ABSTRACT
Yet for all their high profile and conspicuous deeds, the gods cannot obscure the power of another category of beings. These beings are the departed ancestors, the pitara~ or 'fathers'. They clearly lack the spectacular persona of the gods and are mostly viewed as an indistinct collectivity. Even when the three immediate ascendants - father, grandfather and great grandfather - are invoked by their names, they are still no more than impersonal shadows. Nonetheless, their presence and power to bring good as well as evil are felt to be everywhere. In their inconspicuous way they are ubiquitous, as the gods are not. After slaying Vrtra and defeating the asuras, when the warrior god Indra came back at the time of the new moon to the place of sacrifice, the fathers were already there, having arrived the day before the new moon. They had stolen a march on Indra and the gods with the serious consequence that the sacrifice was now with them. When the gods demanded the fathers to return the sacrifice, they refused to comply. So there was no alternative but to strike a deal. The fathers could have their sacrificial feast on the eve of the new moon before the gods have theirs on the next day. I This episode from the Taittinya Brah~a is meant to justify the worship of the manes on the eve of the new moon sacrifice. But beyond that it succinctly depicts the power of the departed ancestors who jealously hold the key to the sacrifice. Only by redeeming it from them can the human
sacrificer perform his sacrifice. 2 Although the ancient Indian ritualists took every care to keep the gods and
the ancestors separate, the whole sacrificial ritual remains suffused with the presence of the manes to the point that the carefully elaborated divide becomes rather blurred. Consequently the fathers can be designated Visve Deva!)., 'All-Gods', or devalJ, pitaralJ" 'Gods-Fathers'.3 Fittingly they drink the soma beverage together with the gods: 'This is their symposion (sampti); of old they drank together visibly, but now they do so unseen' .4
