2

The Consistency of Vedic Argument

Joanna Jurewicz

The aim of this essay is to show how the Vedic composers constructed
arguments in their ritual exegesis.1 Ritual activity, performed
according to the metaphysical assumptions presented in cosmogonies,
represents the dynamic reality in which man plays a crucial role. The
ritual represents reality in two ways. First, it represents metaphysical
assumptions and theories. Second, it represents their content, i.e. what
happened during creation, in illo tempore, and what happens now. It
is important to note that in the representation of the ritual, there
is no division between the description and its designate. Whatever
happens at the ritual place is real. The ritual, thus understood, is
the embodied representation of human thought and its designates.
I will show the rational background of the Brahmanical thinking
that allowed them to construe a coherent and convincing theory of
ritual understood as outlined above. The sources are the Śatapatha
Brāhmaṇa (ŚB 2.2.4) and the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (JB 1.1–2).
In my reconstruction, I will use two models proposed by cognitive
linguistics—conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. These
are basic mental strategies, the recognition of which enables us to
analyze the meaning of verbal and non-verbal signs. Conceptual
metonymy is a model of thinking within one conceptual domain.
Its part (called the vehicle) gives access to another part of it or to
the whole domain (called the target domain).2 The vehicle can also

1
 This paper was supported by the National Science Center Poland
research grant (2016/21/B/HS1/00789).
2
  Klaus-Uwe Panther and Günter Radden, eds., Metonymy in Language
and Thought, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing
Company, 1999.
20  Joanna Jurewicz

be the whole concept, its part is a target domain in this case. For
example, there is metonymy operating within the conceptual domain
of container. When we say, ‘I drank a bottle’, we linguistically point
to the container, but we think about its liquid content and usually
our recipients understand the sentence in the same way. The whole
concept, i.e. bottle (container) is the vehicle, and its liquid content,
e.g. wine, is the target domain. However, if we ask at the table ‘Pass
me the salt, please’, we linguistically focus on the content (salt),
although we expect to get the salt shaker. In this case, the vehicle is
salt (content), and the target domain is the salt shaker (container).
Conceptual metaphor is a model of mental operation that operates
between two conceptual domains. It enables us to think about one
concept in terms of another. 3 The concept that provides the categories
is called the source domain. The concept that is conceived in terms
of those categories is called in the same way as in the metonymic
model, i.e. the target domain. For example, in Indo-European
languages, cognition is conceived in terms of seeing.4 The concept
of seeing is the source domain; the concept of cognition is the target
domain. Conceptual metaphor reflects itself in language, so that one
can meaningfully say: ‘I see what you mean’, when one understands
someone else’s thought.
Conceptual metaphors and metonymies are universal in that
they motivate human thinking in a considerable way. However,
the vehicles, the source and the target domains are often culturally
specific. Cognitive analysis gives us access to thinking that is
expressed in words and reveals its rational background, even if its
linguistic realization seems to be meaningless or fanciful at first
glance.

How the Argument is Built

Turning now to how the argument is constructed, I will begin with
the main cosmogony of the Agnihotra ritual which is described

3
  George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1980; George Lakoff and Mark Turner,
More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1989.
4
 Eve Sweetser, From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and
Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   21

in ŚB 2.2.4.5 Prajāpati is presented here as generating fire from

his mouth. As he did not create anything that fire could eat, fire
attacks Prajāpati. Prajāpati creates milk and pours it into fire. In
this way, plants appear. However, since milk is mixed with hair,
which probably comes from the interior of Prajāpati’s palms, fire
still threatens Prajāpati with death. Then, Prajāpati again creates
milk and pours it into the fire. Fire is pacified, Prajāpati is saved,
and the cosmos—divided into earth, space, and sky—is created.6 In
the same way, the sacrificer, having performed the Agnihotra, will
release himself from death and will live as long as possible. After
death he will be born again from fire. The composer describes this
in the following way:

sá hutv prajpatiḥ | prá cjāyatātsyatáś cāgnér mtyór ātmnam atrāyata

sá yó haiváṃ vidvn agnihotráṃ juhóty etṃ haivá prájātim prájāyate yṃ
prajpatiḥ prjāyataivám u haivtsyatò ‘gnér mtyór ātmnaṃ trāyate | (ŚB
2.2.4.7)
And Prajāpati, having performed offering, reproduced himself, and saved
himself from Agni, Death, as he was about to devour him. And, verily,
whosoever, knowing this, offers the Agnihotra, reproduces himself by
offspring even as Prajāpati reproduced himself; and saves himself from
Agni, Death, when he is about to devour him.

