interwoven series of sacramental identifi- cations, providing @ ritual analogy to the rebuilding of the “unstrung” body of the god Prajipati. This is explained through repetitive and sometimes conflicting legends about Prajapati, who symbolizes the creative-destructive process continually cecurring in nature. Frequently the sacrifice itself is seen in this Prajapati theology as death-and-new-life, rather than in the older Vedic terms of “gift” and strengthening food. ‘The primary deity in all of this is Prajips ‘pati first appears in the Vedie literature in the small group of “*philosophi- caP” hymns in the final stratum (bk. i, 50-191; bk. x) of the Reg-Veda. ‘The language of these hymns connects them with the small number of yatu or black soreery hymns, also found for the first time in the last stratum of the Rg-Veda, the philosophical hymns and the curse hymns form a single tradition that differs from the main body of book x. Furthermore, the yatu verses contain practices and beliefs which in stratum 1 of the Rg-Veda, had been condemned as enemy alien ways, contrary to belief in * Bggslng, Satapathabrakmana, pt. 1 in SBE, 12:xxxt,xivi, A. B. Keith, The Veda of the Blac Yajue Sehoa! Britt ostiriya Sonkial (Cambridge, Noses Harvard Univerty Prom, 1914), ppemxeif oth Byung wd Reith dius the ‘iewn of other gcholars a well aster own views, a thea reference, $e eggling, Satsatharahmanaypt 4 Sif xit a est The Veda of he Black Vajun School p-cxxx: A.B. Reith, Phe Relagion and Philowsphy of the eas «and Upanishads (Cargo, Sis Harvard University Pros, 1685) Px 440, ' Edward V, Amol “The Rig Veda and the Atharva Vela,” Journal ofthe Arnrican Orin Soy 22 (1801). 308-30. 39Agnicayana: Indigenous Origin? the Vedie gods and Vedic rites."? It is thus consistent with these earlier references in the Rg-Veda to discover in the Agnicayana, with its indigenous connections, that an exalted position is also here accorded to the deities of the few philosophical hymns of book x of the Rg-Veda. In those Rg-Vedie hymns honoring Viévakarman, Purusa, Hiranyagarbha, Ka, and Prajapati, the outstanding contrast with the other Vedic conceptions of deit tion in each deity of both creative and destructive functions. In the Agnicayana Prajapati is accorded the highest position, the other deities of the philosophical hymns being subsumed under him.” ‘Many of the explanatory legends in the Agnicayana have to do with a basic formula, whose details are varied to suit the particular aspect of the ritual at hand. Prajipati came into being from the golden embryo. He did not wish to remain alone and so he started creating by austerities and desire. When he had finished ereating, “his limbs became unstrung,” and he was totally helpless, the equivalent of death to an immortal. The gods then, in return for some promised favor from Prajépati, by means of some sacrifice, put strength back into Prajapati. Men similarly can gain the same benefit from Prajdpati as did the gods by performing the equiva- lent sacrifice. Tn the early R-Veda men offered gifts to the gods to strengthen and please the gods, who in return rendered nature creative for ‘man’s strengthening and enjoyment. That religious outlook fundamentally affirmed the value of life in this world. What is different in the Prajapati theology is the idea that creativity bears always within it the seeds of death. In a Prajapati legend (SB ii,4,2,2) the god declares to mortals: “Your offspring shall be your death.” In the early Rg-Veda, offspring were a ‘man’s prosperity and his “immortality.” "* In another passage (SB ix,2,1,2) Agni (identified with Prajapati) is declared to be 4 This has all boon set forth in an earlier, a yot unpublished study of rine 1 For instance, inthe foundation of the altar, over which is bul py is placed frst lotus leaf; on that fe laid a golden pinto, and on that « golden image ore man. Ae SB 15 is ono of tho explanctions which the text ives (aod they differ) it aaid hat the lotus Teas the won rors which ged land ‘0 the gncrficor also, who is identified with Agni) isto he boen. The gold plate ix ound, with twenty-one knobs; iti the sus By” placing ion the lots lea, the ‘Sherificr places Agal in the worab and inpregnbt ity and a werue x quoted: “The womb ofthe existent and the nonexistent did he overspreed": the text then {gocson to quote more from Itg-Vedn ( {he go plate the gold man ini" He ts Puruga for’ PeHistory of Religions ‘completely restored or renewed by the building of the fire altar, “and is now equal to injuring (destroying) whomsoever he might ‘wish to injure” (my italics). Prajapati’s role as destroyer is most clearly marked when he is identified with the sun, with Agni, or with the year—that machine of impermanence, glutting itself on the transient, mortal existence of all that lies this side of the sun but also, with the same indiffer- cence, proliferating new life. Both the sun and Agni are frequently identified with death (as well as with generative power), and Prajdpati is identified with them and also directly with death. In SB x,1,3,1, for instance, it is stated: “Pra reated living beings. From the out- (and in-) breathings he ereated the gods, and from the downward breathings the mortal beings; and above ‘the mortal beings he ereated Death as their consumer.” In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad (1,2,4-5), in another creation legend, he is pictured as attempting to eat his own offspring as soon as it, ‘was born. One cannot look for consistency in these legends, but only for ‘the general conceptions which emerge. And there is evidence of the hostility that appears to have existed between the tradition represented by the Agnicayana and the older Vedie rites. In SB x.4,3,1 ff, we find, “the