India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c11.s3.48

c11.s3.48

PARALOKA (*OTHER WORLD*)—A belief in the other world and in the continuity of Self in after life was an article of faith with the people who so conducted themselves in this life as to attain happiness in the next world (*Sidhyater-apāralaukike* VI.¹.49). The *sūtra Lipsyamāna-siddhau cha* (III.3.7) refers to the attainment of supreme objective (*siddhi*) which, according to the commentators, was *Svarga*. In the Vedas *Svarga* is called *Nāka*. The word *nāka* is derived in the *Brāhmaṇas* (*ŚB.*, VIII.4.1.24) from *na*, 'not', and *aka*, 'pain', because those who go there are free from sorrow (*Vedic Index*, I.439). Yāska and with him Pāṇini splitting the word into *na* and *aka* (VI.3.75) retain its association with the final abode of happiness, as heaven was believed to be in the earlier literature.