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From: Lawrie Williams <nemesis@fastinternet.net.au>
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 00:42:51 +1000
Fwd Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:44:39 -0500
Subject: Re: Heavenly Vedic Casket and Inverted Trees


Electronic Journal Of Vedic Studies,
Vol. 1 (1995), issue 2 (May)

email: ejvs-list@shore.net (C) With the authors and the editors


Michael Witzel,  Looking for the Heavenly Casket

To make a start, the editor presents a short article on an
interesting topic of Vedic astronomy. The identity of the
"Heavenly Bucket" has eluded us so far....


                              Abstract

Throughout Vedic literature, from the Rgveda to the
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, reference is occasionally made to a
"heavenly  casket" (divya kosa), from which water is poured down
towards earth. Several attempts have been made to locate this
vessel in the sky. In the present article the relevant materials
are presented a new solution is proposed which combines,
according to the well tested philological approach,
mythological facts with a keen observation of nature.....

Address:

Michael Witzel,
Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies,
Harvard University,
53 Church Street,
Cambridge MA
02138, USA.

phone: 617 - 495 3295
       617 - 496 8570 (voicemail)
fax:   617 - 496 8571

email: witzel@husc3.harvard.edu


.....descriptions and interpretations of the phenomena of the
night sky and its mythology were virtually absent until Kuiper's
articles  "The Three Strides of Visnu"  and "The Heavenly
Bucket" where (4) he pointed out that there also is another type
of movement, of actual turning of the night sky.

As is now well known, at night, the great Vedic god Varuna holds
the world tree, in the form of a large Asvattha, up-side down,
its roots pointing upwards and its branches pointing downwards.
"In the unfathomable space king Varuna, he of purified
intelligence, upholds the tree's stupa (RtuftS); they [the
branches] stood directed downwards. May their rays be fixed in
us" (RV 1.24.7) (4). This has become a familiar image that as
occupied the imagination of Vedic seers, mystics, and poets for
centuries. It occurs, again, in the Katha Upanisad  6.1,
Taittiriya Aranyaka  1.11.5 (a text taken over from the Katha
school) and in the Bhagavad Gita 15.1.

What does such an image entail? It means, as Kuiper posited,
that at night the netherworld is situated above us, in the night
sky. The earth thus turns around its horizontal axis or, rather,
it slowly shifts its horizon (as "viewed" from the observer's
position at the center of earth, sky and netherworld). This
might seem a very strange image for us. However, the texts are
clear enough and attention may also be drawn to a little known
fact:  the same idea can be found in a grave in W. Denmark.
There, about one hundred years ago, a tomb was excavated in
which a tree has been inserted, upside down, in a stone hand
mill -- exactly the type of image Kuiper wanted to demonstrate
for the Vedic night sky.....

(deletia astronomy)

In this upward region of the night sky another strange feature
can be found - at least, in mythology. Kuiper pointed out some
20 years ago that Varuna as well as some other gods turn over or
tip over a heavenly vessel, a casket or bucket (kosa) and empty
its contents over the earth down beneath it, as can be seen in
passages like the following. RV 5.85.3  "Varuna has poured out
the cask, with its rim turned downwards, over heaven, earth and
the interspace. Thereby the king of the whole world sprinkles
the soil, as the rain (sprinkles) the barley." (10)  RV 8.72.8
"With the  ten (fingers) of Vivasvat, Indra has pulled up the
heavenly bucket, with a threefold cord." (11) RV 8.72.10 "They
(the hotrs) pour out with obeisance the inexhaustible source
that goes round(?) with its bottom upwards (and) its rim
downwards". (12).....

If one then were to try to find the heavenly casket in the night
time sky, one cannot immediately discover, in the direct
vicinity of the pole star anything which looks like a casket or
a bucket. What then, could be this apparently "invisible"
vessel? Some texts of the AV and of the Upanisads provide the
key for an understanding. AV 10. 8.9 (17) runs as follows:

" A bowl (camasa) with orifice downwards, bottom-side up -  in
it is deposited glory of all forms; there sit together the seven
seers, who have become the keepers of it, the great one"....

There is an even clearer version of this AV verse in BAUK 2.2.4
(SB 14.5.2.4) "There is a cup with its mouth below and its
bottom up. In it is placed every form of glory. On its rim
[tire] sit seven seers. Voice as an eighth is united with prayer
(brahman)." [tr. HUME] ....

(the author goes on to argue that this humming inverted bowl is
the big dipper)

 .....I have tried to point out that many features of the Vedic
Night Sky still are not understood well --and this means that we
simply do not understand the meaning of some difficult passages
of Vedic mythology, especially of those of the RV.  In a wider
context, this is of importance, too: If we do not pay attention
to the counterclockwise motion of the Milky Way, we are not able
to understand some complicated images of Vedic eschatology: why
is there a path of the gods and a path of the ancestors, why is
Yama's realm is both high up in the night sky and down below the
earth as well as in the South. (25)

In short, we have to pay close attention to such images in order
to grasp a large part of Vedic mythology and cosmography. Even
now, after some 150 years of the study of Vedic texts, our
understanding of the Vedic night sky still is in its infancy....


25. See BEI 2, n. 103: "with the ascent of Varuna to the zenith
of the night sky, Yama and his paradise also move"; cf. Kuiper,
Bliss of Asa,  p. 119.

F. B. J. Kuiper,

        The Heavenly Bucket, in: India Maior (Fs. Gonda),
        Leiden 1972, 144-156. (repr. in: Kuiper, Ancient Indian
        Cosmogony (ed. J. Irwin).  Delhi: Vikas, 1983)

        The Bliss Of Asa, IIJ 8, 1964, 96-129. (repr. in:
        Kuiper, Ancient Indian Cosmogony (ed. J. Irwin).  Delhi:
        Vikas, 1983)

        The Three Strides Of Visnu, Indological Studies in
        Honor of W.N. Brown , New Haven 1962)

In the next issue, a list of microfilms (some 40,000 fols.) made
in the Seventies in various parts of India and Nepal will be
published by M. Witzel. These include some rare Vedic texts
which are in need of study - something that cannot always be
carried out by just one person or at one location alone.  It is
hoped that this kind of inventory will stimulate exchange and
cooperation which has, of course, always been extended on a
personal basis between some scholars in the field.....

http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/home/ftp/pub/titus/public_html

It will function as a central web site for access to resources of
relevance to Comparatists, Indo-Europeanists and other interested
scholars.
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