History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.239.1

v7.c95.239.1

There is one word, namely 'saṁsāra', which occurs frequently in the comparatively later literature on Vedānta and Dharmaśāstra but rarely in the Upaniṣads It means 'passing through a succession or a round or a cycle of births and deaths'. The Kathopanisad says²⁵³⁶ 'that person who has no understanding, who has not controlled his mind, who is always impure, does not attain that (highest) state and undergoes *saṁsāra* (births and deaths)'. The Śv. Up. VI. 16 speaks of the Supreme Spirit as the 'creator and knower of the universe, as self-born, the knower, the destroyer of time, possessing (all) qualities, knowing everything, Lord of Pradhāna, individual souls and the gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas) and as the cause of release from saṁsāra, of sustaining it and of bondage.' The Maitrāyaṇī Up. I 4. says 'such being the nature of saṁsāra what is the use of the enjoyment (of pleasures)'. The Muktikā-Up. (II. 37) states 'mind is established as the root of the tree of saṁsāra'. The word '*saṁsāra*' occurs in the Vedāntasūtra²⁵³⁷ IV. 2. 8. The Bhagavadgītā mentions the word several times e. g. 'men who have no faith in this way (of life) do not attain to me (Lord Kṛṣṇa) and return to the path of death and transmigration (IX. 3); those whose minds are fixed on me I deliver in no time from the ocean of death and transmigration' (XII. 7). The Manusmṛti employs the word *saṁsāra* frequently e. g.