CHAPTER 5

The Vedas and Upaniṣads

Embodiment and Disembodiment Among the Ṛṣis

The vedic literature from the Ṛgveda (ṚV) to the classical Upaniṣads is the earliest source of information on possession in India. It is also among the most unambiguous. Because one of the principal arguments of this book is that there is a recognizable “tradition” of possession in India, it is necessary to say a few words about the early relationship between the folk and the classical as this bears greatly on any allegation of a tradition widely regarded as an experiential phenomenon with a popular discourse that largely bypasses ancient and classical literature. I say this in spite of all the evidence adduced in the following chapters, because most of these texts, or at least the passages cited in them, exist on the periphery of mainstream classical literature, by which I here mean śāstra.

If an argument can be made for a convergence, or indeed an identity, of the folk and the classical in India, the Vedas are a fine place to begin. What transformed folk into classical was not appropriation of folk material by a brahman literati, but the dynamics of preservation between the cognitive and narrative aspects of literary production. Three examples of these dynamics may be cited. The first occurs in the Ṛgveda, which became classical through oral preservation and whose primary focal points—uniquely configured mythology and ritual—were blurred and transfigured in later thinking and literature in spite of a perfectly preserved textuality. Imagine if the text of the ṚV were lost three millennia ago and our only knowledge of Indra was as a defeated, degraded, and depraved warrior with a disfiguring exoskeleton of thousands of vaginas and our only knowledge of the soma pressing ritual were as a primeval and highly unlikely foil for the practices of Krishna devotion! Indra the warrior, valorous king of the vedic divinities, who slaughtered Vṛtra the serpent demon with his mace and liberated the cosmic waters, was a heroic and epic figure, while the disfigured Indra of later centuries was, at best, an antihero. In both cases, however, Indra found an outlet in the creative flux of brahmanical literary mythologizing. The same can be said for classical vedic ritual, which was, on the one hand, preserved through brahmanical textualizing and highly guarded ritual practice and, on the other, was fragmented and spread about in later, more accessible, forms of Indic ritual.

The second example is the narrative line of the Mahābhārata, preserved with sufficient clarity and uniformity by the written Sanskrit text in its many recensions to render a critical edition conceivable.¹ This may be compared to folk Mahābhāratas, which diverge markedly from the Sanskrit original, the best known of which, thanks to the work of Alf Hiltebeitel, is that of the Draupadī cult in Tamilnadu. Imagine, for example, that our received MBh depicted a cowardly Arjuna living in a tree and a fierce blood-drinking Draupadī leading the possessed Pāṇḍava army in a victorious romp across burning embers!²

Third, consider ascetic practices recorded in the early Upaniṣads and Buddhist texts that enable one to speak of “classical” Indian meditative or ascetic experiences and practices.³ Although most of these grew out of ideas and practices mentioned in the Brāhmaṇa literature or were the heritage of the Jainas and others in reaction to the religious culture of the Vedas, they bore an energy and relevance at the time that can never abide in the classical alone. Similarly, possession that today is identified as folk may be recognized, at least approximately, in the Vedas, even if the texts of the Vedas are not recognized in possession.

According to received tradition, the first to be possessed were none other than the ṛṣis themselves, who saw the Veda. Not only does the word ṛṣi itself seem to hark back to an ecstatic sage,⁴ similarly vipra, which etymologically means “quiverer,”⁵ but the Hindu tradition, following the sūtras and commentaries of the Pūrvamīmāṃsā, has it that they saw or cognized the eternal mantras, rather than composed them. Francis X. Clooney notes appositely that the ṛṣis were “merely ‘enlisted’ to pronounce the vedic words and hand them down, to make sure the text is known and able to be regularly translated into action. The words are not expressions of human wisdom and are not to be interpreted as statements of human values and goals.”⁶ The ṛṣis were thus innocent (if enlightened) bystanders, through whom knowledge incidentally flowed.

Another important and well-known term is apauruṣeya, used in the Pūrvamīmāṃsā “simply to dismiss the possibility that the ṛṣis might have a creative or authorial function in regard to the text.”⁷ The gods are also denied an authorial role in the Pūrvamīmāṃsā, thus distinguishing the notion of vedic textual reception or cognition from more normative ideas of possession, which require the mediation of another being.⁸ Although the apauruṣeyatva of the Pūrvamīmāṃsā was a concept designed to demonstrate the primacy of sound and word, shifting responsibility away from the individual human center,⁹ it nevertheless illustrates the tendency toward disembodied manifestation. Thus one might say that as the concept of vedic cognition was itself emblematic of a culture ripe for possession, that it is a correlate, and, in this case, a prerequisite, to the notion of possession.

Possession in the Early Vedic Literature

The verbal root √viś, to enter, occurs 103 times in the Ṛgveda in various forms. Of these, 69 are used with the prefix . It is not necessary to examine each of these occurrences to conclude that in the ṚV forms of āviś are not used in the simple sense of entry, as a person through a door, but in a more abstract sense, beyond the normal physical contexts of entering a separate enclosed or semienclosed space.¹⁰ The root ā√viś in its many derivative forms occurs almost entirely in the sense of entities of different densities or substantialities penetrating and pervading one another.

ṚV 10.130.5:

virṇ mitrváruṇayor abhiśrr índrasya triṣṭúb ihá bhāgó áhnaḥ | víśvān devñ jágaty viveśa téna cākḷpra ṣayo manuṣḥ ||11

Virāj spread to Mitra and Varuṇa. Here, every day, Triṣṭubh was Indra’s portion. Jagatī penetrated all the gods. By this process, men become constituted as ṛṣis.

Poetic meters, with different numbers of syllables per verse line and different arrangements of light and heavy syllables, are accorded substantiality, even physicality, in virtually all vedic texts. In this creation hymn (sūkta), they are said to conjoin with and enter into different deities. This occurs through the resonance of sound: The names (and identities) of meters resemble the names (and identities) of deities. The meters possess a substantiality different from that of the gods; as the initial materializations of mantric cognition (manīṣ, see ṚV 9.95.3 below), their boundaries are amorphous, if not all-pervasive, while those of the gods are seemingly more defined. The meters enter into, pervade, or interpenetrate the psychophysical bodies of the gods. By entering into a dynamic relationship with the conjoined deity (devátā) and meter (chándas), a human becomes a sage (ṣi). The Yajurveda texts use this idea in ritual performance. For example, the Taittirīya Saṃhita (TS 4.4.12.2) prescribes that a Sāmavedic chant (sāman) called Vairūpa should be invited to enter (veśayamaḥ) the sacrifice through the medium of the jagatī meter. In another passage in the TS (7.3.13), the petitioner “invites” the sacrificial chants of the Ṛgveda and Sāmaveda (stotra and śastra), the soma sacrifices called Agniṣṭoma and Ukthya, as well as the divine waters to enter into him (viśatām). It is very revealing of the power of poetry that the meters are accorded the ability to cross the threshold into the individual. Riding on the back, as it were, of the meters, significant but differently constituted substances—such as sāmans and sacrifices—are invoked to enter a sage or sacrificer. An example of meters’ being invoked in order to obtain dominion over one’s “natural” domain occurs in the Pañcaviṃśa Brāhmaṇa (19.17.6). In this verse, part of a brief section that eulogizes a ritual chant (stoma) to Indra and Agni, the primary deities associated with king and priest (rājanya and brāhmaṇa), the brāhmaṇa is said to “descend into” (avarundhe) brilliant brahmanical luster by reciting the gāyatrī meter, while the king “enters” (praviśati) the mercantile classes with the jagatī meter.¹² The process referred to in ṚV 10.130.5 may not, however, be merely the act of recitation, but may also include an intimation of the mechanics of the generation of vedic verse and meter, its pervasion of the gods, and their rebounding and transforming effect on humans; in other words, knowledge as process. In this way, the circuit of pervasion, of āveśa, between entities of different essentiality and density of substance becomes complete.

This interdimensional adherence is most evident in the soma ritual, as the majority of occurrences of ā√viś in the ṚV appear in the context of descriptions of relations between the processed and liquid soma, the deity Soma, various other deities, and the sages themselves. It is used for soma entering, permeating, psychologically or somatically influencing, and, perhaps, possessing a person or even a deity (particularly Indra). Soma, whatever its psychotropic properties, is believed to be potentiated through mantra chanted and sung to the deity Soma, who stands as the power behind the liquid soma. The sacred word is said to enter, to possess, Soma, who, identified with soma, is made pleased and transfers that empowerment to his liquid substantial other. The substantial soma is, thus, more than the physical center of a complicated priestly ritual. To be sure, it is subject to many priestly manipulations (saṃskāra), including being pounded with stones in order to extract the liquid and being passed through a woolen filter or sieve as one of several cleansings and purifications. Eventually, most of it is offered into the eastern or āhavanīya fire and the remainder consumed by officiants. In addition, however, it adopts an abstract or ethereal counterpart as the ritual arena expands to empyrean proportions, in which case the soma is said to penetrate or even permeate the sieve from its place in heaven:

ṚV 9.38.5.

eṣá syá mádyo rásó ’va caṣṭe diváḥ śiśuḥ | yá índur vram viśat ||

This exhilarating juice, child of heaven, looks downward—this Indu who has passed through [viśat] the filter.¹³

The ṛṣi Praskaṇva sings of the unpurified soma’s being pressed through a woolen strainer, after which it ascends to the realm of light (dív) as the god Soma, the soma drop incarnate (Indu), fresh and innocent as a child. From there, he (for Soma is a he) looks down upon the human realm, the realm of sacrifice. The journey of the drops is, thus, not a simple journey of entering and passing through a filter in order to remove impurities, as part of an elaborate priestly ritual of producing a relatively palatable (and sacred) intoxicant. It is also a journey of transfiguration to the substantiality of the deity Soma. As it passes through the filter, the drops enter, pervade, and reconstitute the body of Soma.¹⁴

It is the recitation of well-conceived and well-uttered (sūkta) verse, with a life of its own (perhaps a prelude to the notion of apauruṣeya), with its own structure of desire (it desires Soma), that is attractive to Soma, who longs for it.

ṚV 9.95.3:

apm ivéd ūrmáyas tárturāṇaḥ prá manīṣ īrate sómam áccha | namasyántīr úpa ca yánti sáṃ c ca viśanty uśatr uśántam ||

Spreading outward like the waves of waters, our cognitions are pressing forth to Soma. Together they approach him humbly, and, yearning, enter him who yearns for them.

Here, too, is a sense of a circuit, a conjoining or mutual pervasion, as Soma encloses or envelopes the sage’s widespreading cognitions (manīṣ), which are, of course, none other than the Ṛgvedic verses. The entrance here, then, is a mutuality, an infusion and saturation of different kinds or modes of substantiality.

Several additional examples may be cited to illustrate nuances on this theme of entrance, pervasion, and occasionally mutual transfiguration.

ṚV 1.91.11:

sóma gīrbhíṣ ṭvā vayám vardháyāmo vacovídaḥ | sumṝlīkó na viśa ||

O Soma, we, learnéd of speech, strengthen you with words. Gracious one, enter into us.

ṚV 8.48.12ab:

yó na índuḥ pitaro hṛtsú pītó ’martyo mártyā āvivéśa |

That immortal drop, O Fathers, which, when drunk in our hearts, enters us mortals.¹⁵

The Atharvaveda (AV) also provides supporting statements. For example:

AV 6.2.2:

yáṃ viśantndavó váyo ná vṛkṣám ándhasaḥ vírápśin ví mdho jahi rakṣavínīḥ ||

May the drops of the soma [ándhas] enter [Indra] as [a flock of] birds a tree. Drive away the powerful enemy, the troop of demons.

Although in this instance viśānti cannot be translated as “possesses”—it is clearly “entrance” and no more—it shares, and points to, a semantics in which the same words take on the sense of possession. Indra acts with the strength and anger of a god possessed after he has drunk soma. A flock of birds entering or landing in a tree gives that tree a wholly different character from that of the tree without birds, or birds in flight, untethered to a tree. The cacaphony of birds in a tree, like Indra suffused with soma, poised to destroy a horde of demons, suggests more than mere entrance; it suggests the kind of pervasion that is identified as possession in South Asian textuality.

ṚV 8.48.15ab:

tváṃ naḥ soma viśváto vayodhs tvaṃ svarvíd viśā nṛcákṣāḥ | tváṃ na inda ūtíbhiḥ sajóṣãḥ pāhí paśctād utá vā purástāt ||

You are the giver of strength to us on all sides, O Soma. You are the finder of the heavenly light: enter us as man’s observer! You, O Indu, with your helpmates, protect us behind as also in front!¹⁶

ṚV 9.8.7 is another invitation:

maghóna pavasva no jahí víśvā ápa dvíṣāh | indo sákhāyam viśa ||

Flow toward us for generosity, strike all our enemies away. O Indu, enter into your friend.

Soma also enters and pervades its very source, for example, ṚV 2.13.1b: makṣ u jātá viśad ysu várdhate (the soma quickly pervaded the waters from which it came).¹⁷ From the power generated at its source it also becomes capable of entering the gods:

ṚV 9.25.2:

pávamāna dhiy hitó ’bhí yóniṃ kánikradat | dhármaṇā vāyúṃ viśa ||

O Purifying One, placed with awareness, roaring toward your source, enter Vāyu according to your nature.

ṚV 8.102.8 does not employ the usual verb forms, but it continues the same theme:

ayáṃ yáthā na ābhúvat tváṣṭā rūpéva tákṣyā | asyá krátvā yáśasvataḥ ||

[ I summon Agni ] [… agním huve,] that through this famous one’s capacity he may abide in us as Tvaṣṭar comes to a form that is to be fashioned.

It will be instructive to turn briefly to a couple of ritual applications of soma, mantras. The Āpastamba Śrautasūtra (ĀpŚS), a ritual prescriptive text of perhaps the fourth century B.C.E., instructs that certain mantras from Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (TB 1.2.1.1) should be recited while the chief officiant (adhvaryu) is collecting sand, one of seven special ingredients (sambhāra-) mixed in with the mortar while the fireplaces are constructed during the initial setting up of the three ritual fires (agnyādhāna).

ĀpŚS 5.1.7

vaiśvānarásya rūpáṃ pṛthivyṃ parisrásā | syonám viśantu na iti sikatāḥ|

As for the sand, [one should recite], “May Vaiśvānara’s form, the rubble, enter gently upon this earth for us.”

