History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.301

v7.c95.301

Then there is a passage in the Ait. Up. which Deussen refers to (pp. 317-318 of Ph. Up.). In the 2nd adhyāya that Upaniṣad refers to the conception of a person as the first birth; when the child is actually born that is described as the 2nd birth. Then it proceeds "He (the son) being the self of the father is placed in his (the father's) stead for the performance of all sacred works; then his other self (the father) having performed all he has to do and having reached the span of his life (having become very old) departs (from this world) and departing from this world is born again, that is his third birth. And this has been declared by a sage 'while dwelling in (mother's) womb I came to know all the births of the gods; a hundred strongholds of *ayas* (copper or iron) held me, but I escaped down with speed like a hawk.' Vāmadeva lying in his mother's womb declared this". In this passage the father and son are treated as identical, as elsewhere it is so said (vide note below). This Ṛgveda verse (the 2nd half) is liable to several interpretations In the Ṛgveda (I. 80. 2, VIII. 95. 3, IX. 68. 6, X. 11. 4 &c.) it is frequently stated that (śyena) hawk brings Soma for Indra. Śyena may also be interpreted as standing for the soul and the iron fortresses as the bodies through which the transmigrating soul wanders. The Ṛgveda sage might have only meant the mythical hawk of Indra. But as the word 'janimāni' occurs in the first half the Upaniṣadic sage (in Ait. Up.) might have used the verse to support his ideas about the three births. But even in the Ait. Up. passage the three births are not clearly of one person, unless we resort to a myth, viz. the conception of a son and the son's birth are taken as the two births of the father himself on the ground that the son is the father himself born again.²⁵⁶⁶