Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s10.t6.40

v1.c7.s10.t6.40

Some Upanishads proposed a “five-fire-and-two-path” theory to describe reincarnation. The so-called “Five Fires” refer to the five stages of the reincarnation process ie after cremation, the dead rises to the moon, then turns into rain, which becomes food after falling to the ground, which, once consumed, turns into semen, and from semen are all these creatures born. The “Two Paths” refer to the “Path of Gods” and the “Path of Ancestors”. “Path of gods”, also known as the “path of the sun”, is a path along which one entres Brahmaloká after death without ever returning to the world he previously lived in; while “Path of ancestors”, aka the “path of the moon”, is a path along which the dead one returns to the world he formerly inhabited after going through the “Five Fires” in their respective order.