The text does not specify why rubble (or “refuse” or “rubbish” [parisrásā]), here a form of Vaiśvānara, the fire common to all men, is required to enter or permeate the ritualists.¹⁸ Perhaps, however, the answer is found in the vājapeya, where the brahman sacrificer, whose sovereignty has been ritually achieved, stands at the pinnacle of his power, atop a platform of seventeen steps. From this vantage point, he extends his blessings to the audience and is pierced, that is, lightly stabbed from all four major directions by officiants brandishing salt- (uṣapuṭa) tipped arrows. It is likely that the salt in the vājapeya and the sand in the agnyādhāna are emblematic of the life-giving sustenance of the earth in its most resistant and unrevealing manifestations. Certainly, the seven special ingredients constitute a tremendous range of earthly paradigms, including clay from the bottom of a river that never dries out (wetness) and this, sand (dryness). Thus the intention of the texts appears to have been to infuse the ritualist with the broadest range of environmental essences, to invest or possess (viśantu) the ritualist with the manifold possibilities and powers of the physical world.¹⁹

Elsewhere in the ĀpŚS, the effects of soma and surā are compared. Soma, of course, is the exhilarating drink of the gods, while surā is an exotic concoction prepared by fermenting cooked rice or barley, then mixing it with vegetable juice, milk, and the hair of a lion, a tiger, and a wolf. It is then purified by being poured through a sieve and, finally, stirred with the tail of a cow and a horse.²⁰ Here also, it seems, a range of ingredients with symbolic significance are required: you are what you eat, in extremis. Surā is prescribed for ritual consumption in the sautrāmaṇī, an accessory to the vājapeya and agnicayana. Among the mantras to be recited over the prepared surā, ApŚS 19.3.4, prescribes the following (cf. TB 1.4.2.2): “You are the turbulent surā, this one here is soma. Do not injure me (O soma), resolve back into your own original state” (súrã tvám asi śuṣmíṇī sóma eṣá m mā hisīḥ svṃ yónim āviśán).²¹ Although the commentators state that the latter part of the mantra is addressed to the soma, in fact it could be addressed to the surā or to both the surā and soma. A point in the commentators’ favor (though one they never considered) is the use of ā√viś, often used with soma. Here the soma (or possibly the surā) is requested to enter (permeate, possess) a locus originalis; in the case of soma in order to generalize its influence, in the case of surā in order to vitiate its effects.²²

Similarly, the ĀpŚS (5.2.4) prescribes that one should gather a palāśa leaf as one of the materials to be mixed in with the mortar used in constructing the fireplaces at the time of the initial setting up of the sacrificial fires (agnyādhāna). While gathering this leaf, the adhvaryu should recite the following two verses.

TB 1.2.1.5–7:

gāyatriy hriyámānasya yát te parṇám apatat tṛt yasyai divó ’dhi | sò ’yam parṇáḥ somaparṇd dhí jātás táto harāmi somapīthásyvaruddhyai || devnāṃ brahmavādáṃ vádatāṃ yád upśṛṇoḥ suśrávā vái śrutò ’si | táto mm viśatu brahmavarcasáṃ tát saṃbháras tád ávarundhīya sākṣt ||

That leaf of yours, a leaf that is born from the soma-leaf, being brought by Gayatrī, fell down from the third heaven. For the attainment of the soma drink, I take it from that. Since you have heard of gods uttering divine speech, you are known as Susravas. Thus, while collecting it may the splendor of brahman enter me, so that I may attain it directly.

This act serves the interest of soma, thus the text requests the bráhman-splendor, which in the view of the ritualist is a natural element in this leaf, to enter and permeate the vedic priest. Thus, the essence of the leaf is transferred to the priest. The use of the verb āviśatu in this passage parallels contexts in the ṚV in which ā√viś is used for the soma drinking experience. Through this textual association, the author of the TB likely intended that the transmission of brahmavarcasá was part of this experience.

Most of these passages employ the verb √viś, and several express it in the imperative. Soma, the deity of the consumed soma, is commanded, gently, to respond to the sonorous speech (gīr) of the seers by entering into them, refashioning them as his nature dictates. He pervades them as he enters their hearts. He is separate from man; he is man’s observer (nṛcákṣāḥ). Entering man, Soma gives strength while leading the singer to the heavenly light (svar). Further, Soma enters into his friend, bestowing prosperity and striking down demons and rivals. Finally, Soma, installed in the sacrificial arena with intelligence and awareness (dhī), is asked to enter Vāyu, the god of wind, perhaps a reference to the seer’s own breath or bodily life force, with his (Soma’s) own positive qualities.²³ Soma is an agent of multifaceted transformation in these verses: socially by bestowing prosperity and striking down rivals, physically by entering the breath and the heart, and spiritually by guiding the seer to the heavenly light. Unlike other deities (except Bṛhaspati, noted shortly) Soma is invasive; he takes hold of the supplicant like none other.

The verb √viś also expresses the sense of a deity entering or occupying a house (10.85.43) or of supplicants appealing to the Lord of the House (Vāstoṣpati) for easy access (7.54.1), of Bṛhaspati’s ease of access, which is to say his beneficence when possessed (7.97.7), an expression of personal intimacy (10.10.3, 10.85.29), of rivers entering the ocean (3.46.4, 6.36.3), of sickness entering a dwelling (6.74.2), of Agni entering the heaven and earth (3.3.4), or entering mortals (5.25.4). Speech, established by the gods, also enters into and pervades individual homes, as well as heaven and earth (10.125.3, 6). Two verses employ √viś explicitly in the sense of entering another body (2.35.13, 1.164.21). The latter of these two is a decidedly cryptic passage, in which the protector of the universe enters into the speaker. Let us examine these passages in more detail.

ṚV 10.85.43cd:

ádurmaṇgalīḥ patilokám viśa śáṃ no bhava dvipáde śáṃ cátuṣpade ||

Free from ill omens, [O deity,] occupy your husband’s realm. Bring peace to the bipeds and quadrupeds.

This is addressed to Sūryā, at the time of her marriage to Soma, after invoking Prajāpati for offspring and Aryamān for a lifetime of beauty. The entrance and presence of Sūryā, and by extension of any bride, into a house is expressed as a form of occupation, pervasion, and possession in the sense of physical and psychological ownership.

ṚV 7.54.I:

vstoṣpate práti jānīhy asmn svāveśó anamīvó bhavā naḥ |

Respond to us, O Lord of the House; may you be easy of entry [sv-āveśaḥ]. Do not bring us disease.

Ease of occupation, a livable dwelling, is a request that the house may be “well-possessed.” The following verse identifies Vāstoṣpati, the lord and guardian of one’s dwelling, with Soma:

ṚV 7.54.2ab:

vstoṣpate pratáraṇo na edhi gayasphno góbhir áśvebhir indo |

O Lord of the House, be our promoter, expand our property with cattle and horses, O Indu.

Soma’s qualities or roles linked with his status as personally, physically, empowering—bestower of strength, health, and prosperity, destroyer of enemies—are easily transferred to Vāstoṣpati. Two of these qualities are found here: Vāstoṣpati as he promotes wealth (pratáraṇaḥ) and as he expands property (gayasphnaḥ), which are also used for Soma.²⁴

In a passage from the Taittirīya Saṃhitā (TS) relevant in this context, the ritualist confers substantiality on the act of eating (bhakṣā) and implores it to enter and permeate him in order that he might have all the good things of life.

TS 3.2.5.1:

bhakṣe hi m viśa dīrghāyutvya śantanutvya rāyás póṣāya várcase suprajāstvāya |

O ingestion, pervade me for the sake of long life, a healthy body, increase of wealth, splendor, and fine offspring.

Bṛhaspati shares the same ease of access (svāveśáḥ) as Vāstoṣpati, though here this ease of access is not physical, as in occupation of a house, but mental, in the sense of being possessed by the power of speech or mantra, the domain of Bṛhaspati:

ṚV 7.97.7.

sá hi śúciḥ śatápatraḥ sá śundhyúr híraṇyavãśīr iṣiráḥ svarṣḥ | bhaspátiḥ sá svāveśá ṛṣváḥ purú sákhibhya āsutíṃ káriṣṭhaḥ ||

He is pure, hundred-winged, radiant, with golden axe, unrestrained, victor of the sun; this Bṛhaspati is sublime, auspicious in possession, most generous to his friends on many occasions.²⁵

The spatial dimension of occupation is physically and psychologically comfortable, safe, intimate, expansive, and pervasive within its bounded domain. It is also the domain of speech, and Brahmaṇaspati, the lord of sacred speech (brāhman) and helpmate of Indra, who “pervaded the mountain laden with wealth” ( cviśad vásumantaṃ vi párvatam, 2.24.2d).²⁶

The first of the following two verses expresses the power of minds and bodies to unite, to interpenetrate. The second compares well-directed generosity to an ambulatory female spirit, uniting, merging, interpenetrating with the brahmán officiants who are the recipients of the generosity. This “distribution of wealth” is personified as a wife entering, merging with, her husband. The image of wives and husbands entering each other, merging bodies, is a potent image of possession, in which individual identity is merged or altered.

ṚV 10.10.3:

uśánti ghā té amṝtāsa etád ékasya cit tyajásam mártyasya || nī te máno mánasi dhāyy asmé jányuḥ pátis tanvàm viviśyāḥ ||

 

The immortals desire this, that offspring should be left by the one mortal. Let your mind unite with my mind; as a husband, penetrate the body of your wife.²⁷

ṚV 10.85.29:

pára dehi śāmulyàm brahmábhyo vī bhajā vásu | kṛtyaíṣā padvátī bhūtvy jāy viśate pátim ||

Give away the woolen gown to another, and distribute wealth to the brahmán officiants. This [gift] becomes a female spirit with feet; like the wife it merges with the husband.

The next two verses reveal that āveśa is a state of pervasion, such that one entity cannot be distinguished and separated once the merging of essences occurs:

ṚV 3.46.4cd:

índraṃ sómāsaḥ pradívi sutásaḥ samudráṃ ná sraváta viśanti ||

The pressed soma from former times enters Indra like streams an ocean.

ṚV 6.36.3cd

samudráṃ ná síndhava uktháśuṣmā uruvyá-casaṃ gira viśanti ||

As rivers reach the sea, our words, resonant with verse, are absorbed in [Indra,] the far-reaching one.

The image of separate waters, one bounded, the other unbounded, is stronger and more decisive than that of the commingling of husband and wife. Like streams and rivers (sravátaḥ, sīndhavaḥ) bounded by riverbanks, husband and wife are circumscribed by discrete identities. But the ocean (samudrám) and Indra are unbounded, both far-reaching (uruvyácasam). The essence of the pressed soma becomes indistinguishable from that of Indra, just as the power of vedic mantra becomes fully absorbed in and utterly inseparable from Indra. The “substance-codes” of soma and Indra or mantra and Indra discover—or, perhaps better, generate—a common locus. This, then, assumes a separate, if not autonomous, identity, one that partakes of the modified substance and nature of each.

As seen in the verses above, Soma enters and pervades Indra. A couple of additional examples may be mentioned: “The exhilarating drops enter Indra” (éndraṃ viśanti madirsa īndavaḥ, ṚV 9.85.7d); “O Indu, enter Indra with your strength” (índram indó vś viśa, ṚV 1. 176.1b, 9.2.1c). Several times in the ṚV Soma is requested to enter into Indra’s heart, for example, “May Soma enter Indra’s heart, the reservoir of soma” (índrasya hrdi somadhnam viśa, ṚV 9.70.9b, 9.108.16a), or throat (índrasya jáṭhare viśa, 9.66.15c).²⁸

The entrance, occupation, and absorption of a limited entity into one less limited or unlimited may not always be altogether sanguine, as revealed by the image of a disease’s pervading a house:

ṚV 6.74.2ab:

sómārudrā vī vṛhataṃ vīṣucīm ámīvā y no gáyam viveśa |

Soma and Rudra, drive away in all directions the illness that has possessed our dwelling.

This is principally an image of absorption, however, and must be distinguished from the imagery and language of negative, disease-producing, possession (that is dealt with in Chapter 12). The present image may perhaps be a precursor of the latter in that disease and other classifications of physical dysfunction, in particular conditions brought on by invasive spirits, are regarded in Indian medical thinking as systemic: All aspects of an organism are affected by the pervasion and occupation of a psychophysical individual by a spirit.

The image of Agni’s entering and pervading is strong in all vedic literary genres. The two following passages illustrate this well:

ṚV 3.3.4:

pit yajñnam ásuro vipaścítām vimnam agnír vayúnaṃ ca vāghátām | viveśa ródasī bhri-varpasā purupriyó bhandate dhmabhiḥ kavíḥ ||

The father of sacrifice, the Lord [ásura] of wise men, Agni, the guiding principle of the priesthood, has entered the multiform heaven and earth; the sage, beloved of many, honors him with his favorite objects.

ṚV 5.25.4ab:

agnír devéṣu rājaty agnír márteṣv āviíán |

Agni shines among the gods. Agni has entered into mortals.

Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (ŚB) 2.3.3.2: na vā aham idaṃ titikṣe hanta tvā praviśāni taṃ mā janayitvā bibhṛhi.

I cannot endure this, let me enter into you. Having generated me, support me.

In the ŚB passage, Agni entered mankind (puruṣa) in order to protect himself from being crushed (saṃpeṣṭum dadhrire, 2.3.3.1) by mankind after Prajāpati created both Agni and living beings. The bargain that Agni struck with mankind was that he would not burn everything (sarvam) if man would generate him regularly in the daily agnihotra, the morning and evening fire offerings. This merging resulted in a reciprocation of essences that preserved and maintained a precariously generated balance of nature. Thus, Agni enters the multiform heaven and earth, as well as mortals, in the unmistakable sense of entrance as pervasion. Agni the multiform fire manifests on earth as Agni, in the mid-region as Vāyu, in the celestial world as Sūrya. Agni cannot be easily contained: He moves upward to the gods, bearing oblations; as the wind, the principle and force of movement, he traverses the mid-region in all directions; as the sun, his brightness illuminates the three realms. As the priest of the gods and the god of the priests he penetrates and pervades all beings and all functions. This pervasion enables Agni to protect those who invoke him: “May you, [O Agni,] wealthy in heat, let no demon enter into us” (m no rákṣa veśīd āghṛṇīvaso, 8.60.20a). Similarly, Agni, the Son of Waters, enters into and nourishes young plants (apṃ gárbhaḥ prasvà viveśa, 7.9.3d). He prospers and brings prosperity by entering into the waters (d in mātr viśad ysv śúcir, 1.141.5a).

A passage from the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (TU), an early Upaniṣad that postdates the final redaction of the ṚV by perhaps five hundred to seven hundred years, expresses the same idea as ṚV 5.25.4, though it employs pra√viś rather than ā√viś.²⁹

TU 1.4.3:

yaśo jane ’sāni svāhā | śreyān vasyaso ’sāni svāhā | taṃ tvā bhaga praviśāni svāhā | taṃ tvā bhaga praviśa svāhā | sa mā bhaga praviśa svāhā | tasmin sahasraśākhe ni bhagāhaṃ tvayi mṛje svāhā |

 

May I be famous among men! Svāhā!

More affluent than the very rich! Svāhā!

May I, O Bhaga, enter you! Svāhā!

May you, O Bhaga, enter me! Svāhā!

In you, O Bhaga, branched a thousandfold,

In you I shall be cleansed! Svāhā!³⁰

 

In this passage the vedic teacher and ritualist unambiguously invites the deity Bhaga, an Āditya or solar deity, a giver of good fortune, to merge with him. Whether this was meant literally or metaphorically is unclear, but the history of possession in the Vedas, the patchwork nature of this Upaniṣad, and the use of the offertory exclamation svāhā suggest that this may have been drawn from a ritual in which possession as a spiritually cleansing state was the primary goal.

Two verses from the well-known hymn to Vc or Speech (ṚV 10.125) testify to her power to enter and pervade, which is not surprising given the power of invocation (gīr) to strengthen and enliven Soma.

