In order to appreciate its nature we must bear in mind that
the early Hindu conceptions of a future life are auspicious, and quite
the reverse of sombre. The statements in the Veda about life after death
exclude all notions of hell. The early visions are simple, poetic and
cheerful. The bodies of the dead are burned and their ashes are
consigned to earth. But this is viewed merely as a symbolic act of
preparation--cooking it is called forthright--for another life of joy.
The righteous forefathers of old who died before, they have found
another good place. Especially Yama, the first mortal, has gone to the
great rivers on high; he has searched out, like a pioneer, the way for
all his descendants: "He went before and found a dwelling which no power
can debar us from. Our fathers of old have traveled the path; it leads
every earth-born mortal thither. There in the midst of the highest
heaven beams unfading light and eternal waters flow; there every wish is
fulfilled on the rich meadows of Yama." Day by day Yama sends forth two
dogs, his messengers, to search out among men those who are to join the
fathers that are having an excellent time in Yama's company.

THE TWO DOGS OF YAMA.

The tenth book of the _Rig-Veda_ contains in hymns 14-18 a collection of
funeral stanzas quite unrivaled for mythological and ethnological
interest in the literature of ancient peoples. In hymn 14 there are
three stanzas (10-12) that deal with the two dogs of Yama. This is the
classical passage, all depends upon its interpretation. They contain
detached statements which take up the idea from different points of
view, that are not easily harmonized as long as the dogs are merely
ordinary canines; they resolve themselves fitly and neatly into a pair
of natural objects, if we follow closely all the ideas which the Hindus
associated with them.

In the first place, it is clear that we are dealing with the conception
of Cerberus. In stanza 10 the two dogs are conceived as ill-disposed
creatures, standing guard to keep the departed souls out of bliss. The
soul on its way to heaven is addressed as follows:

"Run past straightway the two four-eyed dogs, the spotted and (the
dark), the brood of Saram[=a]; enter in among the propitious fathers who
hold high feast with Yama."

A somewhat later text, the book of house-rite of [=A]cval[=a]yana, has
the notion of the sop to Cerberus: "To the two dogs born in the house
of (Yama) Vivasvant's son, to the d