agreeable (to them).  Come running, O Agni, with these (fathers), who thirsted among the gods and hastened hither, finding oblations and praised with songs.  These gracious ones, the real poets, the Fathers that seat themselves at the sacrificial heat; who are real eaters of oblation; drinkers of oblation; and are set together on one chariot with Indra and the gods.  Come, O Agni, with these, a thousand, honored like gods, the ancient, the original Fathers who seat themselves at the sacrificial heat....  Thou, Agni, didst give the oblations to the Fathers, that eat according to their custom; do thou (too) eat, O god, the oblation offered (to thee).  Thou knowest, O thou knower (or finder) of beings, how many are the Fathers—­those who are here, and who are not here, of whom we know, and of whom we know not.  According to custom eat thou the well-made sacrifice.  With those who, burned in fire or not burned, (now) enjoy themselves according to custom in the middle of the sky, do thou, being the lord, form (for us) a spirit life, a body according to (our) wishes.[37]

Often the Fathers are invoked in similar language in the hymn to the “All-gods” mentioned above, and occasionally no distinction is to be noticed between the powers and attributes of the Fathers and those of the gods.  The Fathers, like the luminous gods, “give light” (x. 107. 1).  Exactly like the gods, they are called upon to aid the living, and even ‘not to harm’ (iii. 55. 2; x. 15. 6).  According to one verse, the Fathers have not attained the greatness of the gods, who impart strength only to the gods.[38]

The Fathers are kept distinct from the gods.  When the laudations bestowed upon the former are of unequivocal character there is no confusion between the two.[39]

The good dead, to get to the paradise awaiting them, pass over water (X. 63. 10), and a bridge (ix. 41. 2).  Here, by the gift of the gods, not by inherent capacity, they obtain immortality.  He that believes on Agni, sings:  “Thou puttest the mortal in highest immortality, O Agni”; and, accordingly, there is no suggestion that heavenly joys may cease; nor is there in this age any notion of a Goetterdaemmerung.  Immortality is described as “continuing life in the highest sky,” another proof that when formulated the doctrine was that the soul of the dead lives in heaven or in the sun.[40]

Other cases of immortality granted by different gods are recorded by Muir and Zimmer.  Yet in one passage the words, “two paths I have heard of the Fathers (exist), of the gods and of mortals,” may mean that the Fathers go the way of mortals or that of gods, rather than, as is the usual interpretation, that mortals have two paths, one of the Fathers and one of the gods,[41] for the dead may live on earth or in the air as well as in heaven.  When a good man dies his breath, it is said, goes to the wind, his eye to the sun, etc.[42]—­each part to its appropriate prototype—­while the