ṚV 10.125.3:

aháṃ rṣṭrī saṃgamanī vsūnāṃ cikitúṣī pratham yajñíyānām | tm mā dev vy àdadhuḥ purutr bhnisthātrām bhry āveśáyantīm ||

I myself am queen, a treasury of riches; [I am] insightful, first among the gods worthy of sacrifice. As such, the gods have divided me up in many places, me of many positions, me entering many forms.³¹

ṚV 10.125.6:

aháṃ rudrya dhánur tanomi brahmadvíṣe śárave hántav u | aháṃ jánāya samádaṃ kṛṇomy aháṃ dyvāpṛthiv viveśa ||

I myself stretch the bow for Rudra so that his arrow kills the enemy of magical speech. I myself make battlejoy for the clan. I have pervaded both Heaven and Earth.³²

An excellent example of the ritual application of the invasive and possessive power of speech occurs in the soma sacrifice, when a specially made and marked daṇḍa or staff, representing kingly attributes, is passed from the soma sacrificer (dīkṣita) to an officiant called the maitrāvaruṇa, who utters divine speech under the influence of the vedic sovereigns Mitra and Varuṇa, and who thus mediates between ritual functions.³³ This daṇḍa, is passed physically, of course, but the vedic texts (e.g., TS) say it is passed as well through the medium of speech.³⁴

TS 1.2.2.3–1.2.3.3:

vg vái devébhyó ’pākrāmad yájñāytiṣṭhamānā | s vánaspátīn prviśat | saīṣ vg vánaspátiṣu vadati y dundubháu y tīṇave y vṇāyām | yád dīkṣitadaṇḍáṃ rayácchati vcam evvarunddhe|

Speech went away from the gods, not [wishing to] serve the sacrifice. She entered the trees. What is heard in the drum, in the flute, in the vīṇā is speech speaking in the trees. In that he gives the daṇḍa of the dīkṣita, he gains speech.³⁵

A similar passage occurs in the TB section describing the vājapeya sacrifice:

TB 1.3.6.2

vājīnā sma gāyate | ánnaṃ vái vjaḥ | ánnam evvarundhe | vācó várṣma devébhyò ’pākrāmat | tád vánaspátīn prāviśat | sáiṣ vg vánaspátiṣu vadati | y dundubháu | tásmād dundubhíḥ sárvāvcò ’tivadati | dundubhn samghnanti | param v eṣ vk ||

He [the brahman priest] sings the sāman of the vājins.³⁶ Vāja, indeed, is food [ánnam]. Thus he obtains food. The uppermost level of Vāc ran away from the gods. It entered the trees of the forest [vánaspátīn]. It is this Vāc who speaks in the trees. It is she who is in the drum. Therefore all sounds [vcaḥ] are overcome [ativadati] by the drums. Together they beat the drums. This, verily, is the highest Vāc.

An important example of the invocation of Vāc occurs in TS 1.6.2.2, where the yajamāna is enjoined to recite mentally the following dhyāna or meditation statement (cf. ĀpŚS 2.12.6) at the time of consuming the tiny portion of the offered riceflour cakes (puroḍāśa): máno ’si prajāpatyám mánasā mā bhūténāviśa (You are mind, derived from Prajāpati, enter me with the mind that participates in manifest existence).³⁷ Thus, the essence of the puroḍāśa has been ritually transformed into the essence of Vāc. In this way, speech enters, pervades, and reconstitutes the personalities of the trees, the drum, the flute, the vīṇā, the sacrificer, and the maitrāvaruṇa priest. This notion of transfer of essence, a subcategory of possession, is dealt with more fully below.

Several passages recognizably presage later uses of the word āveśa.

ṚV 3.7.4.

máhi tvāṣṭrám ūrjáyantīr ajuryáṃ stabhūyámānaṃ vaháto vahanti | vy áṅgebhir didyutānáṇ sadhástha ékām iva ródasī viveśa ||

Nourishing streams greatly bear the ever-young Tvaṣṭṛ, standing firm. Shining forth in his home with all his limbs, he has entered the heaven and earth as if they were one.³⁸

This notion of a deity entering a primeval but inert world in order to create—Tvaṣṭṛ is the “fashioner” or carpenter among the gods—appears again, fully theorized, in the Upaniṣads, as shown below.

ṚV 2.35.13cd:

só apm nápād ánabhimlātavarṇo ’nyásyevehá tanv viveśa ||39

Apāṃ Napāt, Agni as the Son of the Waters, of unfading color, entered this world, as if [entering] another’s body.

ṚV 1.164.21:

yátrā suparṇ amtasya bhāgám ánimeṣaṃ vidathbhisváranti | inó víśvasya bhúvanasya gopḥ sá mā dhraḥ pkam átr viveśa ||

Here, where the well-winged ones [priests] in their assemblies flawlessly raise song to their share in immortality, the mighty herdsman of the whole world [Agni], the wise one, has entered into me, the humble.⁴⁰

The first passage speaks of Apām Napāt, Agni in the form of lightning, born from the clouds, holding the celestial waters. He takes on another body in order to enter in this world, a body produced through the heat resulting from the use of the fire-churning equipment. The latter passage is from the well-known asya vāmasya hymn of the sage Dīrghatamas. Leaving aside the problem of the identity of the “wise protector,” this verse states directly that the deity possesses the sage. There is little difference between this and what is found in the Tantras and the ethnographies.

The following passage is cited by Patañjali (c. 150 B.C.E.) near the beginning of his Mahābhāṣya (Great Commentary) on Pāṇini’s sūtras describing the Sanskrit language.

ṚV 4.58.3:

catvri śṇgā tráyo asya pdā dvé śīrṣé sápta hástāso asya | trídhā baddhó vṛṣabhó roravīti mahó devó mrtyā viveśa ||

This bull, who has four horns, three legs, two heads, seven hands, and is bound in three ways, roars loudly. This great god has entered into mortals.

Patañjali interprets the numbers of horns, legs, and so on as kinds of words and parts of grammar; the places in which the bull is bound as the sources of the articulation of sound—the chest, throat, and head; the bull as the desire of the speaker to produce sound; and the great god as the action or energy of sound itself, which has entered ( viveśa) mortals. The great fourteenth-century commentator on the ṚV Sāyaṇa interprets this passage differently: as sacrificial rituals, parts of the Veda, and cosmic regions; the bull as either the sun or the text of the Vedas that enters mankind. It is noteworthy, though not particularly unexpected, that Sāyaṇa does not pause to consider the weight of ā√viś.⁴¹

A passage from the Atharvaveda (AVŚ) continues this theme of the entrance or pervasion of abstract qualities, this time by the night:

AVŚ 7.79.3:

gan rtrī saṅgámanī vásūnām rjaṃ puṣṭáṃ vásv veśayantī | amāvāsyáyai havíṣā vídhemórjaṃ dúh nā páyasā na gan ||

The night has come, collector of treasures, causing the pervasion of sustenance [rjaṃ], prosperity, and goodness. Let us offer an oblation to the new moon, yielding sustenance; with a flow of milk may she come to us.

The word rjam denotes fluid life-force, sustenance, the “principle of strength.”⁴² Night personified (rtrī), spreading, permeating space, takes control of this sustenance and the material goods surrounding it. An oblation of flowing, white milk is offered into the fire, into the light, as an invitation to that darkness to possess its prey warily and peaceably. A similar passage from the Taittirīya Saṃhitā reads as follows.

TS 3.5.1.1

nivéśanī saṃgámanī vásūnāṃ víśvā rūpṇi vásūny veśayantī | sahasrapoṣáṃ subhágā rárāṇā s na gan várcasā sáṃvidān ||

The fortunate one, gathering together and dwelling in riches, causing the pervasion of all rich forms, rejoicing in a thousandfold prosperity, has come to us with harmonious radiance.

An example from the ŚB is relevant here because it reveals the continuity into later vedic texts of the idea of hostile possession by an entity not so abstract to them as it might be to us. Note in this case that a hostile or incidental possession is indicated by the verbal root √gṛh.⁴³ This occurs in a discussion of the consecration of an odd menagerie of socially important figures called Ratnins in the Rājasūya or Royal Consecration.

ŚB 5.3.1.13:

y v apútra pátnī s nīrṛtigṛhītā tád yád evsyā átra nairṛtá rūpaṃ tád evaítác chamayati tátho haina sūyámānaṃ nírṛtir ná gṛhṇāti |

A wife without a son has been seized [gṛhītā] by “Disorder” [ nīrṛti] … [but] Disorder does not seize him while he is being consecrated.⁴⁴

One of the likeliest candidates for possession in the ṚV, as well as for shamanism in the strict sense, is the keśin, the long-haired ecstatic (muni) of sweet disposition, celebrated in ṚV 10.136, who treads the aerial path of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) and the apsarases (celestial dancers). This suspi Upaniṣads, cion is strengthened by the role of gandharvas in possession in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata (see below). Only once, however, in this hymn of seven verses, is possession suggested.

ṚV 10.136.2:

múnayo vtaraśanāḥ dṛṣé keśdraṃ jyótir ucyate | vtaṣynu dhrjiṃ yanti yád devso ávikṣata ||

The munis, reined by the wind [vātaraśanā], wear soiled yellow garments. They glide with the wind when the gods have possessed [them].⁴⁵

Entrance here (ávikṣata) appears to bear the sense of intentionally induced possession, brought on by the muni with clear knowledge of and control over the results. It does not serve as a comprehensive transformational agent, as it does in the other cases of more general pervasiveness. It is quite likely no accident, then, that the word for “entrance” in this verse is from √viś rather than ā√viś. The former, along with pra√viś, is used consistently throughout the later literature for more intentional disembodied entrance.

These few examples from the vedic texts, most of them from the Ṛgveda, betray a multivalent notion of the verbal root ā√viś. André Padoux, who is one of the few scholars to focus on the notion of possession in Sanskrit literature, has stated bluntly that possession was the original sense of āveśa, and he, too, has noted its continuity in later Indic languages.⁴⁶ However, our examination suggests that the significations of ā√viś as “possession” are constituted rather differently here than in the later texts. In the Vedas, ā√viś has the sense of “pervasion,” “immersion,” and “participation,” conceptual neighbors to “possession” that often, but perhaps not always, qualify as “possession.”

Shape-Shifting and Possession

Sāyaṇa understands the last quarter-verse of ṚV 10.136.2 differently, avoiding any suggestion of possession. He says: “[the munis] entered the deity’s own physical form” (devatāsvarūpaṃ prāviśan). This is slightly ambiguous, but he probably means here that the munis assumed or constructed a form of the deity rather than merged with a pre-existing divine body.⁴⁷ The former is more likely because Sāyaṇa consistently avoids speaking of possession, while he readily acknowledges shape-shifting—which is in any case much in evidence in the vedic and post-vedic literature. This example demonstrates that shape-shifting was proximate to possession and perhaps indistinguishable from it in certain contexts, especially in the early history of Sanskrit literature when the vocabulary for the two was not fully differentiated. Although it is unwise to get too far ahead of ourselves, it may be useful to note here an example of this lexical differentiation. The much later Jain Pārśvanātha Caritra distinguishes between shape-shifting (rūpāntarakṛti) and entering another’s body (parakāyapraveśa).⁴⁸ Another reason for arguing in favor of possession rather than shape-shifting in the case of the muni is that he is, unmistakably, an ascetic, and merging with or becoming possessed by a deity was more likely for such a figure than was shape-shifting, which signifies greater stakes in worldly pursuits than those that the muni appears to have.

Shape-shifting is most often a strategy for subterfuge, adopted to present a persona to the world or to a particular individual different from one’s own given or recognized form. Occasionally it is employed for other strategic purposes, such as assuming a shape that is more suitable for a specific physical medium or situation, for example, changing into the form of a bird in order to fly through the air. However, it does not encompass internal shifts of identity or transformations of mental and psychological states that are characteristic of possession, even if it enhances the individual’s power—and it is clear in the present instance that the muni is not concerned with his physical appearance; rather, he enters the form of the god in order to enhance his ecstatic state. In addition, shape-shifting is limited almost entirely to celestial beings, who already command considerable power and charisma, while possession always requires at least one human. To the best of my knowledge, there is no literary or oral record of a deity or spirit’s possessing another deity or spirit. In the ṚV, Indra is the god who most often resorts to shape-shifting, a strategy that he has developed for enhancing his own power:

ṚV 3.53.8ab:

rūpáṃrūpaṃ maghávā bobhavīti māyḥ kṛṇvānás tanvàṃ pari svm |

Maghavān constantly changes form, rendering his own body completely magical.

In another rather elliptical passage, the sage announces that his hymn is in praise of Indra, who manifests various forms within his daughter’s womb (vakṣáṇāsu [interior spaces]):

ṚV 5.42.13:

prá sú mahé suśaraṇya medhṃ gīram bhare návyasīṃ jyamānām | yá āhan duhitúr vakṣáṇāsu rūp minānó ákṛṇod idáṃ naḥ ||

My latest cognition, my hymn, that is now arising within me, I bestow upon the great one who offers safe refuge [Indra], the striker, who has created all this, whose forms are knit within the womb of his daughter.

Indra’s reputation for incest, even at this early date, surely inspired this trope. It is likely that the daughter is the earth, and her wantonness the earth’s fertility. Indra’s virility and his prowess at shape-shifting are reconfigured as his power to produce varied forms within and on the earth.⁴⁹

The purpose of shape-shifting is usually to accomplish a specific deed wherein a prior intentional or psychological state is aided by a more appropriate and powerful physical form. Several stories from the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, and elsewhere, some dependent on vedic exemplars, bear this out. In one story (MBh 3.197) Indra assumes the shape of a hawk and Agni the shape of a pigeon in order to test Śibi. In another (MBh 14.55, 58), Indra tests Uttaṇka by adopting the form of a Cāṇḍāla and offering him nectar (amṛta) in the form of urine. In the Rāmāyaṇa Hanumān often expands or contracts his body in encounters with inimical beings. For example, he defeats but nevertheless gains the blessing of Surasā, the “mother of snakes,” through expanding and contracting in order to enter and exit her mouth, and he kills the rākṣasī Siṃhikā by entering her with his tiny form and piercing hervital organs (Rām 5.1.130–178).⁵⁰ He is called kāmarūpin (Rām 5.5.1), one who has the ability to change his form at will. In one passage, he morphs into a mendicant from a mountain called Ṛṣyamūka in order to help Sugrīva, and there refers to himself as kāmarūpin (Rām 4.3.21) .⁵¹ In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP) retelling of a very old story that has its roots in the ṚV and middle vedic literature, the sage Cyavana, old and wrinkled, was married to the “beautiful maiden” Sukanyā, the daughter of King Śaryāti. Not thinking himself fit for such a wife, he offered soma libations to the celestial physicians, the Aśvinīkumāras, though he knew that they were technically ineligible. In exchange, the Aśvinīkumāras promised to return him to his youth. And thus it happened. But Indra objected and tried to kill Cyavana with his vajra. Not only did he fail in this mission, but Cyavana paralyzed Indra’s arm, forcing his vajra to drop helplessly to the ground. Ever after, all the gods have agreed to grant a libation of soma to the Aśvins (MhP 9.3.1–26).⁵²

Two related cases of shape-shifting, or at least of ethereal transformation, that serve positively charged ritual and brahmaṇical goals, are recounted in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (JB, 2.53–54)⁵³ and the Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa (JUB, 3.6.1–3).⁵⁴ They both involve Keśin Dārbhya, a king of the Kuru-Pāñcāla clan, who, in the JB story, unsuccessfully attempts to initiate himself into the vedic sacrificial ritual and, in the story from the JUB, encounters the ghost of his beloved uncle, the late king of the Kurus, Ucchaiḥśravas Kaupapeya, in the forest while on a hunting expedition. In the JB Keśin is taught the proper mantras of consecration by the ghost of his late uncle, who appears to him, having assumed the form of a golden bird. In the JUB, Keśin is overjoyed to see the figure of his uncle roaming the forest. Keśin attempts to embrace him but fails, because Uccaiḥśravas does not have a tangible body. In order to embrace his uncle and join him in the world of the gods, Keśin, by now an advanced vedic ritualist, needs a brahman officiant to “shake off my bodies with a disembodying Sāmavedic chant” (sa me ’śarīreṇa, sāmnā śarīrāṇy adhūnot; JUB 3.6.1.2). These tales of Keśin Dārbhya argue for the legitimacy of disembodied sources of knowledge; at the very least, they display a sense of discarnate spirits, conceived as epistemological units detached from the physical body and capable of ousting the consciousness of any human being, and therefore capable of possessing it. Because of the fluidity of form and identity, disembodiment here partakes of aspects of both shape-shifting and possession. The shape-shifting is clear, especially when the spirit of Uccaiḥśravas adopts the shape of a golden bird, a clearly wrought symbol of the achievement of a divine afterlife. The territory of possession is the assumption of a multiplicity of bodies.