Year is the same as Death,” and “the gods were afraid of this Prajapati, the Year, Death, the Ender, lest he by day and night should reach the end of their life.” They tried all of the established Vedic rites (the Agnihotra, the new moon and full moon saerifiees, ete.), and they were ineffective, Then they tried out a fire altar, but it too did not work, until Prajapati showed them just how to build it ‘The strong emphasis on death, as well as fecundity, in the primal divine being, Prajapati, who represents the cosmic process, tends to produce or to reflect a particular religious attitude toward the world; the believer regards the world, if not as suffering and evil at least as ambiguous, as a condition from which he seeks to escape, The world, the human situation, bears a negative valuation, and religion is regarded as assisting man to extricate himself from An important passage in this regard is SB x,4,4,1 ff: “When Prajapati_was creating living beings, Death, that evil, over- powered him. He practiced austerities for a thousand years, st ing to leave evil behind him.” The phenomenal world, the world of created living beings, is the world of evil? where death * Seo also, fr instance, SB x,5,1,1 #Z. where it ie stated that thie world ix doath. 1Agnicayana: Indigenous Origin? overpowers, or is part of, even the divine and immortal being who is lord of this world, “Jord of creatures.” ‘The passage further em- phasizes that the way to free oneself from evil is through the practice of asceticism, over a long period of time, in fact the equivalent of many lifetimes. This is made more explicit in para- graph 3 of the same passage: “In the one-thousandth year, he cleansed himself all through; and he that cleansed all through is ‘this wind which here cleanses by blowing; and that evil which he cleansed all through is this body.” A dualism here opposes the body, regarded as evil, to the spirit (with affinities to wind and breath), regarded as pure. How antithetical this is to the early Vedie hope, reiterated again and again, that the gods will make available all bodily experienced delights and preserve from harm “our own dear bodies”!"® The Satapatha Brahmana passage gor ‘on to state that through “knowledge,” meditation on the mystic identifications, one can appropriate for himself the equivalent of Prajapati’s 1,000 years of asceticism. But the sacrificer should himself also practice asceticism: “Wherefore let him who knows by all means practice austerities: for indeed, when he who knows this practices austerities, even to abstention from sexual intercourse, every part of him will share in the world of heaven.” It is significant that the section ends with a quotation from the Rg-Veda (,179,8), a banal generality: “Not in vain is the labor which the gods favor,” whose only purpose here must be to provide the ancient sanction of the Rg-Veda for a religious view not characteristically Rg-Vedie. In SB x.4 and 5 death is exalted to the position of the highest deity, who himself does not die, who is the eye of the sun, bathed in luminosity. It is through the sacrificer’s identification with this death-of-all-that-is-phenomenal that the sacrificer attains identity, of atman with that Ultimate which negates phenomenality and brings men an immortality that is conceived very differently from the older Vedic view of heaven as a place where all desires are fulfilled, In this new view which exalts death, a new sort of heaven is indicated in a cited verse for which no Vedic souree has been found: “They ascend to that. state where desires have vanished; sacrificial gifts go not thither, nor the fervid practicers of rites without knowledge”; the Brthmana goes on: “For indeed, the who does not know this, does not attain to that world either by sacrificial gifts or by devout practices, but only to those who know 26 This phrase ie from RV 5,114,7.History of Religions does that world belong” (SB x,5,4,16). At the end of the sixth Adhyaya (Kanda x) Sindilya is quoted in reference to this knowledge. He states that it is an omniscience, that the object of knowledge is the atman which is intelligent spirit, the form of light, speechless, and indifferent (my italies), and the same as the person's own self. Thus in the section where death is stressed as both the character of and the master over all phenomenal exist- ence, the ultimate state includes all knowledge and indifference. Nothing is said of the Vedic aim of gaining this world as well as yonder world. The similarity to Jain types of doctrines is obvious: life is suffering, the domain of death; the body is evil, an entrap- ment; the state of the released self, like that of the released jin, is omniscienee and indifference; asceticism is a means to release.” If Parva is accepted as having been a historieal person, as he now generally is, then some sort of proto-Jainism was undoubtedly being practiced near its original holy places in the Black-and-Red Ware territory to the east and south of the Aryavarta at the time the Sindilya and Yajfiavalkya traditions were brought together in the Satapatha Brahmana. There are a great many Prajipati passages in the Sandilya section of the Satapatha Brahmana which interpret the world in the sense of the passages above, as the domain of death, release from which is to be sought through asceticism and meditation: asceticism and meditation assist the devotee to “mount above” the sun or the year or Agni as symbols of death and of the phe- nomenal world. But the Sindilya tradition represents something more. It represents the thorough adaptation of these conceptions to the Vedic tradition, the result being an accommodation in which both the world-affirming Vedic conceptions and the world-negating non-Vedie conceptions