Pits, Pitfalls and the Underworld in the Veda

To clarify the Vedic relationship between going to hell or an underworld & falling into a pit or being caught in a pitfall, concrete & metaphorical uses of words denoting a pit or hole in Vedic Sanskrit are examined. It is shown that concrete Rgvedic uses are typically paired with the notion of colliding with a tree stump & involve verbs denoting travel at high speed, not descent, suggesting that the terms garta & karta refer to fissures, not large holes or ravines; immediate metaphoric extensions of this usage describe mistakes that invalidate a ritual. Later associations of an underworld with an image of falling into a large abyss & staying there as punishment for sins are distinguished from references to small holes, which are associated instead with the burial of Pitrs. It is concluded that in the Vedic conception all openings in the earth may represent an entrance to a single underworld, the final destination of enemies & sinners. 25 References. J. Hitchcock