J. C. Heesterman often points out that the unitary world envisioned in the Vedas consists of a seamless flow of multiple and often contradictory parts. Both the world and the individual depicted in the early and middle vedic texts are constructed of incompatible principles that express ambivalence and conflict. The irony, cohesiveness, and flow of this complex whole was, according to Heesterman, subverted first by the “classical” vedic ritual and then by the Upaniṣads, with their procrustean application of an “unforgiving transcendent order.”⁵⁵ This transcendent order adopted as ideology became brahmanism, which, as Gombrich supposed, inculcated control. This it did, says Gombrich, in part by denying all value to possession states. We might ask here, however, how true this really was. No doubt, brahmanism was an increasingly conservative intellectual and cultural movement that denied many of the less-Sanskritic elements of Indian social, intellectual, and spiritual culture. It also exploited its custody of literature and literacy in order to tilt Indian culture to the social and material advantage of brahmans. And, in no small measure, this required the denial of public forms of self-expression and empowerment, including possession. However, before the philosophy and theology of the Vedas and Upaniṣads devolved into brahmanism, possession was recognized, even embraced by brahmans. This was before the folk had parted company with the Sanskritic. We have already seen that the ṚV and other early and middle vedic texts recognize and even celebrate possession. An example of an endorsement of it in the systematic philosophy of the Upaniṣads occurs in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (3.2.5), which states: “The wise, their selves controlled, when they attain him [puruṣa] altogether, he who is present in All, they enter into [āviśtmti] that very All.”⁵⁶ This is to say, the wise, though controlled, become possessed by that wholeness (sarvam), which is both personified and universalized as the cosmic man (puruṣa). Their very being becomes indistinguishable from that wholeness, and they become its instrument. Although brahmanism here undeniably inculcates control, it also recognizes possession and the possibility of a general transformation of personality. This is a philosophical presupposition of Keśin Dārbhya in the JUB passage cited above. In the JUB, possession was an assumed prefiguration to shape-shifting. As a ritualist familiar with the consumption of soma and the deeds of Indra, Keśin believed that minds and bodies could be taken over by powerful forces and dissolved by disembodiment chants.

In most states of possession, the mask, either actual (as often occurs in ritualized possession)⁵⁷ or psychological, is not a masquerade. It is not an act of deception, as in the case of shape-shifting, but denotes a real, if temporary, shift in identity and perspective. In shape-shifting, the personality, which remains intact to the experiencer, is revealed to the observer only after the mask has fallen away. In one of the instances of shape-shifting from the MBh noted above, in which Indra assumes the shape of a hawk and Agni the shape of a pigeon in order to test King Śibi, Indra and Agni—who are gods and therefore blessed with nonchanging forms (occasional injuries, curses, and afflictions aside)—must maintain their masks, lest their identities be revealed. In contrast, drawing from another example cited above, the sage Cyavana’s shape is changed (his youth is restored), seemingly permanently (until he grows old again), as a gift in return for granting the Aśvinīkumāras the gift of soma. Yet the form of the muni, who, possessed by the deity, rides the wind, does not undergo any change as a result of his experience, nor does that of the ritualist who has drunk soma, nor do those possessed in any of the examples noted below. Both shape-shifting and possession confer an uneasy power, but only in the latter case is core identity at stake. This hints at a precarious—and curious—relationship between physical and personal identity: Personal identity is transformed through possession, but not through shape-shifting, while shape-shifting is always a ruse and does not appear to induce any transformation of personal identity.

Doubtless, personal identity can shift more easily in mythic than in human contexts, because myth encourages a more flexible material framework on which to fix identity. But the mythic and the human are blurred in ritual, where the identity of human actors can appear to shift like autumn winds (or like myth), through a system of specific coordinates that lies behind the shifts, as one should expect in India, waiting to be deciphered. Both the textuality and practice of vedic ritual, and the textuality and practice of the MBh, Rām, and Purāṇas in their wake,⁵⁸ are replete with examples of possession and (at least prescribed) shape-shifting. Apparently, the attention paid to ritual detail and etiquette does not interfere with the emotional urgency required for possession in any of these instances,⁵⁹ though to be sure this urgency has been drained from vedic ritual practice as part of the supersession of rule and control that became an oppressive feature of brahmanism.

One of the most frequent mantras prescribed in the Yajurvedic ritual literature lies at the cusp of possession and shape-shifting. The Taittirīya Saṃhitā prescribes the following for recitation during a number of ritual acts preliminary to the offerings themselves, such as while lifting a pot of ghee or a riceflour ball (puroḍāśa): “On the impulse of the God Savitṛ, with the arms of the Aśvins, with the hands of Pūṣan, I take thee” (devasya tvā savituḥ prasave ’śvinor bāhubhyāṃ püṣṇo hastābhyām ā dade; TS 1.3.1.1, 7.1.11.1) .⁶⁰ Thus it is not the officiant alone who takes up the ghee, but the officiant as composite deity who performs the actions through the body of the officiant. This mantra, more than any other, served as the paradigm for the process of divinization of the body called nyāsa (setting down, imposition), which was to become one of the trademarks of Hindu daily ritual and Tantric practice.⁶¹ I deal with nyāsa extensively later, in discussions of possession in Tantra; it is sufficient to mention here that it is a uniquely brahmanical subcategory of possession, one in which transformation of form is thought, even prescribed, to accompany possession. The composite nature of personal identity expressed in this mantra, various deities together with a human actor who is not thoroughly occluded, but remains capable of making decisions and following learned ritual patterns, is quite in keeping with much of the possession performance in the ethnographies. For the extraordinary degree to which personal identity is reassigned in this composite manner in vedic ritual, one need search no farther than any Śrautasūtra on the New and Full Moon Sacrifices (darśapūrṇamāsau),⁶² in which this mantra is often employed. Because this mantra is presented in a prescriptive rather than a descriptive context, terms such as āveśa are notably absent.⁶³

One example of the extension of this mantra and corresponding notion of multiform identity into a later mythic setting will suffice. In a myth with a venerable vedic and Purāṇic pedigree, Śiva was excluded from Dakṣa’s sacrifice.⁶⁴ As a result, he wreaked havoc on the sacrifice and, among other things, chopped off the arms and hands of some of the officiants, as well as the head of Dakṣa himself. In order to have the sacrifice completed after he was finally, and grudgingly, admitted into it, Śiva decreed:

BhP 4.7.5:

bāhubhyām aśvinoḥ pūṣṇo hastābhyām kṛṭavāhavaḥ | bhavantv adhvaryavaś cānye bastaśmaśrur bhṛgur bhavet ||65

The adhvaryus and other ritual officiants should carry on their duties with the arms of the Aśvins and with the hands of Pūṣan, and let Bhṛgu have the beard of a billy-goat.

Eventually the decapitated head of the sacrificial goat was joined with the body of the beheaded Dakṣa (Bhṛgu). The relevant point of this story is that the feared and ferocious Śiva wields the power to curse and destroy, but he leaves the marks of divinity in the wake of his curse and destruction, even if these marks are also embarrassing stigmata of pain and humiliation.

Another example of such divine and human collusion, also intended for the New and Full Moon Sacrifices (and elsewhere as well), is given in the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa where the sacrificer addresses deity-ancestors and ancestor-deities:

TB 3.7.5.4–5:

yò ’hám asmi sá sán yaje | yasysmi ná tám antár emi | sváṃ ma iṣṭá sváṃ dattá sváṃ pūrtá svám śrāntá sváṃ hutám | tásya me ’gnír upadraṣṭ vāyúr upaśrot ādityò ’nukhyāt dyáuḥ pit pṛthiv māt prajápatir bándhuḥ yá evsmi sá sán yaje |

Being the one I am, I sacrifice. I do not go beyond the one to whom I belong. I have offered what is mine, I have given what is mine, I have conferred as largesse what is mine, I have offered as oblation what is mine. Of this, Agni is the eyewitness, Vāyu the one who hears it, Śditya the one who announces it, Heaven the father, Earth the mother, Prajāpati the kinsman. I sacrifice, being the one who I am.⁶⁶

Who is this sacrificer and how is it that the ritual becomes so efficient? The answers, according to the TB, are that the sacrificer is in some sense a multiform, a composite entity of all of these gods. He “seizes Agni” (both the devatā and the fire) and thus the remaining gods “in their own abode” (agníṃ gṛhṇāti sá evāyátane devátāḥ pári gṛhṇāti; TS 1.6.7.1–2). It is possible to argue that a supplicant’s conviction of a deity’s control over his or her actions, and a ritualized verbal recognition of the deity’s sovereignty, is not the same as either shape-shifting or possession. This may be the case in the Western notions of possession or shape-shifting derived from ethnographic observation and analysis, but it does not appear true of India. This is probably true of classical India, where the category of possession was quite broad, and partly overlapped with the category of shape-shifting.

In the Beginning, God Possessed Heaven and Earth

Possession is, first and foremost, a quality of embodiment. It may be a uniquely configured embodiment or, under certain conditions, a viewpoint on embodiment. Embodiment is characterized in the Upaniṣads as primordial, archetypal: It happened in the beginning. In that beginning, bráhman, the eternal, absolute, unlimited power, was anthropomorphized, even humanized, by manifesting recognizable qualities such as desire and fear, as púruṣa, the first and supreme person. This neuter bráhman, with or without its masculine cloak as púruṣa, desired multiplicity, thus entered, embodied, and animated an equally primordial, if initially inert, materiality. The bráhman then divided its newly adopted body into male and female, then into all different types of sexually differentiated beings. This primordial embodiment and subsequent mixing and recombinant identities is at the basis of the Indian notions of multiple and polyvalent selves. This is a self that cannot be expressed except through its multiformity—and which is therefore not reducible except by recapturing its archetypal nature through philosophical understanding or spiritual exercise. Embodiment or animation, however, in its multiform complexity, is irreducible in and to its essences without a termination in the form of death, which returns the materiality of an embodied individual to its primordial quiescence and latency. Archetypal embodiment, then, is also archetypal possession, serving as a model for the flow and exchange of substances, substance codes, and essences, which affect other psychophysical organisms for the duration of their shared locus. However, even on the eventual (and inevitable) separation of substances, this flow and exchange to a great extent produces the unique identity of every embodied individual.

The most productive way to comprehend this primordial possession is by observing it at work in the vedic texts. Most of the important passages are found in the Upaniṣads, and for this I have depended largely on the recent translations of Patrick Olivelle. Let us begin, however, with a passage from the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, which relates how bráhman first saw this world, vacant and inert, and wondered how to bring it to life.

ŚB 11.2.3.1–3:

bráhma v idam ágra āsīt | tád devn asṛjata | tád devn sṛṣṭvaiṣú lokéṣu vyrohayat | asmínn evá loké ’gním vāyúm antárikṣe divy èva sryam ||1|| átha yé ’ta ūrdhv lokḥ | tad yā áta ūrdhv devátāḥ | téṣu t devátā vyrohayat | sa yáthā haivèmá ávírlok imś ca devátāḥ | evám u haiva tá āvírloks ts ca devátāḥ | yéṣu t devátā vyrohayat ||2|| átha bráhmaivá parārdhám agacchat tatparārdháCaṃkam gatvàikṣata | kathaṃ nv ìmān lokn pratyáveyām íti | taddvbhyām evá pratyávait | rpeṇa caiva nmnā ca … ||3||

(1) In the beginning [all] this was bráhman. It created the gods. Having created the gods, it made them ascend into these worlds: Agni into this world, Vāyu into the midregion, Sūrya into the heavens. (2) There are worlds above these, as there are deities above these: He made these deities ascend into them. Just as these worlds and these deities are manifest, those worlds and those deities are manifest. (3) Bráhman alone went to the sphere beyond. Having gone to that sphere beyond, bráhman considered, “How indeed can I again descend into these worlds?” It descended by means of these two alone—visible appearance and name.⁶⁷

The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (BĀU) describes the differentiation of the “single body in the shape of a man” (ātmaivedam agra āsīt puruṣavishaḥ, 1.4.1). It—he, really—perceived his singularity, discovered fear and pleasure, then split into two, creating husband and wife. They copulated, creating humans first, then “every other pair that exists, down to ants” (evam eva yad idaṃ kiṃca mithunam ā pipīlikābhyas tatsarvam asṛjata, 1.4.4). This puruṣa then churned Agni “from his mouth as if a vagina” (abhyamanthat sa mukhāc ca yoniḥ, 1.4.6), and from his semen created Soma (tad retaso ’sṛjata | tad u somaḥ, 1.4.6). These two, Agni and Soma, are the great polarity of vedic thought: heat and cold, dry and wet, the two forces that the ritualist strives to balance. “Food is nothing but Soma, and Agni is the eater of food” (soma evānnam agnir annādaḥ, 1.4.6).

BĀU 1.4.7

tad dhedam tarhy avyākṛtam āsīt | tan nāmarūpābhyām eva vyākriyatāsaunāmāyam idarūpa iti | tad idam apy etarhi nāmarūpābhyām eva vyākriyate ’saunāmāyam idarūpa iti | sa eṣa iha praviṣṭa ā nakhāgrebhyo yathā kṣuraḥ kṣuradhāne ’vahitaḥ syād viśvaṃbharo vā viśvaṃharakulāye | taṃ na paśyanti | akṛtsno hi saḥ | prāṇann eva prāṇo nāma bhavati vadan vāk paśyaś cakṣuḥ śṛṇvañ chrotraṃ manvāno manaḥ | tāny asyaitāni karmanāmāny eva |

At that time this world was without real distinctions; it was distinguished simply in terms of name and form—” He is so and so by name and has this sort of an appearance.” So even today this world is distinguished simply in terms of name and form, as when we say, “He is so and so by name and has this sort of an appearance.” Penetrating this body up to the very nailtips, he remains there like a razor within a case or an earthbound creature within its nest. People do not see him, for he is incomplete. When he is breathing, he is called breath; when speaking, speech; when hearing, ear; when thinking, mind. These are only the names of his many activities.⁶⁸

The central point of the BĀU passage is reiterated in the first verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad: “This whole world is to be dwelt in by the Lord, whatever living being there is in the world” (íśāvāsyam ida sarvaṃ yatkiṃca jagatyām jagat).⁶⁹ This may be the most succinct statement of vedic theism, in which the Lord (íśā) entered, permeated, possessed, and animated the inert world.