sa yátra mriyáte | yátrainam agnv abhyādádhati tád eṣò ‘gnér ádhijāyaté

5
  For the detailed analysis of this cosmogony, see, Joanna Jurewicz, Fire,
Death and Philosophy: A History of Ancient Indian Thinking, Warsaw: Dom
Wydawniczy Elipsa, 2016. For description and analysis of the Agnihotra,
see, Paul-Emile Dumont, L’Agnihotra. Description de l’agnihotra dans
le ritual védique, Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1939; Henk W.
Bodewitz, Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa I, 1-65: Translation [from the Sanskrit] and
Commentary with a Study of Agnihotra and Prāṇāgnihotra, Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1973; Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering. Agnihotra
According to the Brāhmaṇas, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976. For interpretation
of symbolics of the Agnihotra as the ritual and cognitive process, which
involves karmic retribution, in the Kāṇva Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, see, Lauren
Michelle Bausch, ‘Kosalan Philosophy in the Kāṇva Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa
and the Suttanipāta’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at
Berkeley, 2015, pp. 94–106.
6
 Almost all the cosmogonies explaining the Agnihotra preserve this
basic schema, see, Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering, pp.
14–23.
22  Joanna Jurewicz

‘thāsya śárīram evgnír dahati tád yáthā pitúr vā mātúr vājyetaivám eṣò
’gnér ádhijāyate śáśvaddha v eṣá ná sámbhavati yò ‘gnihotráṃ ná juhóti
tásmād vā́ agnihotráṃ hotávyam | (ŚB 2.2.4.8)
And when he dies, and when they place him on the fire, then he is born
(again) out of the fire, and the fire only consumes his body. Even as he is
born from his father and mother, so is he born from the fire. But he who
offers not the Agnihotra, verily, he does not come into life at all: therefore
the Agnihotra should by all means be offered.7

The examples just quoted show that the composers of the

Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa discerned two kinds of immortality. The first
one, expressed in ŚB 2.2.4.7, was the possibility to live as long as
possible. To realize it, man needed to eat properly and perform
rituals. The second one, expressed in ŚB 2.2.4.8, was the ability to
survive death. This ability could be realized if the sacrificer had
created his immortal part in the ritual.
This ontological situation of man is created in the first moment
of creation when fire appears from Prajāpati’s mouth. Prajāpati first
creates profane food for fire, i.e. plants. Thanks to plants, men can
maintain fire and will have food too. Then, Prajāpati creates milk.
It is not only human food, but also, and more importantly here, the
oblation used in the Agnihotra ritual.
However, the meaning of the image of Prajāpati who creates
fire from his mouth is broader. It can be understood generally as
the creation of the possibility to cook and live (on the basis of
metonymies fire for cooking, cooking for eating, eating for
living8), and to see and cognize (on the basis of metaphor knowing
is seeing). It can also be understood metaphorically, as the creation
of breath and speech, which are conceived in terms of fire (breath is
fire, speech is fire). The recipient is prompted to create the image of
man who not only kindles fire, but who breathes and speaks (more
specifically, who recites the Veda) too. This image is the source
domain of the conceptual metaphor, the target domain of which is,
on a macro-scale, the creation of the world and, on the micro-scale,
the creation of the ability to live as long as possible and to become
immortal after death.
7
 Julius Eggeling, tr., The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, Sacred Books of the
East, vols. 12, 26, 41, 43, 44, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882, 1885, 1894,
1897, 1900, vol. 12, p. 324.
8
  They are specific realizations of more general metonymies place of
action for action, the first phase of action for action, cause for effect.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   23