are retained. How? ‘The World negating ‘worlds through the ritual. The key doctrine of karma and transmigration do not {ccur in the Agnicayana. although they appear to he known and rejected by ‘Yajiaetkya in the ear parts ofthe Sespathie Brahmans, The Agnicayank joes contuin a heavy concentration of punarmrti passages, felted docteine rings ofthe ater eh ay rptennt attempts to ation doctrine by adaptation at incorporation without ining the importance ofthis ie at ths work. The way of knowledges ‘of Yogie techniques of meditation inthe passage cited, $18 xy-h,103 the jerson""in Uoright eye and the 0 Leye-tiescend 0 the hear, they join in maidhuna, and the raan becomes inaenate, The ‘and ath, find’ Agni ate all the same, and thie state of insensibility to the oueade work of Inaltfonce, ia a forotaste of the ultimate state ofthe delivered soul the highest bss (81 s.,2.11).Agnicayana: Indigenous Origin? views and practices are put to work to gain immediate, this- worldly Vedie ends. An important aspect of this accommodation is that the asceticism undertaken here is not understood as a negation of ritual but isa part of a ritual performance, and medita- tion or knowledge is meditation on and knowledge of the mystic sacramental meaning of the ritual. Furthermore, both this world and yonder world are important: the building up of the immortal bbody for use in yonder world, in the piling of the fire altar, at the ‘same time assures the sacrificer of protection and bodily enjoyment. to the fullest. possible extent in this world also (SB ix,6,1,10-11; x,2,6,4; but as noted above, there are passages which do not refer to this-worldly ends), Far more than anywhere else in the Brahmanas, the Agnicayana Tite contains conceptions that have close affinities with the conceptions of some type of early dualistic religious or philo- sophical outlook, such as Jainism and later Saikhya, and the indigenous connections of the Agnicayana suggest that these ‘conceptions came into the Vedic tradition from the indigenous culture also. But the indigenous conceptions were adapted in being taken over. While the Prajapati theology emphasizes that death is herent in the nature of the world, that life is transitory and subject to suffering and evil—a fundamental life-negating tenet of Jainism and later of Buddhism—yet the Agnicayana also holds, in somewhat of an agglomeration rather than a synthesis, that the full and complete life to be attained by the rite ineludes ‘but long life here and all its enjoyments a very life-affirming Vedic value. Again, although the Prajapati ‘theology held that “immortality is founded on death,” that only ‘through the identification with the death of this world can im- mortality be attained, yet asceticism, which is the suppression or “death” of the experience of this world, is never a direct way to immortality but relates to ritual performance whose ends a worldly as well as otherworldly. This process of aecommodation is highly significant, as the same pattern of accommodation is attested in many other instances. Here the threat or challenge of an alien and wholly antithetical world view is dissipated and relativized by incorporating it as a specialized means to a Vedic end, by putting it to use in a Vedie ritual context. Of course the alien view also affected the Vedic view in such an accommodation. Yet the viability of this process of accommodation is surely evident in the noteworthy continuity in the Indian tradition from the Vedic period to the present. oHistory of Religions Thave outlined some of the reasons why Iam convinced that the Prajipati theology, found most intensively in Vedic literature in the Agnicayana rite, represents a separate strand of tradition with an original indigenous origin, although as incorporated into the Vedic materials, it had been adapted to Vedie ends. ‘This is in keeping with the available archaeological, literary, and linguis- tie evidence dealt with briefly in Section T of this study. I am further convinced that the archaeological evidence for two separate and relatively isolated cultures existing in north India during the Vedic period and beginning to interact extensively about 500 8.0. provides a fruitful and illuminating interpretive structure with which to pursue further studies. ‘The two-culture situation not only throws new light on the texts of the Brahmanas and Upanigads. Tt also points to the rise of Buddhism in the Black- and-Red Ware territory as primarily a non-Vedie movement. The concept of cultural encounter is immensely useful also in clarifying the formative period of Hinduism and the amalgamative process which was occurring then. Thus the study of the Agnicay- ana rite in this new archaeological context, while significant for itself, is of importance also in sharpening the implications of the new archaeological evidence, supported by linguistic and literary findings, for a whole range of further studies. School of Humanistic Studies, Oklahoma State University "Ie has been noted thet all of the original holy places of both Jainism and ‘Buddhism are to be found in the Black ans Red Wate tervivory, none of thes it the Gray Ware territory. Thus the archacologieal evidence mupports thoes inter pretations of the rise of Buddhism and the formative developments im arly Hinduinm as involving aaituation of cultural encounter of two peoples with whey diferent religious outlooks, the world. affrming Vecie view and the world-nogating ‘ain Buddhist view. The rise of Buddhism ean thu no longer be interpreted a= ‘lam revolt of eastern Kautriyas agninst Brahenin domination, for itt exactly {nthe period of the rise of Buddhixn that archavological evidence shows the rst "nificant interaction hetween the two cultures began, 95,