The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (ŚvetU) state that the world has become full (pūrṇam) with that puruṣa, with the strong implication that all this (idaṃ sarvam) stood empty before being pervaded by that great being.

ŚvetU 3.9:

yasmāt paraṃ nāparam asti kiṃcid yasmān nāṇīyo na jyāyo ’sti kiṃcit | vṛkṣeva stabdho divi tiṣṭhaty ekas tenedaṃ pūrṇaṃ puruṣeṇa sarvam ||

All this is full with that Person, the one beyond whom there is no other; beneath whom there is nothing; smaller than whom there is nothing; larger than whom there is nothing; and who stands in heaven, firm as a tree.⁷⁰

The Chāndogya Upaniṣad (ChU) states that this puruṣa then not only created three distinct types of beings and entered them in order to confer upon them name and form, but refers to the primeval beings of all these three divisions as deities. This is the only instance I know of in which a vedic (or any other) text speaks of a deity’s possessing another deity.

ChU 6.3.1–3:

teṣāṃ khalv eṣāṃ bhūtānāṃ trīny eva bījāni bhavanty aṇḍajaṃ jīvajam udbhijjam iti | seyaṃ devataikṣata hantāham imās tisro devatānena jīvenātmanānupraviśya nāmarūpe vyākaravāṇīti | tāsāṃ trivṛtaṃ trivṛtam ekaikāṃ karavāṇīti | seyaṃ devatemās tisro devatā anenaiva jīvenātmanānupraviśya nāmarūpe vyākarot | tāsāṃ trivṛtaṃ trivṛtam ekaikāṃ karavāṇīti |

With respect to these, then, of these beings there are only three kinds of seeds: They can be born from eggs, from living individuals, or from sprouts. Then that same deity thought to itself: “Come now, why don’t I establish the distinctions of name and form by entering these three deities here with this living self [jīvenātmanā], and make each of them threefold.” So, that deity established the distinctions of name and form by entering these three deities here with this living self, and made each of them threefold.⁷¹

This is likely nothing more than a trope, however, a manner of speaking, a divinization of the world and the body that characterized much of later brahmanical (and tantric) thought. The Aitareya Upaniṣad (AiU) tells of the origin of the composite being, the man composed of deities, but clearly directed by the one original deity. See, for instance, AiU I.1.1: “In the beginning this world was the self [ātman], one alone, and there was no other being at all that blinked an eye. He thought to himself: ‘Let me create the worlds’” (ātmā vā idam eka evāgra āsín nānyat kiṃcana miṣat | sa īkṣata | lokān nu sṛjā iti ||). Eventually the deities were created, and they fell into a “vast ocean.” He became hungry and thirsty. The gods demanded a dwelling in which they could “establish” themselves “and eat food” (āyatanaṃ naḥ prajānīhi yasmin pratiṣṭhitā annam adāma, 1.1.2). First, a cow was brought; then, a horse. Both turned out to be inadequate; he wanted a man, and the man turned out to be well-made (sukṛtam). “Then he [the ātman] told them: ‘Enter, each into your respective dwelling’ (tā abravīd yathāyatanaṃ praviśata, 1.1.4) So, the fire became speech and entered the mouth (agnir vāg bhūtvā mukhaṃ prāviśat); the wind became breath and entered the nostrils (prāṇo bhūtvā nāsike prāviśat); the sun became sight and entered the eyes (ādityaś cakṣur bhūtvākṣiṇī prāviśat); the quarters became hearing and entered the ears (diśaḥ śrotraṃ bhūtvā karṇau prāviśat); the plants and trees became body hairs and entered the skin (oṣadhivanaspatayo lomāni bhūtvā tvacaṃ prāviśan); the moon became mind and entered the heart (candramā mano bhūtvā hṛdayaṃ prāviśat); death became the in-breath and entered the navel (mṛtyur apāno bhūtvā nābhiṃ prāviśat); the waters became semen and entered the penis (āpo reto bhūtvā śiśnaṃ prāviśan)” “Then he thought to himself: ‘How can this possibly carry on without me?’ And he thought: ‘Through which of these shall I enter?’” (sa īkṣata katareṇa prapadyā iti, 1.3.11–12).⁷² The ātman considered entering though speech, prāṇa, the eyes, the ears, the skin, the mind, the apāna, and the penis. Finally he decided to “split open the head at the point where the hairs part and entered through that gate” (sa etam eva sīmānaṃ vidāryaitayā dvārā prāpadyata, 1.3.12).⁷³

The ŚvetU continues that the great deity abides unseen within all beings and all things. A natural separation between the puruṣa and the world appears to be established as a doctrinal point, at least until that separation is closed due to an act of will of the deity or the brahman to close it.

ŚvetU 6.11–12:

eko devaḥ sarvavhūteṣu gūḍhaḥ sarvavyāpī sarvabhūtāntarātmā | karmādhyakṣaḥ sarvabhūtādhivāsaḥ sākṣī cetā kevalo nirguṇaś ca || eko vaśī niṣkriyāṇāṃ bahūnām ekaṃ bījaṃ bahudhā yaḥ karoti | tam ātmasthaṃ ye ’nupaśyanti dhīrās teṣāṃ sukhaṃ śāśvataṃ netareṣām ||

The one God hidden in all beings, all-pervading, the inner self of all beings, the overseer of action, dwelling in all beings, the witness, the spectator, alone, devoid of qualities, the one controller of the many who are inactive, who makes the single seed manifold—the wise who perceive him as abiding within themselves [ātman], they alone, not others, enjoy eternal happiness.⁷⁴

The fifth chapter of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad (KU) shows, once again, that the Upaniṣadic thinkers regarded the body as an inert entity until it was animated by an unattached life substance. KU 5.4 states: “When this embodied self dwelling in the body comes unglued and is freed from the body—what then is here left behind?”⁷⁵ This is reminiscent of Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad (KṣU) 1.2, in which the seasons send a dead man into the semen of another man, who is an agent through which the dead man is poured into a mother: “Then you sent me into a man, the agent; and, through that man as the agent, you poured me into a mother” (tasmā pusi kartary erayadhvaṃ pusā kartrā mātari māsiṣikta |).⁷⁶ The transfer of a discarnate spirit essence (see below on “transfer of essence”) from one enveloping agent or substance to another further confirms the doctrinal point of inherent separation of essence, “coded substance,” or “spirit,” and physical or observable matter. KU 5.7 suggests reasons that why this living essence occupies a certain body. “Some embodied beings proceed [prapadyante] to a womb for the sake of a body, others move toward immovable objects—according to their actions, according to their learning.” Then Yama, the narrator of the Upaniṣad, describes the integrated action of fire (agni), inner self (antarātman), and lifebreath (vāyu) adapting to its selected body.

KU 5.9–10:

agnir yathaiko bhuvanaṃ praviṣṭo rūpaṃrūpaṃ pratirūpo babhūva | ekas tathā sarvabhūtāntarātmā rūpaṃrūpaṃ pratirūpo bahiś ca || vāyur yathaiko bhuvanaṃ praviṣṭo rūpaṃrūpaṃ pratirūpo babhūva | ekas tathā sarvabhūtāntarātmā rūpaṃrūpaṃ pratirūpo bahiś ca ||

As the one fire, entering the world, takes on an appearance corresponding to each form, so the one self within all beings takes on forms corresponding to each form, yet remains outside them. As the one wind, entering the world, takes on forms corresponding to each form, so the one self within all beings takes on forms corresponding to each form, yet remains outside them.⁷⁷

The sixth question of the Praśna Upaniṣad (PU) poses the question: “Do you, O Bhāradvāja, know the person consisting of sixteen parts? … Who is that person?” (ṣoḍaśakalaṃ bhāradvāja puruṣaṃ vettha … kvāsau puruṣa iti). The sage Pippalāda instructs the pupil Sukeśa in the complex nature of the individual:

PU 6.2, 5:

ihaivāntaḥ śarīre somya sa puruṣo yasminn etāḥ ṣoḍaśakalāḥ prabhavantīti || … sa yathemā nadyaḥ syandāyaṇān samudraṃ prāpyās taṃ gacchanti | bhidyete tāsāṃ nāmarūpe | samudra ity evaṃ procyate | evam evāsya paridraṣṭur imāḥ ṣoḍaśa kalān puruṣāyaṇāḥ puruṣaṃ prāpyās taṃ gachanti | bhidyete cāsāṃ nāmarūpe | puruṣa ity evaṃ procyate | sa eṣo ’kalo ’mṛto bhavati |

Right here within the body, my friend, is that person in whom the sixteen parts come into being.… Now, take these rivers. They flow toward the ocean and, upon reaching it, merge into the ocean and lose their name and visible appearance; one simply calls it the ocean. In just the same way, these sixteen parts of the person who is the perceiver proceed toward the person and, upon reaching him, merge into that person, losing their names and visible appearances; one simply calls it the person. He then becomes partless and immortal.⁷⁸

Just as brahman entered the world and disappeared within it, and as the rivers enter and become indistinguishable from the ocean, so the cosmic puruṣa enters and dissolves within the individual person (puruṣa).

If the individual fails to take advantage of this ultimately divine embodiment by slipping into ignorance and pride—which the Upaniṣad regards as misuse of sacred knowledge for the sake of worldly delight, or learning for its own sake—the consequence, described in the Īśā Upaniṣad, is another sort of possession.

ĪU 9:

andhaṃ tamaḥ praviśanti ye ’vidyām upāsate | tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u vidyāyā ratāḥ ||

Into blind darkness they enter, people who worship ignorance; And into still blinder darkness, people who delight in learning.⁷⁹

ĪU 12:

andhaṃ tamaḥ praviśanti ye ’saṃbhūtim upāsate | tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u saṃbhūtyā ratāḥ ||

Into blind darkness they enter, people who worship nonbecoming; And still blinder darkness, people who delight in becoming.⁸⁰

The ignorant and the arrogant become immersed in, possessed by, thick layers of darkness (tamas). The individual should, after all, be able to recognize the divine source that has entered and possessed the world and all embodied beings. Through well-directed meditative practice, the individual should be able to reverse the direction of this possession and meet this divinity within his or her own heart.

KU 4.6,7:

yaḥ pūrvaṃ tapaso jātam adbhyaḥ pūrvam ajāyata | guhāṃ praviśya tiṣṭhantaṃ yo bhūtebhir vyapaśyata || etad vai tat ||6|| yā prāṇena saṃbhavati aditir devatāmayī | guhāṃ praviśya tiṣṭhantaṃ yo bhūtebhir vyapaśyata || etad vai tat ||7||

He who was born before heat, who before the waters was born, who has seen through living beings—Entering the cave of the heart, [one sees] him abiding there. So, indeed, is that. She who comes into being with breath, Aditi, who embodies divinity, who was born through living beings—Entering the cave of the heart, [one sees] him abiding there. So, indeed, is that.⁸¹

The KṣU describe more landscape on the path to the gods.

KṣU 1.5:

sa āgacchatīlyaṃ vṛkṣam | taṃ brahmagandhaḥ praviśati | sa āgacchati sālajyaṃ saṃsthanam | taṃ brahmarasaḥ praviśati | sa āgacchaty aparājitam āyatanam | taṃ brahmatejaḥ praviśati | sa āgacchatīndraprājapatī dvāragopau | tāv asmād apadravataḥ | sa āgacchati vibhu pramitam | taṃ brahmayaśaḥ praviśati ||

He arrives at the tree Ilya, and the fragrance of brahman permeates him. Then he arrives at the plaza Sālajya, and the flavor of brahman permeates him. Then he arrives at the palace Aparājita, and the radiance of brahman permeates him. Then he arrives near the doorkeepers, Indra and Prajāpati, and they flee from him. Then he arrives at the hall Vibhu, and the glory of brahman permeates him.⁸²

He is entered, permeated by fragrance, flavor, radiance, glory. The passage continues to describe the throne of brahman, identified as wisdom (prajñā), constituted of sāmans. On it is a couch constituted in various places by the past and present, praṇa, prosperity and nourishment, different sāmans, ṛg verses, Yajus mantras, and soma stalks. Brahman sits on this couch. But brahman cannot be permeated, entered, occupied, or possessed by anything or anybody. With its various manifestations it can, however, enter, occupy, and permeate an individual, dead or alive. The text continues to describe his return journey to brahman and his realization of it.

It is important to note in the Upaniṣads the use of pra√viś rather than ā√viś, which was used in contexts of possession almost exclusively in the ṚV. The idiomatic distinction that has prevailed throughout most of the history of Sanskrit and Indic literature has, thus, already been established by the time of the Upaniṣads: pra√viś is used for entry in which the intentionality of entering, pervading, permeating, or possessing originates from without, from an external agent. In contrast, ā√viś is established in cases in which the intentionality is from within; an individual invites entry, pervasion, possession by soma. In these usages, praveśa serves (in general) practical, creative ends, while āveśa more often than not describes ecstatic (and, later, oracular) possession.

Transfer of Essence

Related to possession and sometimes nearly indistinguishable from it, as we have seen in reviewing vedic passages on speech (vc) and sustenance (rjam), is a notion developed with considerable sophistication in the middle vedic texts and Upaniṣads. This notion may be labeled “transfer of essence.” This topic is vast and fraught with pitfalls, including proximity to early notions of karma (the pervading influence of the moral quality of one’s action on the individual as a whole),⁸³ its overlap with the often-discussed epistemological strategy called bandhu or bandhuta, linkage of one phenomenon, entity, being, notion, or concept with another, based on phonological similarities, numerological equivalences, or other formal principles,⁸⁴ and the subsequent invitation into the minefield of transactional models for human (and nonhuman) action. We can barely pause to deal with the first and second of these, but will gradually unfold the third, for which McKim Marriott and Stephanie Jamison have worked out effective models, albeit separately: Jamison did not consult Marriott’s work in constructing her transactional model of vedic sacrificial ritual in her book Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife.

These essences, akin to Marriott’s coded substances, are transferred in much the same way an integrated personality with a complex identity passes into another during a conscious or otherwise felt experience of possession: as unseen though hardly undetected or unexplained forces, substances, or entities moving from one bounded corporeality to another, from one individual to another, or from a deity or other ethereal being into a human vessel. If “essences” are to be discussed, it would be wise to locate Sanskrit equivalents. Perhaps the primary word for “essence” used in the Sanskrit lexicon is rasa. It is employed in this general sense in the Brāhmaṇas to indicate a life-force or life-essence that may be transferred from one being or state to another.⁸⁵ For example, the ŚB 6.1.1.4,7 speaks of rasa as the medium through which puruṣa, the archetypal person, became Prajāpati, the Lord of Created Beings, and was henceforth identified with Agni in the esoteric doctrine of the agnicayana.⁸⁶ In BĀU 1.2.2, heat (tejas) is identified as the essence of Death (mṛtyu), who, in his role as creator, became Agni (tejo raso niravartāgniḥ). However, the appearance in a text passage of the word rasa (or any other singularly identified word) is by no means requisite to illustrate that “essences” are transferable.