This source domain, i.e. the image of a man who breathes or

withdraws his breath, recites or remains silent, and kindles fire, is
ritually represented in Vedic rituals, notwithstanding its specific
realizations. I will discuss now the Agnyādhānana ritual—the initial
establishment of the fires—as it is described in JB 1.1–2.9 The source
domain is the sacrificer, for whom the fires are kindled for the first
time. The target domain is the creation of the sacrificer’s ritual self
that will be gradually composed in rituals during his whole life and
thanks to which he will finally become immortal. However, if the
recipient also activates the meaning of creation of the world, he will
understand that when the sacrificer creates his ritual self, he creates
the world for himself—on earth and in the yonder world.
The description begins with a question: tad āhuḥ kena juhoti
kasmin hūyate iti | (JB 1.1) ‘What does he offer, in what there is
offered?’10 And the answer is that that the sacrificer offers breath, in
breath: (JB 1.1) prāṇenaiva juhoti prāṇe huyate | ‘He offers breath,11
in breath12 there is offered’.
In this way, the external ritual manipulation of kindling fires gets
its general meaning, which is breathing. The same is implied in the
cosmogony of ŚB 2.2.4: Prajāpati creates fire from his mouth, which
is his breath and speech. Moreover, the ritual identification of fires
with breath implies that ritual action takes place on two planes. The
first plane is external and refers to the sacrificial place where fires
are kindled. The second plane is internal and refers to the body of
the sacrificer who begins to breathe, and to his mind, because he
should know that when the priests kindle fires for him, he is left
alone with his breath. In the beginning of ritual, the breath of the
sacrificer is hidden in the kindling sticks:
tad yad etad agnīn manthanti yajamānasyaiva tat prāṇān janayanti | tad
yāvad vai manthanta na tarhi prāṇiti | araṇyor evāsya tarhi prāṇā bhavanti |
(JB 1.1)

9
  For a detailed description of the ritual of Agnyādhāna, see, Hertha
Krick, Das Ritual der Feuergründung (Agnyādheya), ed. Gerhard
Oberhammer, Wien: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 1982.
10
 My translation of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa is based on, with some
modifications, the translation of Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning
Offering.
11
  Ibid., p. 19, s.v. ‘life’.
12
  Ibid., s.v. ‘in the (life)breath’.
24  Joanna Jurewicz

In that here they churn out the fires, thereby they produce the sacrificer’s
breaths.13 Therefore he holds his breath during the churning out. His
breaths14 are all that time in the two pieces of kindling wood.

The sacrificer should hold his breath. In this way, he represents

Prajāpati just before he begins to create fire. This is the state of
potentiality, which is ritually represented by the churning sticks that
have not been used yet. Nonetheless, the sacrificer knows that his
breath is hidden in them, in the same way, as fire is hidden there.
The recipient can also understand this potentiality in terms of a child
in its mother’s womb, just before its birth. The churning sticks are
conceived in terms of parents already in the gveda; fire is conceived
in terms of their child.
Then, the fire is kindled and the composer of the Jaiminīya
Brāhmaṇa (JB 1.1) identifies the stages of kindling with the creation
of the human organism. The bhasman (ashes) that come off when
the fire is kindled represent sacrificers’ anna (food), dhūma (smoke)
represents his manas (mind), and aṅgara (charcoal) in the lower
kindling stick represents his cakṣus (sight). When the flame spreads
around and burns the ashes, his śrotra (hearing) is created. When
the priest shakes grass over the fire, his prāṇa (breath) is created.
When the fire flames up making the sound bhā, his vāc (speech) is
created.15 The composer emphasizes that the sacrificer should know
the meaning of each moment of ritual (annaṃ/mano/cakṣur/śrotram/
prāṇo/vāṅ ma etad ajanīty eva tad vidyāt). When he watches how
fire is kindled, he should mentally see how his second self is built,
which consists of food, mind, sight, hearing, and speech.
In AiU 1.2.1, the cognitive faculties, which constitute the cosmos,
ask the ātman (self), their creator, for the āyatana (abode) in which

