Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

the prototype of creation, often emphasising elements of
a sacred marriage. And indeed, the very word for
creation literally means “to eject” or to “emit” (Hocart
1970a:65). In Manu (I, 8) it is described as a process by
which the creator “absorbed in meditation emitted from
his own body the various creatures; he emitted even the
waters in the beginning, and in them infused seed”.
Annihilation and creation go hand in hand, and they are
two facets of the same process. The principal is
identified with the victim and the victim with god, which
gives this equation: Principal = offering = god, whereby
the principal eats of his own flesh. “Communion is of
two kinds, solid and liquid. The liquid is soma…that is
elixir of immortality. Soma is also the moon, a royal
god, one of those with whom the king is identified, so
that logically the king drinks himself” (Hocart
1970a:67). The king plays a fundamental part in
cosmogony.
Hocart distinguishes between two types of kings. The
first type of king is the one who includes in their own
divinity the divinities of their chieftains. The other type
of king is the one who is the only god himself (Hocart
1970a:89). The king is everything and he is the greatest
accumulator of everything. The Indian king is essentially
a sacrifier, and consequently his ritual specialist – the
sacrificer – must become the most influential person in
the kingdom. The king’s power and wealth are inevitably
bound to his moral obligations for the people he rules
and performs sacrifices for. “A king who does not afford
protection, (yet) takes his share in kind, his taxes, tolls
and duties, daily presents, and fines, will (after death)
soon sink into hell” (Manu VIII, 307).
“The object of the ritual is to make the macrocosm
abound in the objects of men’s desires. But the spirit of
macrocosm resides in the king, and so prosperity is to be
attained by making microcosm prosperous and bountiful.
A poor king is a contradiction in terms. All nations like
their kings to live in splendour, and to be liberal”
(Hocart 1970a:202). Hence, there is a parallel between
mythology and reality in daily life. The sun draws water
from earth for eight months, and similarly the king
should draw taxes from the people. For four months,
Indra rains down, and similarly, the king should rain
prosperity down on his people in the kingdom. These are
the functions of Indra and the king, and this is not
merely a metaphoric relation because the king is the Sun
and Indra. It is the king’s duty to collect taxes and
present finds and so on, but if he does not afford the
people’s protection, then he goes to hell (ibid: 212-213).
Rituals that produce or increase the necessities of life are
acts of creation. Cosmic rites create more of everything
of things man may need, and “as the food supply
depends on the proper working of the whole world, such
ceremonies create the world” (Hocart 1954:19).
Rainmaking rituals may appear as fragments of more
extensive rituals earlier since it is only the clouds that
are made, and not a thorough regenerative creation
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(ibid.). The cosmogonic purpose is evident in these rites.
A creation myth is perceived as a historical narrative and
not as a result of speculations about the origin of the
world (ibid:22). Creation myths have to be seen in
relation to the Indian sacraments. In the Aitareya
Brahmana the ritual sacraments are explained as such;
“The celebrants again make into an embryo him who
they consecrate. They anoint him with waters, for the
waters are semen. Having thus provided him with semen
they consecrate him” (op. cit. Hocart 1954:48). “The
sacrificer [sacrifier] does not imagine that he is creating
in our sense of the word, that he is producing something
out of nothing; he is merely making things amenable to
his wishes”, Hocart argues, “He gains control of the
universe and its contents so that it may work according
to his will…the creative act is constantly described as a
sexual act, as the infusing of semen into the womb, and
the growth of the embryo. The generative act is thus the
prototype of creation. The whole ritual is a rebirth”
(Hocart 1954:20-21).
The role of death in society has to be seen in relation to
the origin of sacrifices. The king is a representation of all
the gods, but especially Indra, and in modern Hinduism
he may appear as Shiva (Hocart 1954:49), although in
Nepal he is perceived as an incarnation of Vishnu. The
aim of cosmic rites is to create by procreation, and
following the myths everything is done in imitation of
the gods. If a king is both human and a god, then the
ultimate question is where the king derived his powers
from, and how did the divine kingdom appear for the
very first time? Hocart’s famous and original answer is:
The first kings must have been dead kings
The king’s funeral is a consecration which raises the
king to a higher rank. The dead man is the principle in
the funeral; he is the initiate. Funerals are therefore a
kind of initiation rite where the deceased is the person
who is initiated. Cremation is similar to the burntoffering,
and the only difference is the fire which is of
another type than in normal burnt-offerings. “It seems to
be a contradiction that the dead man should both be
principal and victim, until we remember that it is a
fundamental feature of ritual that the principal is
identified with the being or thing which the ritual is
performed to increase” (Hocart 1954:55). Cremation
aims to increase the progeny not only of the living but
also the dead. The principal in the ceremony becomes at
one with the gods, or more precisely, he is made at one
with Yama; the dead man by his funeral becomes
identified with the world (ibid). The dead man is the
victim in his own sacrifice – cremation is just like a
burnt-offering (ibid:56).
In the Vedic cremations the dead was the principal, but
was also treated in the same way as a victim in the
sacrifices. This is not a contradiction but the
fundamental principle in Indian sacrificial theory, where