Two general differences between transfer of essence and possession may be noted. First, in “transfer of essence,” the substances transferred are elemental and constitutive, such as sexuality, life-force (prāṇá), disease, sacrificial essence (médhas), bráhman-splendor (brahmavarcasá), and the taint of transgression (énas). Except for prāṇá in certain texts, these substances do not themselves indicate or include within them whole and integrated personalities. Second, transfer of essence is not driven by independent intentionality, but is guided externally. Intent, the psychomental vehicle accommodating the essence to be transferred flows from a conscious bearer to an (often unsuspecting) individual or locus in or on which it eventually subsists. Most often in the vedic theological texts transfer of essence is explained as either an artifact of an original and paradigmatic act of creation—it was obvious, after all, that offspring were somehow defined by the essences (semen and blood) transferred from their progenitors—or, doubtless based on this and other observable patterns in nature, part of a chain of ritual transactions that centrally invoked coded substances.⁸⁷ In this way the transfer of essences was naturalized; and this, it appears, in no small measure contributed to the naturalization and widespread assumption of possession in South Asia.

The Atharvaveda contains a rather long hymn (thirty-four verses, AVĀ 11.8, AVP 11.10) that describes the “putting-together” (saṃdh) of the human body, explained by Sāyaṇa as the manner in which bráhman entered the body with its own essence (śarīrasya madhye ātmatvena praviṣṭaṃ brahma). After noting that bráhman’s creative powers were gathered from the opposite energetic poles of personal austerities (tápas) and ritual action (kárman), the sage states that the body’s intentionality (kuti) consists of inhalation and exhalation (prāṇāpānáu), sight (cákṣus), hearing (śrótram), wholeness (ákṣitiḥ), fissure (kṣítiḥ), the breath disseminated throughout the body and the upward-moving breath (vyānodānáu), speech (vk), and mind (mánas) (11.8.4). At this point it appears that the divinities Indra, Soma, Agni, Tvaṣṭṛ, and Dhātṛ stepped in to assist bráhman. The work of primary creation became corporate as corporeality increased in complexity. The poet then asks what realm (lokám) bráhman entered (prviśan) after he brought into being (bharat) hair, bone, sinew, flesh, marrow, and created a body with feet (11.8.11). The answer appears to be that this loká is a person whom the gods then possessed (púruṣam viśan), a whole mortal (sárvaṃ mártyaṃ), poured together by the gods (11.8.13). The gods possessed this person (púruṣam viśan) after Tvaṣṭṛ made this mortal into a house (11.8.18). The realm bráhman and the gods entered is expressed with pra√viś, but the act of entering into and enlivening the whole person is expressed with ā√viś.

The next nine verses list various essences that then entered into this body:

AVĀ 11.8.19–27:

svápno vái tandrr nírṛtiḥ pāpmno nma devátāḥ | jar khlatyaṃ plityaṃ śárīram ánu prviśan |19|| stéyaṃ duṣkṛtáṃ vṛjináṃ satyáṃ yajñó yáśo bṛhát | bálaṃ ca kṣatrám ójaó ca śárīram ánu prviśan ||20|| bhtiś ca v ábhūtiś ca rātáyó ’tayaś ca yḥ | kṣúdhaś ca sárvās tṣṇāś ca śárīram ánu prviśan ||21|| nidrś ca v ánidrāś ca yác ca hántéti néti ca | śárīram śraddh dákṣiṇśraddhā cnu prviśan ||22|| vidyś ca v ávidyāś ca yáccānyd upadeśyám | śárīram bráhma prviśad caḥ smtho yájuḥ ||23|| ānand módḥ pramúdo ’bhīmodamúdaś ca yé | hasó narīṣṭā nṛttni śárīram ánu prviśan ||24|| ālāpś ca pralāpś cābhīlāpalápaś ca yé | śárīram sárve prviśann āyújaḥ prayújo yújaḥ ||25|| prāṇāpānáu cákṣuḥ śrótram ákṣitiś ca kṣītiś ca y | vyānodānáu vṇ mánaḥ śárīreṇa tá īyante ||26|| āśīṣaś ca praśīṣaś ca saṃśīṣo viśīṣaś ca yḥ | cittni sárve saṃkalpḥ śárīram ánu prviśan ||27||

Sleep, weariness, chaos, the deities named evils, old age, baldness, hoariness, entere A the body afterward (19). Theft, bad action, wrong, truth, sacrifice, great glory, strength and dominion, as well as force, entered the body afterward (20). Both growth and diminution, generosity and stinginess, both hungerings and all thirstings, entered the body afterward (21). Sleep and waking, that which [says] “indeed” and “no,” trust, the sacrificial fee, and distrust, entered the body afterward (22). Knowledge and ignorance, and that which is otherwise to be taught, the bráhman entered the body, the mantras from the Ṛgveda, the chants of the Sāmaveda, and the recitations from the Yajurveda (23). Delights, joys, enjoyments, and those who enjoy enjoyments, laughter, leisure, and dances, entered the body afterward (24). Conversation, idle chatter, and those who utter declarations, all entered the body, whether they come already united [in their declarations], will unite with them forthwith, or are in the process of uniting with them (25). Inhalation and exhalation, sight, hearing, wholeness, fissure, the disseminated breath and the upward-moving breath, speech, and mind, all wander about with this body (26). Blessings and precepts, demands and explanations, thoughts, all intentions, entered the body afterward (27).⁸⁸

This extraordinary and perhaps unlikely list includes moods, states of mind, intentional states, ethical choices, types of action, bodily functions, modes of breath, and, importantly for the Vedas, modes of speech. All of these may be classified as substance-codes, as essences that enter from without but are constitutive of the vedic person.

Verse 28 is very obscure, but appears to suggest that there are certain essences, not clearly delineated, that are rejected from the human persona and “caused to settle in the repugnant one” (bibhatsvasādayan), perhaps a reference to demonic beings. The doctrine of the construction of the body is completed in the next verse:

AVĀ 11.8.30:

y po yś ca devátā y virḍ bráhmaṇā sahá | śárīraṃ bráhma pr viśac chárīré ’dhi prajpatiḥ ||

Those which are the waters, which are the deities, which is virj, [have come] with bráhman. Brahmān has entered the body. Prajāpati is in the body.

Several passages from the Brāhmaṇa texts report that the médhas (nourishment or sacrificial essence),⁸⁹ of the five paradigmatic sacrificial victims—man, horse, bull, goat, and sheep—were successively lost and subsequently transferred to the next in order after they were sacrificed by the gods. After the gods offered up a man (puruṣa) as a victim, his medhas entered (praviveśa) the horse, and so on down the line until finally it entered the earth and was recovered in the form of rice and barley.⁹⁰ The loss of this essence rendered the victims unsuitable for sacrifice, while dramatically increasing the sacrificial potency of rice and barley products.⁹¹ What distinguishes this from possession is its abstract theoretical nature. The transfer of medhas is a device employed by the authors of the Brāhmaṇa texts to account for the supremacy of vegetal offerings;⁹² though “real,” it is not conceived as immediately experiential, at least not in a self-reflective or compelling sense. The knower of the Veda is expected to grasp the significance of this transfer of essence through symbolic codes rather than to experience it through the senses. Nevertheless, this demonstrates, first, that essence, hence identity, was not regarded as necessarily fixed or stable and, second, that the instability could be both encoded and codified. For states of possession, to which transfer of essence is closely related, this signified that being “out of control” while remaining within the boundaries of sanctioned behavioral parameters was tantamount to surrendering to a natural order or a phenomenon that could be safely predicted: for what is encoded may be predicted, what is predictable can be naturalized, what is naturalized can be codified, and what is codified can be roped into a realm of safety. In other words, the very fact of bringing an inherently untraceable and unstable force, medhas, under the control of an order conceived of as natural had implications for other similar forces: namely that their natural power could also be attenuated, channeled deliberately, and domesticated.

A distinct case of transfer of essence appears in Book 6 of the ChU In this important account, backgrounded in the BĀU (1.4.7), creation of the material world is linked to animation of inert beings. Śvetaketu, the son of Āruṇi, returns home after twelve years of Veda study, arrogant in his learning. There is still much for him to learn, his father tells him. After determining that in the beginning was existence (sat) rather than nonexistence (asat), Āruṇi teaches Āvetaketu that the first individuated properties of this conscious but neuter existence were tejas (the active, creative light arising from fire), apas (water in its creative form of nourishing rain), and annam (food, the nourishing, sustaining, active wealth of the earth). From the least substantial and solid to the most, tejas emitted (asṛjata) apas and apas emitted annum. This potent stew gave rise to a diversity of creatures, which in turn were individuated with name and form. It was only after this moment of individuation that personhood (ātman) was conferred. This process did not transpire through the inevitability of sat, but was galvanized by an unnamed creator deity (seyaṃ devatā) who established distinctions of name and form by entering (anupraviśya) the various beings in the form of ātman.⁹³ BAU 1.4.7 says that “he penetrated this body up to the tips of the nails” (sa eṣa iha praviṣṭa ā nakhāgrebhyaḥ).

People do not see him, for he is incomplete as he comes to be called breath when he is breathing, speech when he is speaking, sight when he is seeing, hearing when he is hearing, and mind when he is thinking. These are only the names of his various activities. A man who considers him to be any one of these does not understand him, for he is incomplete within any one of these. One should consider them as simply his person [ātman], for in it all these become one.⁹⁴

Just as matter is divided into discrete units, given name and form, then conferred individuality and personhood as a complex but centrally adherent whole, the essence or essences of this person can be transferred to another. The Upaniṣads provide an example of this in a rite called saṃpratti or saṃpradāna (transmission), related in BĀU (1.5.17) and KṣU(2.14).⁹⁵ The BĀU description (1.5.14–20) opens the discussion with the familiar assertion that Prajāpati, like the year, consists of sixteen parts. “With that sixteenth part he enters [anupraviśya], on the night of the new moon, all beings that sustain life and is born again the next morning.” The sixteenth part is the supernumerary unseen essence, beyond the fifteen divisions of the fortnight, half the lunar month that constitutes the basic vedic calendrical unit. This sixteenth part, the unseen essence, enters and pervades all beings. The Upaniṣad continues, “A man’s fifteen parts comprise his wealth, his sixteenth part is his person [ātman].”⁹⁶

Immediately before his expected death, a man performs a rite of transfer of his essence to his son. “You are the brahman! You are the sacrifice! You are the world!” he tells his son. “I am the brahman! I am the sacrifice! I am the world!” replies his son. Thus, “he enters [āviśati] his son with these very vital functions [prāṇaiḥ saha]. So it is only through a son that a man finds a secure footing in this world. Thereupon, these [following] divine and immortal vital functions enter [āviśnnti] him. From the earth and fire divine speech enters [āviśati] him. Divine speech is that which makes whatever one says happen. From the sky and the sun the divine mind enters [āviśati] him. The divine mind is that which makes a person always happy and never sorrowful. From the waters and the moon the divine breath enters [āviśati] him. The divine breath is that which never falters or fails, whether it is moving or at rest.”⁹⁷ The son thus is conferred the gifts of true speech, happiness, and unhindered, balanced breath.

KṣU 2.15, a slightly later text,⁹⁸ is more detailed: The father lies down dressed in a fresh garment, with ritual fire kindled and a pot of water near at hand. The son lies down on top of the father, touching his father’s body parts with his own corresponding parts; otherwise, they sit facing each other.⁹⁹ Not only is the lifebreath transferred but, in a similar formulaic rhythm of announcement and response, so are speech, sight, hearing, taste, actions, pleasures and pains, bliss, delight, and procreative capacity, movements, mind, and intelligence. If the father is too unwell to speak much, he may limit the transfer to the praṇas alone. The son then turns around toward his right, walks toward the east, and his father wishes him well: “May glory, the luster of sacred knowledge, and fame attend you!” (taṃ pitānumantrayate yaśo brahmavarcasaṃ kīrtis tvā juṣatām iti). The son glances over his left shoulder, hiding his face with his hand or the hem of his garment, and replies, “May you gain heavenly worlds and realize your desires!” (svargāl lokān kāmān āpnuhīti). Interestingly, the KṣU ends its account with the statement: “If the father recovers his health, he should either live under the authority of his son or live as a wandering ascetic. But if he happens to die, they should perform the appropriate final rites for him.”¹⁰⁰

If he recovers, the father must submit to the son’s authority not only because his essence as lifebreath and other mental and physical functions have been transferred, which is to say he has become ritually lifeless, but because his essence as power has also been transferred, which is to say he has become ritually powerless. Olivelle contends that “the rite transfers the father’s position as paterfamilias to his son.” This, says Olivelle, “must have also involved handing over the paternal estate,” a transfer of rather more material essences. Thus “the transfer is irrevocable,” leaving only these two options.¹⁰¹ Essence, then, is not inexhaustible; when transferred it is gone from its source. Like possession, essence is transferred rather than spread or extended, and here the Upaniṣads are unmistakably describing a rite in which the father, ritually at least, possesses the son. Unlike most classical possession, however, it cannot be reversed, in this case readmitted into the person of the father.¹⁰² In Vedic and Upaniṣadic fashion, it is a complex and piecemeal possession.¹⁰³

The difference in complexity between the BĀU and the KṣU accounts is important. Why did the BĀU ritualists regard the prāṇas as the sole repositories of essence that required transfer, and why did the KṣU require a good deal more to be transferred in order to successfully complete the job? The easy answer would be that the BĀU is a text of the Śuklayajurveda, known for its relatively simple ritual, at least compared to that of the various branches (śākhās) of the Kṛṣṇayajurveda and the ṚV, to which the KṣU belongs.¹⁰⁴ Beyond this, however, may be the idea that the “self” or “person” to be transferred was considered by different theoreticians of ritual exactitude to possess different degrees of complexity. In addition, the complexity exhibited in the KṣU might reflect the developing tendency in Indian systematic (śāstraic) thought to provide cleaner, more detailed lists. The most convenient example of this in philosophical thinking is Sāṃkhya, with its lists of embryological principles (tattvas), which may be indebted, at least in part, to thinkers of the Kauṣītaki or Śāṇkhāyana ritual school. It is also possible that the “self” or “person” was analyzed as incomplete without more body parts and functions.¹⁰⁵ In this case, the movements, procreative capacity, intelligence, and so on of the father would be regarded as equal in importance to the prāṇas, but would not be regarded as subservient to them or as “naturally” carried along with them. The naming of body parts, including sense organs, as epistemological units and assigning them extrasensory coordinates is not inconsistent with theories of association invoked previously in the Brāhmaṇas.¹⁰⁶ In turn, this more complex view might reflect a greater concern with fragmentation and randomness after death, which could account for a more complex and integrated transfer of essences.¹⁰⁷

Probably the best-known example of transfer of essence appears in the TS (2.5.1). In one of the more famous (and infamous) of vedic tales, Indra killed Viśvarūpa, the brahman son of Tvaṣṭṛ, thus incurring “brahman-murder” (brahmahaty), even then one of the most feared transgressions. The name Viśvarūpa indicates an omniform being, in this case a deity. He possessed three heads: One drank soma, another surā, while the third ate food. Indra chopped off these heads with his thunderbolt (vajra) because he saw Viśvarūpa as a threat to his sovereignty. Indra, however, did not live long with this stain; rather, he managed to transfer it to others. One-third of it was transferred to the earth, whose surface is breached through digging; one-third to trees, whose branches are pruned; and the final third was allocated to women, whose bodies leak through menstrual periods (malavadvāsas [stained garments]).¹⁰⁸ These three were not left defenseless, however. In return for accepting the brahmahaty, the earth extracted from Indra the promise that each year her rifts would heal, the trees extracted the guarantee that more shoots would spring up to replace the cut branches, and women were given the boon of childbirth and enjoying intercourse at will up to the time of delivery (which is to say that during this time she is not subject to exclusion because of her menses).