13
  Ibid., s.v. ‘lifebreaths’.
14
 Ibid.
15
  JB 1.1: tasya vai manthyamānasya bhasmāvaśīṣyate | annam evāsya taj
jāyate | annaṃ ma etad ajanīty eva tad vidyāt | dhūmo ’nu ninardati | mana
evāsya taj jāyate | mano ma etad ajanīty eva tad vidyāt | aṅgaro ‘nu nirvartate
| cakṣur evāsya taj jāyate | cakṣur ma etad ajanīty eva tad vidyāt | sa eṣo
’ṇgara etāni bhasmāni grasate | yathā kumāro jātas stanam abhipadyeta
tathā tiryaṅ visarpati | śrotram evāsya taj jāyate | śrotraṃ ma etad ajanīty
eva tad vidyāt | upari tṇāni dhunoti | prāṇa evāsya taj jāyate | prāṇo ma
eṣo ajanīty eva tad vidyāt | bhā ity uddīpyate | vāg evāsya taj jāyate | vāṅ ma
eṣājanīty eva tad vidyāt |
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   25

they could eat food.16 This abode is man. Having settled in the
respective parts of his body, the cognitive abilities can perform their
cognition and live. The second self of the sacrificer is composed
in the same way. The concept of food metonymically evokes the
concept of a body composed of food (metonymy food for body,
material for product),17 in which the cognitive faculties will be
located.
The sacrificer is again in the same situation as Prajāpati in illo
tempore. He is divided into himself and his second self that are
his breaths transformed into food and cognitive faculties. They
manifest in fire kindled in front of him and gradually transform into
a full-fledged person. There is, however, one important difference
between the situation of Prajāpati and the sacrificer. In his creative
act, Prajāpati first creates the eater, and then the food for it. In
the ritual, food is created in the beginning of kindling. Thus seen,
ritual is a safe activity, contrary to creation that is dangerous for the
creator. However, the logic of the scenario of eating implies that the
sacrificer will have to feed his fiery second self: the food disappears
when it is eaten and becomes the material of the body.
The similarity between the situation of Prajāpati and the sacrificer
can also be seen in the way it is conceived by the composers. In his
description of the creation of the śrotra (hearing), the composer of the
Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa compares fire, which spreads in all directions,
to a little child looking for his mother’s breast.18 The concept of birth
is activated in the cosmogony of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, where fire
is also conceived in terms of a hungry newborn baby that will eat his
parent, if he does not feed him with milk.19 This conceptualization

16
  AiU 1.2.1: tā etā devatāḥ sṣṭā asmin mahaty arṇave prāpatan | tam
aśanāpipāsābhyām anvavārjat | tā enam abruvann āyatanaṃ naḥ prajānīhi
| Yasmin pratiṣṭhitā annam adāmeti. For the detailed analysis of this
cosmogony, see, Jurewicz, Fire, Death and Philosophy, pp. 442–4. The
word āyatana is also used to denote the places for the sacred fires (P.V.
Kane, The History of Dharmaśāstra, 5 vols., Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute, 1930, 1941, 1946, 1953, 1958, 1962, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 989).
17
  The same metonymy (food for body) is activated in the description
of the five states of ātman in TU 2.1.1 via the expression annarasamaya.
18
  JB 1.1: sa eṣo ’ṇgara etāni bhasmāni grasate | yathā kumāro jātas
stanam abhipadyeta tathā tiryaṅ visarpati |
19
 Jurewicz, Fire, Death and Philosophy, pp. 313–14, 317–18.
26  Joanna Jurewicz

allows the recipient to understand the creative nature of ritual and to

understand that the initial potential state is now actualized.
The next passage of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa discusses the identity
of the five breaths (mind, sight, hearing, breath, and speech) with
devas (gods):
sa etān pañca prāṇān janayate | taṃs tredha vyūhya devān ktvā teṣu juhvad
āste | devā haivāsya devā bhavanti | ime tv evāsya devā bhavanti yeṣu juhvad
āste | (JB 1.1)
He produces for himself these five breaths.20 Having threefoldly divided
them and having made them gods21 he keeps offering in them (for the rest
of his life). Gods indeed are his gods.22 These are gods23 for him because he
keeps offering in (and to) them.

