Fwd: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question

[George Thompson]

Hello Herman, et al.,

This SB passage is nice, but, yes, rather too elaborate.  Maybe I can
simplify things without being too simplistic.  Here is how I would
answer David Slakter's question:

The Vedic theory of sacrifice is in my view a theory of debt [r.n.a].
Any good thing that comes your way you owe to the blessings of the
gods.  So you pay back by offering a sacrifice to them.  If you want
to pay back as much as possible, you sacrifice as much as you can.
Maybe a captured enemy would do, or some insignificant slave.
Nevertheless, they are human pashus, so the sacrifice is great, and
potent.

Nevertheless, it is a much greater sacrifice, and a much more powerful
one, if you sacrifice someone of much more, even immense, significance
to you: like a son or a daughter.  Biblical Abraham knew this.  Greek
Agamemnon knew it too.  And Vedic Shunahshepa's unmentionable Brahmin
father, who behaved worse than a Shudra, also knew it.

All of these sacrificial animals, from the human all the way down to
the lowliest, are simply substitutes, standing in for yourself, you
the sacrificer.  If you want to make a big down payment on your debt,
then you substitute upward, and you sacrifice someone who is really
significant to you, like a son or a daughter.  If you want to  make
only a moderate down payment on your debt, then you substitute
downward, and offer up a sheep or a goat.  And if you aren't very
serious about paying off your debt to the gods, well, you can
sacrifice whatever is at hand: some bird, for example.

But that kind of behavior will not please the gods, nor our
contemporary banks. So your credit rating as a Vedic warrior will be
downgraded severely if you do so.

Of course, the logic of this economy means that if you want to pay up
completely, what you have to to do is sacrifice yourself.

But there aren't too many of us who would be willing to go that far.
So, in fact, we sacrifice our children instead of ourselves.

It has always been like this for us, I think, we servants of the gods.

George

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Herman Tull <hwtull at msn.com> wrote:
> There is, but it is rather elaborate.
>
> See Satapatha Brahmana 13.6
>
> for Eggeling’s translation,
> http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/sbe44/sbe44111.htm
>
> Herman Tull
> Princeton, NJ
>
> From: Slakter, David
> Sent: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 12:10 PM
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Fwd: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question
>
> Is there no hierarchy within the category of humans for the Vedic
> sacrifice?  That is, if you're going to sacrifice a human, will any human
> do?
>
> David Slakter
>
> ________________________________
> From: Indology [INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] on behalf of George Thompson
> [gthomgt at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: 23 August 2011 14:01
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Fw: Re: [INDOLOGY] Fwd: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question
>
> Dear List
>
> Maybe nobody noticed my mistake, or maybe many of you did, but you decided
> to forgive me.  In any case, the Vedic hierarchy of sacrificial victims is
> not:
>
> 5. sheep
> 4. goat
> 3. cattle
> 2. horse
> 1. human
>
> It is instead:
>
> 5. goat
> 4. sheep
> 3. cattle
> 2. horse
> 1. human
>
> I make this mistake all the time.  It is clear that in my urban world the
> value of the goat and the sheep is negligible.  But this is not true of the
> Vedic clans.
>
> Best,
> George
>