May Waters now our hearts entwine;
May Mātariçvan and Dhātri,
May Deshṭrī us together join.
There are five hymns, all in the last book (x. 14–18), which are more or less concerned with funeral rites. All but one of them, however, consist chiefly of invocations of gods connected with the future life. The first (14) is addressed to Yama, the next to the Fathers, the third to Agni, and the fourth to Pūshan, as well as Sarasvatī. Only the last (18) is a funeral hymn in the true sense. It is secular in style as well as in matter, being almost free from references to any of the gods. Grave and elevated in tone, it is distinguished by great beauty of language. It also yields more information about the funeral usages of those early days than any of the rest.
From this group of hymns it appears that burial was practised as well as cremation by the Vedic Indians. The composer of a hymn addressed to Varuṇa in Book VII. also mentions “the house of clay” in connection with death. Cremation was, however, the usual manner of disposing of the dead, and the later Vedic ritual practically knew this method alone, sanctioning only the burial of ascetics and children under two years of age. With the rite of cremation, too, the mythological notions about the future life were specially connected. Thus Agni conducts the corpse to the other world, where the gods and Fathers dwell. A goat was sacrificed when the corpse was burned, and this goat, according to the Atharva-veda (ix. 5, 1 and 3), preceded and announced the deceased to the fathers, just as in the Rigveda the goat immolated with the sacrificial horse goes before to announce the offering to the gods (i. 162–163). In the later Vedic ritual a goat or cow was sacrificed as the body was cremated.
In conformity with a custom of remotest antiquity still surviving in India, the dead man was provided with ornaments and clothing for use in the future life. The fact that in the funeral obsequies of the Rigveda the widow lies down beside the body of her deceased husband and his bow is removed from the dead man’s hand, shows that both were in earlier times burnt with his body to accompany him to the next world, and a verse of the Atharva-veda calls the dying of the widow with her husband an old custom. The evidence of anthropology shows that this was a very primitive practice widely prevailing at the funerals of military chiefs, and it can be proved to go back to the Indo-European age.
The following stanza (8) from the last funeral hymn (x. 18) is addressed to the widow, who is called upon to rise from the pyre and take the hand of her new husband, doubtless a brother of the deceased, in accordance with an ancient marriage custom:—
Rise up; come to the world of life; O woman;
Thou liest here by one whose soul has left him.
Come: thou hast now entered upon the wifehood