This passage refers to the Vedic cosmogonic models, according

to which the creation of the world is the creation of the possibility
to perform subjective-objective cognition. This kind of cognition
needs a threefold division (subject, instrument/act, and object).
This model is presented in the cosmogony presented in the Aitareya
Upaniṣad, as mentioned, where the cosmic cognitive faculties are
conceived in terms of devatās (deities) present in the world and in
man.24 In this way, the identity of cosmos and man is expressed. I
would argue that this passage of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa expresses
the conviction that the performance of ritual allows the sacrificer to
represent this identity.
The second chapter of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa begins with a
general description of life of the sacrificer. The correspondence of
the situation of Prajāpati and the sacrificer can also be seen here:
tad yad āhuḥ kena juhoti kasmin hūyate iti prāṇenaiva juhoti prāṇe hūyate |
tad etad annaṃ prāṇe juhvati | sa eṣo ‘nnaṃ kāmayamāna imān prāṇān abhi
vardhayamānas teṣu juhvad āste | (JB 1.2)

20
 Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering, p. 20, s.v.
‘lifebreaths’.
21
  Ibid., s.v. ‘divine powers’
22
  Ibid., s.v. ‘divine (vital) powers (devāḥ)’.
23
  Ibid., s.v. ‘(devāḥ)
24
 Jurewicz, Fire, Death and Philosophy, pp. 435–50. It is also presented
in ChU 6.3.2–4, in more general terms: the elements of the world are divided
into three parts with aid of name (nāman) and form (rūpa). Jurewicz, Fire,
Death and Philosophy, pp. 461–6.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   27

Now, as to what they say: ‘What does he offer, in what there is offered?’ (the
answer should be that), he offers breath25 and in breath26 there is offered.
It is therefore food which he offers in the breath. And he who desires food
strengthens these breaths while he constantly offers in them.

In his translation, Henk W. Bodewitz accepts the version

’nakāmamāra instead of ’nnaṃ kāmayamāna.27 I would argue,
however, that the version ’nnam kāmayamāna is more justified if one
takes into account the larger cultural context of this description. The
sacrificer is conceived in the same way as Prajāpati: as placing food
(milk) into breath (fire). In the cosmogony of ŚB 2.2.4, the constant
feeding of the fire allows Prajāpati to manifest as the cosmos in a safe
way, without being threatened by his total annihilation. Similarly, the
sacrificer will safely live if he eats food and performs rituals. Both
activities are metaphorically conceived in terms of feeding the fire,
and the fire is conceived in terms of a living being. In the ritual
dimension, food (the oblation) is placed in the fire. In the internal
dimension, food is placed in breath, which is conceived as fire too.
In this way, the first kind of immortality, which refers to living as
long as possible, is ensured. The version accepted by Bodewitz
expresses the same meaning, but it loses the connection with the
cosmogonic context and, thus, the fact that the sacrificer is the ritual
representation of Prajāpati is obscured.
Then, the composer of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (JB 1.2) states that
the oblation is the sacrificer’s svar—the sun, the light of the sun, and
the sky: athaitad dha vāva brāhmaṇasya svar yad dhaviḥ. The reason
for this identification can be found in Vedic cultural convictions
and metonymic thinking. According to the Vedic composers, the
oblations go to the sun. The sun is seen as the container for oblations
and the metonymy content for container (oblation for the sun)
justifies this identification.
However, in other versions of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, svar is
replaced by svam, and this version is accepted by Bodewitz.28 The
rational background of this identification is that according to the ritual
exegesis, the oblation cooked on the gārhapatya fire is conceived

25
 Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering, p. 20, s.v. ‘life’.
26
  Ibid., s.v. ‘life(breath)’.
27
  Ibid., s.v. ‘He does not die against his will for he strengthens these
lifebreaths by offering in them’.
28
  Ibid.: ‘Moreover the oblation is the brahmin’s Ego’.
28  Joanna Jurewicz