This story did not exist in isolation. Indeed, the notion of scapegoating is familiar from the AV and other Brāhmaṇa texts. The usual locution is that the énas, generally an archetypal or “original sin” because it was perpetrated by a god, is “wiped off” (√mṛj, e.g., Maitrāyaṇi Saṃhitā [MS] 4.1.9: mārkṣyāmahe) on others who are weakened or victimized by nature (as in the case of the earth, trees, or women) or have opposed the dictates of social order and ethics.¹⁰⁹ For example, MS 4.1.9 lists the eventual recipients of the gods’ transgression (énas) in accepting the sacrifice of animals. These include gods known only by number—Ekata, Dvita, Trita—who in turn transferred the énas to those who sleep at sunrise or sunset (probably a reference to those who do not perform the daily agnihotra), those with brown teeth or diseased nails (poorly formed or maintained natural excesses that may have indicated a more serious ontological or social problem), murderers, abortionists, both brothers if the younger married before his elder brother, or a man who married a younger sister before the older one had married. AV 6.113, 114 describe the reallocation of disease believed to be produced by an invasive spirit (grhi) to many of these same victims as well as onto the foam of a river. According to the Kauśikasūtra (46.26–29) on these hymns, the énas disappears with the vanishing of the foam.¹¹⁰

Several brāhmaṇa passages explored by Stephanie Jamison relate the myth of Manu’s cups, a fascinating, if highly compressed, tale of hospitality and transfer of essence.¹¹¹ A composite distillation, drawn primarily from MS 4.8 and Kāṭhaka Saṃhitā (KS) 30.1, both frustratingly fragmentary, may be presented as follows: Manu had some asura-killing cups, which the asuras, naturally, wished to destroy. Disguising themselves as brahmans, they beg the cups from Manu and destroy them. The broken vessels are then licked by one of Manu’s bulls, which causes it to take on the asura-killing essence. Two brahmans, again asuras in disguise, appear at Manu’s doorstep and benevolently volunteer to sacrifice a bull for him. Unable to refuse the solicitation of brahmans, Manu acquiesces. The bull is sacrificed; but its unoffered haunch is stolen by an eagle, which drops it into the lap of Manu’s wife. Thus she ends up taking on the asura-killing essence. Itinerant priests (prātaritvan) then show up and importune Manu to sacrifice his wife. This he very nearly does when, bound to the stake, Manu’s wife is set free.

This should be examined in greater detail. The MS (4.8.1) states that “Meni came after/entered” (ánvapadyata) the bull to be offered in sacrifice. After the bull was offered, “Meni” entered Manu’s wife. Meni, Jamison demonstrates at length, is “the power or embodiment of negative or thwarted exchange.”¹¹² The complementary passage in the KS (30.1) says, “The two (Asurās) approached [Manu and his wife] [as] Prātaritvans” (prātaritvānā abhiprāpadyetām).¹¹³ “Then his wife approached, speaking a yajus. Her voice went to heaven.”¹¹⁴ The two asuric brahmans of this passage, Jamison contends, represent “the wicked mirror image of the Aśvins,”¹¹⁵ who are the archetypal healers and allies of Indra. The verbs employed here are anu√pad (follow, attend, enter upon) and abhi-pra√pad(to come toward, enter into).¹¹⁶ In spite of the neutrality of these verbs in Sanskrit literature, they appear here as equivalent to pra√viś or anu-pra√viś, which, as we have seen, are frequently used to indicate externally induced and uninvited possession. Such possession is, predictably, often charged with a negative, dangerous, or foreboding tone.¹¹⁷ In addition to the accounts in the MS and KS, this story is told in the somewhat later ŚB (1.1.4.14–17), which employs the verb pra√viś rather than anu√pad: “Manu had a bull. In it an Asura-killing, rival-killing voice entered” (tásminn asuraghnī vāk práviṣṭāsa). Because the asuras regarded the bull as evil, they decided to have it sacrificed by their two officiants, Kilāta and Ākuli. As a result of this sacrifice, the voice departed, but quickly “entered Mānavī, the wife of Manu” (s mánor evá jāyṃ mānavm prāviveśa). This shook the asuras, because that voice combined with Mānavī’s human voice was even more frightening. So they sought permission from Manu to sacrifice his wife. He assented. On her being sacrificed that voice left her¹¹⁸ and “entered the sacrifice itself, the sacrificial vessels” (s yajñam evá yajñaptrāṇi prāviveśa).¹¹⁹ From these loci, the two priests of the asuras were unable to expel it. In sum, the voice (once again a form of vāc)—and along with it the asura-killing mantras it verbalized—was transferred from either the asura-killing cups to the bull (and finally its stolen and unoffered haunch, which fell into Manu’s wife’s lap) to Manu’s wife (MS, KS), or from the bull to Manu’s wife to the sacrifice and the sacrificial vessels (ŚB). Jamison comments, “The demon-killing voice, that undestroyable force, exchanges its way through various items, the cups and the bull, until it lodges in the wife, who is then bound up as real sacrificial victim.”¹²⁰ Similarly, Meni, the power of thwarted exchange, was transferred from the bull to Manu’s wife, which, it seems, forced her voice to leave her and ascend to heaven.

Whatever else of interest may be seen in this brief story (and Jamison unpacks it over about two hundred pages), the main points for the present purpose are (a) that both meni and the asura-killing are substances of a sort that are transferrable, and (b) that the transfer of essence occurred forcibly from without, exclusive of the will of the possessed. This may be viewed as an example of “natural circulation” in the Vedas, circulation, to be sure, of coded substances. As Jamison points out, “in the Vedic conception of both ritual and natural circulation, nothing is lost: it is simply transformed or displaced.”¹²¹ This displacement has implications for possession: the consciousness, spirit, entity, or deity finds a new, if temporary, home.

Jamison’s primary concern is with the presence and fate of the sacrificer’s wife (putnī), whose real purpose in the ritual, she says, is to “trap sexuality and its power for ritual use.”¹²² Although the woman’s presence is limited, it is sufficient to confer the ritual with sexuality and fertility (two more coded substances), thus helping to fuel its trajectory toward sacral or divine power and energy. Through this contact with sacral forces, Jamison maintains, “the divine is spread back to her, to increase her generative capacity,”¹²³ in much the same way, we might imagine, that the asura-killing voice, her own voice laden with yajus mantras, ascended to heaven and, via a circuitous route, made its way back to her. In this transactional view of the vedic ritual, coded substances are borne from one entity, deity, person, or force to another through a mediating figure. In this and other examples, the wife’s contact with sacral forces produces transactions and reciprocations that are kinetic and multiple. They are occasioned, says Jamison, “through a chain of representational contact.”¹²⁴ The wife, she asserts, “in some sense embodies exchange relations. She is a mediating figure between different realms, and whenever ancient Indian ritual or mythology requires or depicts the perilous contact between realms, a woman is often the central figure.”¹²⁵ “She is,” Jamison concludes, “the ultimate exchange token.”¹²⁶ Jamison notes that, “the frame provided by the wife’s activities stabilizes the ritual, locates it within the ongoing life of the community, and provides a safe transition into and out of the sacred realms.”¹²⁷ Thus, during the prototypical animal sacrifice (paśubandha) the wife is called on to touch the dead animal. Jamison comments that this

creates the necessary contact between the human and the divine realms, between the living and the dead that is a major aim of the sacrifice. She is the lightning rod for divine power, or, to exchange images, the point of entry, the channel for it. She gains access to powerful and dangerous forces unleashed by the killing and can direct them to her husband and the success of his ritual, without his putting himself at risk.¹²⁸

Let us now turn to a few texts, more or less at random, that drew directly on vedic precedents, thus illustrating the textual routes by which the notion of transfer of essence entered later popular religious discourse. In a passage with an unimpeachable vedic pedigree—it was obviously the product of brahman theologians who knew vedic ritual firsthand—the Brahmānda Purāṇa (1.2.21.56–57b) speaks of transfer of a different kind of essence. “As the sun sets, the luster of the sun gradually enters [āviśate] the [sacrificial] fire. As a result of this the sun shines from afar at night. When the sun rises again the luster of the fire takes possession of [āviśet] it.”¹²⁹

While the sun and the sacrificial fire that is forged in the Agnihotra ritual are clearly distinguished, they are connected through a regulated transfer of essence. The continuation of this passage speaks of similar cyclical phenomena flowing into one another and transferring their essence as one wanes and the other waxes, including day and night, north and south, and the two divisions of the year (uttarāyaṇa and dakṣiṇāyana). However, the verb ā√viś is not employed consistently; it alternates with (anu-)pra√viś, demonstrating, at least in this case, an absence of distinction, and probably an identity, between words that had generally achieved semantic distinction, one meaning “to possess,” the other “to enter.” For example, the AB (8.28) employs the rather more expected anu-pra√viś for the entrance of lightning into rain, rain into the moon, the moon into the sun (on the new moon day), the sun into the fire, and the fire into the gods. Similarly, arriving at a distinction between ā√viś and pra√viś in TB 3.3.1.5 would be risky. This passage states that the prāṇa, emerging from the mouth, becomes the apāna and enters (pravīśya) the body and the food, beautifying the body. The text immediately reiterates the point in an identical passage, replacing pravīśya with āviśáti.¹³⁰ A case could be made for interpreting praviśya as simply the entrance of the apāna into the body and the food, while āviśati would indicate the transformative power of the apāna, but this interpretation is not supported by evidence from parallel texts. Subtle variants such as this occur throughout the middle and late vedic literature.¹³¹

In another passage with an honorable vedic pedigree, the MBh relates the story of Indra slaying the dragon Vṛtra. In the MBh (3.98–99, crit. ed.), however, Indra does not perform this momentous deed alone (cf. ṚV 1.32); he is assisted by the other gods. Tvaṣṭṛ fashions a vajra from the bones of the faultlessly unselfish sage Dadhīca. It is this vajra, invested with the power of the sage, which Indra himself invested (vyadadhāt)¹³² with the energy (tejas) of Viṣṇu and the other gods, then uses to slay the dragon and release the creative forces of the cosmic waters.

The much later Bhāgavata Purāṇa (BhP), though not a vedic text in any strict sense,¹³³ contains an interesting passage familiar to vedic sacrificial ritual, in which the ritual fires are “made to ascend” (samāropaṇa) the body of a qualified vedic ritualist or his fire-churning equipment.¹³⁴ This brief rite is performed before traveling in order to ensure the safe passage of the sacred fire within an environment made ritually sacrosanct, because it is very difficult to transport actual fire. After the rite of samāropaṇa is performed, the body of the sacrificer or his churning equipment manifests (at least ritually) the essence of the sacrificial fire. Thus they must be treated with the same attention to maintenance of purity as the fire itself. The BhP, addressing certain unusual circumstances, transforms this practice into a devotional exercise directed toward Kṛṣṇa. The text says, “having consigned the fires [samāropya] into himself, with his mind fixed on me, he enters [samāviśet] the fire” (BhP 11.18.11cd).¹³⁵ This is a prescription for ritual suicide, intended for an aged and infirm ritualist who is too weak to observe his vows. Two verses later, Kṛṣṇa gives instructions on how a sacrificer should renounce the practice of vedic ritual and become a wandering mendicant. He should make propitiatory offerings to Kṛṣṇa, give all his belongings to his attendant priests, and consign the fires to his own breaths (agnīn svaprãṇa āveśya, 11.18.13c). Finally he should take the vows of a mendicant (parivrajet). Thus the BhP identifies samāropaṇa (ritual consignment of the fires into oneself or one’s breath) as āveśa (pervasion, immersion, or possession). Āveśya in BhP 11.18.13c appears to equal samāropya in 11.18.11c and is distinct from the complete immersion (samāviśet) into the fires, the act of suicide, spoken of in 11.18.11d.

Conceptually related to this is the story of Varāha, the incarnation of Viṣṇu in the form of a boar, as related in the Kāḷikā Purāṇa (KāP 30–31).¹³⁶ In this version of the myth, Varāha, having sired three frolicking young boars with his consort, the earth transfigured into a sow, wreaked havoc upon the earth with his wild gyrations. Thus Viṣṇu himself, fully incarnated as Varāha, was so overcome with lust for his wife and love for his children that he lost his sense of his true identity as the preserver of the universe. Not only did he lose his identity, however, but fully expansive and infinite, and containing within himself the Vedas and the ṛṣis, Viṣṇu lost control of his own incarnation. It was left to Śiva to see that Varāha give up his boar’s body in order to reunite with Viṣṇu. Thus Śiva assumed the form of a śarabha, a terrifying eight-legged beast of monumental proportions. After a prolonged battle, Varāha and his boar offspring (“piglets” is not quite right) found themselves in a bad defensive position and were nearly forced to surrender. Short of that, however, like warriors on the defensive everywhere, he opted to negotiate with the enemy. In his negotiations for a lasting peace Varāha found he had an ally: Viṣṇu, suddenly distinct from his own incarnation, appeared at the bargaining table. And it was Viṣṇu who eventually offered to surrender. As he opened his mouth to beg Śiva’s pardon, Varāha saw within it Narasiṃha, the man-lion, another incarnation of Viṣṇu. Varāha then took hold of the energy of Narasiṃha, equal in substance and essence to his own, and made it enter (praviveśa, KāP 30.88) into Viṣṇu, thus re-energizing himself for further battle. In the end, however, Śiva, once again in the form of the śarabha, prevailed, and the energy of Varāha, “shining with its garland of flames like ten million suns,”¹³⁷ entered (viveśa, 30.141) the body of Viṣṇu, who then finished the job of defeating the śarabha by wresting the energy of the three sons of Varāha and making it enter into (praviveśa, 30.144) himself. In this story, Viṣṇu, after losing control of himself in the form of Varāha, had literally to repossess his missing parts in order to prevent the world from descending into complete dissolution.¹³⁸ He had to transfer his own missing essence back into himself through familiar processes of āveśa and praveśa. This chain of transfer is, by now, familiar from the earlier vedic literature.

The Gandharva, the Apsaras, and the Vedic Body

If a single “being” or “entity” may be specified in the Vedas as more deeply implicated in possession than any other, it is, with the exception of the human being, the gandharava. A great deal has been written about this mysterious being since A. Kuhn first addressed the subject in 1852.¹³⁹ Although it is not my job here either to recount the history of scholarship on the subject or to offer my own definitive account, it may be mentioned that most of the research during the first century after Kuhn’s article appeared was dedicated to speculations on the etymology of the word and its cognates in Greek, particularly kentauros (centaur). Early generations of Indologists labored to identify the gandharva as a cloud spirit, the rising sun, Soma, the genius of the moon, the rainbow, a wind-spirit, a horse or ass, or a giant.¹⁴⁰ These identifications were set aside, at least as unilateral interpretations, by A. B. Keith and O. H. de A. Wijesekera, who questioned the linguistic connection with Greek and noted both the incomplete vedic and other Indic evidence brought by previous scholars and uncertainty regarding the deep history of the kentauros.¹⁴¹ The most sensible writing on gandharva to date remains that of Wijesekera,¹⁴² who sees connections of the gandharva with all the suggested “meanings” at different points, but none, he demonstrates, are valid as exclusive interpretations. As with most important terms, its meaning appears to have shifted slightly from the ṚV to the Upaniṣads and the Pali canon.¹⁴³

In the ṚV, gandharva is found in an aqueous environment, especially in the company of Varuṇa, the lord of waters. “It is thus as a side-development of the original aqueous notion,” writes Wijesekera, “that we find in the ninth book of the ṚV a distinct connection of the gandharva with Soma.”¹⁴⁴ The gandharva protects the dwelling place of Soma Pavamāna (ṚV 9.83.4); it seizes the soma and takes the rasa or essence that abides within it (tám gandharvḥ práty agṛbhṇan tám sóme rásam dadhuḥ, 9.113.3cd). Wijesekera comments that this passage “establishes the gandharva’s power to impart the vital essence to plants,” a rasa that is elsewhere identified with semen in men and animals, as well as with remedial herbs in the AV.¹⁴⁵ In one passage the gandharva is explicitly identified with soma:

ṚV 9.86.36:

apṃ gandharváṃ divyáṃ nṛcákṣasaṃ sómaṃ vīśvasya bhúvanasya rājáse ||

May Soma, the divine gandharva of the waters, beholder of men, reign as king of the entire world.

