Whitney's belief that hell was not known before the Upanishad period (in his translations of the _Katha Upanishad_) is correct only if by hell torture is meant, and if the Atharvan is later than this Upanishad, which is improbable.
The good dead in the Rig Veda return with Yama to the sacrifice to enjoy the _soma_ and viands prepared for them by their descendants.
Hence the whole belief in the necessity of a son in order to the obtaining of a joyful hereafter.

What the rite of burial was to the Greek, a son was to the Hindu, a means of bliss in heaven.

Roth apparently thinks that the Rig Veda's heaven is one that can best be described in Dr.Watt's hymn: There is a land of pure delight Where saints immortal reign, Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain; and that especial stress should be laid on the word 'pure.' But there is very little teaching of personal purity in the Veda, and the poet who hopes for a heaven where he is to find 'longing women,' 'desire and its fulfillment' has in mind, in all probability, purely impure delights.

It is not to be assumed that the earlier morality surpassed that of the later day, when, even in the epic, the hero's really desired heaven is one of drunkenness and women _ad libitum_.

Of the 'good man' in the Rig Veda are demanded piety toward gods and manes and liberality to priests; truthfulness and courage; and in the end of the work there is a suggestion of ascetic 'goodness' by means of _tapas_, austerity.[52] Grassman cites one hymn as dedicated to 'Mercy.' It is really (not a hymn and) not on mercy, but a poem praising generosity.