as a part of the sacrificer that should be given to the fire.29 Poured

into the āhavanīya fire, the oblation develops into his immortal self.
The conceptual link between the gārhapatya fire and the sacrificer is
expressed in the following description of the Agnihotra:
tád dugdhvdhiśrayati | śtám asad íti tád āhur yarhy údantaṃ tárhi juhuyād
íti tad vai nódantaṃ kuryād upa ha dahed yad údantaṃ kuryād áprajajñi vai
réta úpadagdhaṃ tásmān nódantaṃ kuryāt | (ŚB 2.3.1.14)
Having milked he puts that (milk) on (the gārhapatya fire), because it has
to be cooked. Here now they say, ‘When it rises to the brim, then we shall
offer it!’ He must not however let it rise to the brim, since he would burn it,
if he were to let it rise to the brim; and unproductive indeed is burnt seed:
he must not, therefore, let it rise to the brim. 30
The composer postulates the following correspondences: milk
corresponds to the sacrificer’s seed and the vessel corresponds to
his body. In the next passage (ŚB 2.3.1.15), the composer explains
the identity between the seed and the milk: in his creative activity,
fire pours its seed into a cow and the seed becomes milk. However,
this explanation is even more convincing because the recipient is
expected to activate a metaphorical mapping that will allow him
to conceive the seed in terms of milk (seed is milk), and man in
terms of a vessel with the seed as its content (man is a vessel). This
metaphorical thinking is the basis for the identifications between the
sacrificer and the elements of ritual that are realized in the ritual.
For example, the milk cooked on the gārhapatya fire represents
the sacrificer’s seed, the fire itself, and his body. Within the frames
of this conceptualization, the conviction that when the milk brims,
something wrong happens to the sacrificer’s seed is rational.
The rationality of this conviction is strengthened by experience:
milk is heated on the fire and man is heated when he is sexually
excited. As milk can be burnt, in the same way, the sacrificer’s seed
can be burnt by his internal heat. Moreover, if milk is metaphorically
identified with the sacrificer’s seed, one sees clearly how the immortal
self of the sacrificer, which is conceived in terms of insemination,
is created. When the sacrificer pours the milk, which cooked in the

29
  For the concept of sacrifice as the sacrificer’s redemption from death
with part of himself, see G.U. Thite, Sacrifice in the Brāhmaṇa Texts, Poona:
The Poona University Press, 1975, pp. 144–5, 241–2.
30
  Eggeling, tr., The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, vol. 12, p. 330.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   29

gārhapatya fire, into the āhavanīya fire, he knows that he emits his
seed from which his immortal self will develop.
The correspondence between the situation of the sacrificer in the
ritual place and Prajāpati in illo tempore can be seen again. Prajāpati
is also in danger of being overheated, which is conceived in terms of
the possible attack of fire. Moreover, the creation of milk by Prajāpati
can also be interpreted as the ejaculation of his seed: this act results
in the creation of plants, which are hairs of the earth on the basis of
the metaphor plants are the hair of the earth. Within the frames
of this interpretation, the creation of plants is conceived in terms of
the insemination of earth, which becomes the adult woman after this
act. 31
Now, the oblation cooked on the gārhapatya fire is poured into
the āhavanīya fire, where it is transformed into his immortal self.
The oblation is the material from which the self is composed. The
metonymic thinking material for product (oblation for immortal
self) strengthens the identification of the oblation with the sacrificer’s
svam. In the next sentences, the composer states: tad ātman nidhatta
eṣv amteṣu prāṇeṣu | tad asyātman nihitaṃ na pramīyate | (JB 1.2)
‘This he places in himself, in these immortal breaths. This, being
placed in himself,32 does not perish.’
The havis (oblation) is placed in the second self of sacrificer built
during the Agnyādhāna. The composer emphasizes the identity of
the fires with the sacrificer, which he calls his ātman (self). His
self is placed in the gārhapatya fire to be first transformed under
its influence; then it is placed in the āhavanīya fire to be finally
perfected and reach the sun. In this way, he becomes immortal. The
death of the sacrificer is described in the following way:
tad yadā vai manah utkrāmati yada prāṇo yadā cakṣur yadā śrotraṃ yadā
vāg etān evāgnīn abhigacchanti | athāsyedaṃ śariram eteṣv evāgniṣv
anupravidhyanti | (JB 1.2)
Now when the mind passes away, when the breath, sight, hearing, speech,33
then it enters these fires. Thereupon they throw after (these breaths)34 also
this body of him in these fires.