The gandharva is regarded as male, the female counterpart being the apsaras. Gandharvas gained a reputation in the early and middle vedic literature for their amorousness toward women, and vice versa. For example, the Ṛgvedic hymn to the gandharva Vena states:

ṚV 10.123.5:

apsar jārám upasiṣmiyāṇ yóṣā bibharti paramé vyòman | cárat priyásya yóniṣu priyáḥ sáu sdat pakṣé hiraṇyáye sá vénaḥ ||

The apsaras, a young lady gently smiling, supports her lover [jārám] in the highest vault of heaven. The beloved moving in the wombs of the beloved, this Vena sits on his golden wing.

This verse is weighted with sexual and cosmological symbolism, the ecstatic sexual embrace of the gandharva and the apsaras, and the indissoluble connection between the earth and the sky, the waters and the sun. In whatever way Indologists have run wild with verses like these, there can be little doubt that the gandharva is characterized as male with a fondness for females.

The gandharva is also involved in one of the clearest and most complicated transfers of essence. This is demonstrated in the following passage from the Aitareya Brāhmāṇa 1.27 (cf. TS 6.1.6.5, MS 3.7.3):

somo vai rājā gandharveṣv āsīt | taṃ devāś ca ṛṣayaś cābhyadhyāyan katham ayam asmān somo rājā gacched iti | sā vāg abravīt strīkāmā vai gandharvā mayaiva striyā bhūtayā paṇadhvam iti | neti devā abruvan kathaṃ vayaṃ tvad ṛte syāmeti | sābravīt krīṇītaiva yarhi vāva vo mayārtho bhavitā tarhy eva vo ’haṃ punar āgantāsmīti | tatheti | tayā mahānagnyā bhātayā somaṃ rājānam akrīṇaṃs | tām anukṛtim askannāṃ vatsatarīm ājanti somakrayaṇīm | tayā somaṃ rājānaṃ krīṇanti | tām punar niṣkrīṇīyāt | punar hi sā tān āgacchat | tasmād upāṃśu vācā caritavyam | some rājani krīte gandharveṣu hi tarhi vāg bhavati | sāgnāv eva praṇīyamāne punar āgacchati ||

Soma the king was among the gandharvas. The gods and sages meditated on him, “How will King Soma come to us here? Vāc said, “Gandharvas desire women. Negotiate it with me as that woman.” “No,” said the gods, “how can we exist without you?” She said, “Go ahead and make the purchase. When your objectives require me, then indeed I shall come back to you.” “So be it.” With this Great Naked Lady [mahānagnī] they purchased King Soma. To impersonate her they bring forth an undamaged calf to purchase the soma. With her they buy King Soma. He may again purchase her, as she came back to them. Therefore, [the hotṛ] should whisper his mantras on purchasing King Soma, because Vāc is then in fact among the gandharvas. When the fire is carried forward [from the old āhavanīya to the new one in the performance of the soma sacrifice], she returns again (to the gods).¹⁴⁶

Once again the gandharva is associated with one of the most prominent of transferable essences, Vāc, Speech, the Great Naked Lady (mahānagnī), the feminine principle underlying the Ṛgvedic universe, stripped bare. As a bargaining chip she moves from the gods to the gandharvas and back again, a migration that is reenacted in the prāyaṇīyeṣṭi, the rite at the commencement of the soma sacrifice. During this sacrifice soma is ritually purchased and the fire is brought from the āhavanīya, the easternmost of the ritualists’ three fires (tretāgni), to the new āhavanīya in the temporary pavilion used for the soma sacrifice.¹⁴⁷ After this fire is established, Vāc returns to the hotṛ, the chief officiant of the ṚV, who may again recite his mantras loudly. It may be assumed that at that point Vāc separates from the gandharvas, vitiating their power and contributing to the sacrifice as a realm of safety.¹⁴⁸

The ṚV is explicit in referring to the gandharva as the bird that bears vãc: “The bird bears speech with the mind, that the gandharva uttered within the womb” (pataṅgó vcaṃ mánasā bibharti tm gandharvò ’vadad gárbhe antáḥ, 10.177.2). As already seen, the ṚV connects the gandharva with the womb, including the hiraṇyagarbha, responsible for the generation of the world.¹⁴⁹ A gandharva can also take possession of a woman on her wedding night. The TS (3.4.8) prescribes that a staff of udumbara wood be placed in the bed between newlyweds, after which gandharvas are invoked for several days to assist in the consummation of the marriage.¹⁵⁰ Looking back to the Ṛgvedic marriage hymn (ṚV 10.85), two of the primary vedic agents of possession, Soma and a gandharva, are considered the first owners of the bride, before Agni and the human husband. The hymn states, “Soma possessed [you] first; a gandharva possessed [you] next. Agni was your third husband; your fourth is human born.”¹⁵¹ The verb here is vivide (pf. of √vid [to acquire, gain]), indicating possession in the sense of ownership. From these passages demonstrating the gandharva’s connection with soma and vāc, its capacity to transfer its essence, with embryonic creation, and as a being that attracts women, it is not surprising that it is associated with possession in the Upaniṣads, especially possession of women.

Although our chief concern is the gandharva, the apsaras also possesses. In a hymn devoted to the gandharva, the AV tells of the mind-numbing wives of the gandharvas:

AV 2.2.5:

yḥ klands támiṣīcayo ’kṣákāmā manomúhaḥ | tbhyaḥ gandharvápatnībhyo ’psarābhyo ’karaṃ namaḥ ||

Those who wail, oppressing by darkness, fond of dice, bewildering minds, to these apsarases, the wives of the gandharvas, I have paid homage.

In another passage it implores an apsaras, Indra, Bhaga, and all the distant gods to restore a patient so that he may “be freed from madness” (yathànu-maditó ’sasi, 6.111.4). The TS says that gandharvas and apsarases cause madness.

TS 3.4.8.4:

māndhuká idhmaḥ √ yá únmdayet tásmai hotavyā gandharvāpsaráso v etám únmādayanti yá únmādayati

Wood from a māndhuka tree should be offered for one who suffers from madness, because the gandharvas and apsarases create madness in one who suffers from madness.

The JB mentions a gandharva and an apsaras who work together to produce madness and death in a brahman named Yavakrī (2.269–72). Here and elsewhere, the human is grasped or seized (gṛhīta) by the gandharva.¹⁵² By no means, however, is possession by a gandharva always negative or destructive. Indeed, often it can be oracular.

An early example of such “benevolent” oracular possession appears in the BĀU (3.3.1). A certain Bhujyu Lāhyāyani, a rival of Yājñavalkya, sought the advice of Patañcala Kāpya. Upon entering his house, he discovered that the daughter of Patañcala Kāpya was possessed by a gandharva (tasyāsīd duhitā gandharvagṛhītā; note the use of the root √gṛh rather than ā√viś). Bhujyu then asked the grandharva, speaking through the daughter, who he was. The gandharva replied that he was Sudhanvan of the family of Aṅgiras. Bhujyu asked him the whereabouts of the descendants of Parikṣit (kva pārikṣitā abhavan). He then returned to Yājñavalkya and reported the conversation to him. Yājñavalkya accepted the possession without further question and confirmed the answer of the gandharvas in the form of a riddle: “They went where the performers of the aśvamedha go.”¹⁵³ The Upaniṣad (3.6) explains that gandharvas pervade the sky (antarikṣalokāḥ) and that the worlds of the gandharvas are pervaded by suns (ādityalokāḥ).

The BĀU further (3.7.1) relates that, on another occasion, Uddālaka went to the home of the same brahman, Patañcala Kāpya, at whose house, it seems, Uddālaka and others were studying ritual and Patañcala was possibly the teacher. This time it was Patañcala’s wife who was possessed by a gandharva (tasyāsīd bhāryā gandharvagṛhītā). Through the wife, the gandharva told Uddālaka that he was Kabandha, the son of Atharvan. This gandharva also turned out to be quite learned, knowing the sūtra and the inner self (antaryāmin). The identity of the second gandharva, Kabandha, begs further investigation for his role as possessor. In the Rāmāyaṇa (3.69), Kabandha, an uncommon name or designation, was a rākṣasa whose body was little more than a trunk because his head and legs had been hammered into his body by blows from Indra’s vajra.¹⁵⁴

Let us turn for a moment to Śaṅkara commentary on this episode. On BĀU 3.3.1, he states that the possession signifies “some being other than human; or the term [gandharvagṛhītā] may mean fire that is worshipped in the house—the deity who is a priest [to the gods]. We conclude thus from this special knowledge, for an ordinary being cannot possibly have such knowledge.” Śaṅkara is here chary of possession, or at least of spirit possession, and searches for alternative meanings in spite of the clarity of the Sanskrit. This is probably motivated by that very brahmanical priggishness of which Gombrich speaks. However, for whatever it is worth in building historical arguments, it should not be forgotten that one of Śaṅkara’s most famous exploits, given considerable attention in the digvajayas on his life, is his occupation of the body (parakāyapraveśa) of the dead king Amaruka.¹⁵⁵ He entered into (pra√viś) this possession in order to experience the joys of sexual love without defiling his own body, a tale recounted at greater length in Chapter 7.¹⁵⁶ For the present purposes, it is sufficient to note that he engaged in this possession in order to defeat Ubhayabhāratī, an incarnation of Sarasvatī, the Goddess of Knowledge, who had challenged him to debate the subject of erotics (kāmaśāstra). His method, consistent with the rules of debate, was not madness but control, awareness, and deliberation, congruent with “civilized” goals. Because these are not theorized in the BĀU as aspects of possession—which by Śaṅkara’s time had already a questionable reputation, he decided to present secondary interpretations. In his partial defense, however, the gandharvas in question appear to have exemplified brahmanical propriety in their possession and that Śaṅkara was much later following their examples. These gandharvas were from more or less respectable brahman clans (though ones noted for their knowledge of sympathetic magic), the Aṅgirasas and the Atharvaṇas, and taught, through their possessing agents, respectable brahmanical doctrine.¹⁵⁷

We would be remiss if we did not point out that Śaṅkara’s possession is an excellent example of the application of the notions of purity and pollution and offers a lucid commentary on the role of the body in Indian religion, though a body vastly simplified from the one delineated in AVŚ 11.8 described above. Only by successfully meeting the challenge of Ubhayabhāratī could Śaṅkara claim omniscience (sarvajñatā), and his only resort was parakāyapraveśa. By maintaining the celibacy (brahmacarya) of his own body, he was still able to enjoy sexual intercourse.¹⁵⁸

Finally, it may not be too far-fetched to link the possession of gandharvas by women in the BĀU with oracular possession, notably of women and children, in later times. I deal with this topic again in Chapter 11, but for the moment we should ask an important question of the BĀU material, namely, what is missing from it? Did Bhujyu Lāhyāyani simply wander into his friend Patañcala Kāpya’s house on a couple of occasions and discover his wife and daughter occupied with housework, possessed by gandharvas, ready to take questions? This is highly unlikely. More likely, given the evidence of later texts, a ritual was taking place and Bhujyu Lāhyāyani showed up for the occasion. Although BĀU 3.7.1 leads us to believe, at first glance, that Patañcala Kāpya was merely studying some form of vedic ritual, the remaining context is one of women’s possession. It is thus not impossible that Patañcala was presiding over a possession ritual, perhaps not radically unlike those textualized from the mid-first millennium C.E. onward. The presence of gandharvas is also highly suggestive. Possession by a gandharva might in fact indicate a context (often, as we have seen, labeled shamanistic, found in cultures throughout the world, including India) in which music was played as part of a ritual to abet the onset of trance states, such as possession. Although the first-millennium and later texts do not describe oracular possession of gandharvas, they name other spirits or minor deities who supplant gandharvas in the local pantheon.

Possession by gandharvas is still reported in India. I was told the following while observing a vedic agniṣṭoma soma sacrifice in Kerala in 1995. According to the vedic śrauta traditions of Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu, the three most important parts of the agnicayana sacrifice are the recitations of the rudram, the camakam, and the ṣoḍaśī, and their accompanying offerings.¹⁵⁹ The first two are well-known chants from the Yajurveda, while the third is a chant from the Sāmaveda.¹⁶⁰ All occur after the construction of the great bird-shaped altar is completed, and every member of the sacrificer’s family must be in attendance at each of these recitations. According to local vedic tradition, the ṣoḍaśī must be recited exactly at sunset, the moment, they say, when Indra slaughtered the demon Vṛtra, a deed celebrated in the chant. If the ritual is running late, by even an hour (a very frequent occurrence), the action will be suspended for the next twenty-three hours, until the next sunset. Conversely, if it is ahead of schedule (a very rare occurrence), the ritual will be suspended until sunset. At a recent performance in Andhra Pradesh, one of the members of the sacrificer’s family was at the local well, rather than in attendance, at the time of the ṣoḍaśī chant. He fell into the well, as a result, it is said, of his inattention and absence of mind. When he was eventually pulled out, he was possessed by a gandharva, who reported to the crowd that had gathered that he was very unhappy that the person through whose mouth he was speaking was so unobservant. The gandharva then ordered him to recite the mantras used in the ṣoḍaśī chant continuously for forty-one days. He followed this instruction, and after that whenever he was seen wandering around the village, or anywhere else, he was reciting these mantras.¹⁶¹

In conclusion, let us return to a point that was discussed in Chapter 4 and begged discussion several times in the present chapter: Whether in antiquity or in the modern ethnographic record, the incidence of possession states was more frequent among women than among men. Although this is surely a matter of speculation, it may be confidently stated that it was a practice with much higher crossover between men and women than was classical vedic ritual, which was unquestionably men’s religion, with but a few exceptional instances of women’s participation. The examples cited from the BAU, from the vedic marriage hymn, and the prominence in general of women’s being possessed by gandharvas suggest the likelihood of this shared area of experience and ideology. The fact that women’s possession appears at all in texts composed by and almost entirely for men also supports this. However, the evidence is so fragmentary and incidental that it is unwise to speculate on the reason(s) for this, or indeed whether the reasons have changed over the ensuing millennia, except to say that it is practically beyond argument that the position of women deteriorated considerably during most of the first two millennia C.E. Furthermore, as demonstrated in these pages, possession was a common feature in stories about men as well as in “men’s religion.” An excellent example of this is the present-day vedic ethnography noted in the preceding paragraph, which attests that neither possession nor gandharvas as possessing entities are limited to women.