31
 Jurewicz, Fire, Death and Philosophy, pp. 318–20.
32
 Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning Offering, p. 20, s.v. ‘in his
own body’.
33
  Ibid., s.v. omits ‘speech’.
34
  Ibid., s.v. ‘(these life-breaths)’.
30  Joanna Jurewicz

During death, the cognitive faculties (breath, sight, hearing,

speech) leave the sacrificer’s body following the mind. They are
presented as entering etān evāgnīn (these fires). Since till now, the
fires mentioned by the composer have referred to the fires of the
Āhitāgni, one can presume that, at the moment of death, they unite
with the immortal self that had been created by means of ritual
action. They are detached from the body, which is thrown by the
relatives into the fires later. The expression eteṣv evāgniṣu (these
fires) metonymically implies that the cremation fire is lit by the
ritual fires. 35 It is important to note that cremation of the body can
begin only when the immortal self is safely hidden in them. 36
The close connection between the Agnyādhāna, Agnihotra, and
cremation is expressed by the stanza recited while the body is placed
into fire:37 asmād vai tvam ajāyathā eṣa tvaj jāyatām svāhā | (JB 1.2)
‘From him you were born, he should be born out of you, svāhā!’
In the Agnyādhāna ritual, fires are born from the sacrificer as
the ritual representation of his breaths. The sacrificer kept his
fires during his life, fed them with oblations during the Agnihotra,
and created his immortal self, which is now reborn. At death, his
body, conceived in terms of anna (food), is his last oblation and his
immortal self survives death.
The immortal self of the dead sacrificer is described in the
following way:

35
 Patrick Olivelle, Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads: Hindu Scriptures on
Asceticism and Renunciation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, p.
91, Lourens P. van den Bosch, ‘Some Reflections on the Concept of Person
in Ancient Indian Texts’, in Concepts of Person in Religion and Thought, ed.
H.G. Kippenberg, Y.B. Kuiper, A.F. Sanders, Berlin, New York: Mouton de
Gruyter, 1990, p. 258. For the life-giving role of the sacred fires see Harry
Falk, ‘How His Śrauta-Fires Save the Life of an Āhitāgni’, Journal of the
American Oriental Society, vol. 122, no. 2, 2002, pp. 248–51.
36
 This idea seems to be still alive, see Jonathan P. Parry, Death in
Banaras, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 182: ‘before
the cremation the corpse is not a corpse but an animate oblation to the fire.
As one informant spontaneously put it, the departed “does not die but is
killed. He dies on the pyre”.’
37
  The conceptual connection between the Agnihotra, Agnyādhāna
and cremation is discussed by Bodewitz, The Daily Evening and Morning
Offering, pp. 170–3.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   31

so ’ta āhutimayo manomayaḥ prāṇamayaś cakṣurmayah śrotramayo vāṅmayo

ṅmayo yajurmayo sāmamayo brahmamayo hiraṇmayo ’mtas sambhavati |
amtā haivāsya prāṇā bhavanti | amtaśarīram idaṃ kurute | (JB 1.2)
He, composed of oblation, of mind, breath, sight, seeing, speech, of c,
yajus, sāman, of brahman and of gold, becomes immortal. 38 His breaths39
become immortal. He makes for himself an immortal body here (i.e. in the
Agnyādhāna and Agnihotra ritual).

This description is very coherent and encapsulates the ritual

history of the sacrificer’s self, realized during his life. The immortal
self of the sacrificer is called āhutimaya, because the self of the
sacrificer is composed of oblations cooked on the gārhapatya fire
and poured in the āhavanīya fire. It is called manomayaḥ prāṇamayaś
cakṣurmayah śrotramayo vāṅmaya, because it is the ritual self of the
sacrificer created in the Agnyādhāna.
The next group is ṅmayo yajurmayo sāmamayo brahmamaya.
Although in the description of the ritual creation of fires in JB 1.1–2,
nothing is said about the role of reciting the Veda, the fire ritually
represents not only breath, but also speech, which is realized in
the recitation of Vedic mantras. Brahman is the general name for
the Veda, sacred speech, which, according to an exegesis of the
Agnicayana (ŚB 6.1.1.8), is created as the first manifest form of
Prajāpati and becomes the foundation for further creation.40
Finally, the immortal self of the sacrificer is called hiraṇmaya.
Conceptualization of immortality in terms of gold is well attested
in the Brāhmaṇas (e.g. ŚB 5.2.1.20, 5.3.5.15, 5.4.1.14, 6.7.1.2, 10.4.1.6,
12.8.1.22), so the recipient understands the immortality of the
sacrificer’s self in these terms.
However, there is more meaning in this expression. It
metonymically evokes the concept of the purification of gold under
the influence of heat (product for material). Gold must be purified
to be really valuable. The concept of gold transformation is used to

38
 Ibid.: ‘He arises from this (fire) and becomes immortal in the form
of oblation, mind, breath, sight, seeing, speech, c, yajus, sāman, brahman
and gold.’
39
  Ibid., p. 20, s.v. ‘lifebreaths’.
40
  ŚB 6.1.1.8: só  ‹yám  púruṣaḥ  prajā́patir akāmayata | bhyānt syām
prajāyeyéti  sò ‘śrāmyat sá tápo ‘tapyata sá śrāntás tepānó  bráhmaivá
prathamám asjata  trayóm evá vidyṃ  pratiṣṭhbhavat tásmād āhur
bráhmāsyá  sárvasya  pratiṣṭhéti  tásmād ancya prátitiṣṭhati pratiṣṭh  hy
èṣ yád bráhma tásyām pratiṣṭhyām prátiṣṭhito ’tapyata |
32  Joanna Jurewicz

conceive of creation in ŚB 6.1.3.6–7, where Prajāpati heats himself

and his sweat is gradually heated to finally become liquid gold. In
these terms, speech (metonymically evoked by the meter Gāyatrī) is
conceived.41 Hence, the qualification of the immortal self as made
of gold allows the recipient to understand that the transformation of
the oblations in the sacred fires are also conceived in terms of terms
of the purification of gold.42

Conclusion
From what has been said above, it follows that the Vedic composers
built their argument in a rational and coherent way. They were
motivated by their experience and cultural convictions, but not
unconsciously. They rationally organized their knowledge and
created a coherent theory of ritual seen as the real representation
of cosmogony. On the one hand, ritual represents the manifestation
of reality in the world. Reality manifests itself as dying and killing,
thanks to which it can resurrect from death. On the other hand, ritual
represents what happens in man, who is composed in part of what
is eaten (anna, food) and will die at the end of his life and in part of
that which eats and will survive death.
The simple schema of the fires analytically represents the
ontological condition of man and his identity with reality. The
gārhapatya fire represents the mortal self of the sacrificer, the
part of reality that is mortal and the earth. The āhavanīya fire
represents his immortal self, the killing part of reality and the sky.
The transformations of the oblation which, at first, take place on
the gārhapatya fire and then on the āhavanīya fire, represent the
dynamic nature of the world. The conceptual links between reality,
the cosmos, man, and the elements of ritual are motivated by
metonymies and metaphors. The Vedic composers elaborate them in
the most rational way possible to be understood by their recipients
who share the same cultural heritage.
The composers constantly stress that the sacrificer should
understand the meaning of ritual activity. This meaning is grounded in

41
  ŚB 6.1.3.6–7: tád yád asjyatkṣarat tád yád ákṣarat tásmād
akṣáraṃ  yád aṣṭáu  ktvó  ‹kṣarat saìvṣṭkṣarā  gāyatry ábhavat  | 6 |
ábhūd vā́  iyám pratiṣṭhéti | tád bhmir abhavat tm aprathayat s pthivy
àbhavat | 7 |
42
 Jurewicz, Fire, Death and Philosophy, pp. 360–73.
 The Consistency of Vedic Argument   33

metonymic and metaphoric links, which make the whole conceptual

edifice coherent. These are bandhu, which constitute the knowledge
of the evaṃvid.
Conceptual metonymies and metaphors are based on the human
categorization of experience. The way human beings categorize
it is to some extent universal, but much more depends on culture.
However, the ability to think in this way is universal. Viewed
from this perspective, bandhus are neither the specific mental
phenomenon of Vedic culture, nor they are the result of a specific
cultural worldview. What is culturally specific is the network of
conceptual connections. And what is unique for the Vedic thought is
the intellectual sensitivity of its composers to conceptual links and
their deep need to explain them.