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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12: Fourth Part of the System of the Upanishads

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12

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Fourth Part of the System of the Upanishads

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ESCHATOLOGY, OR THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSMIGRATION AND EMANCIPATION, INCLUDING THE WAY THITHER (PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY)

XIV. Transmigration of the Soul

1. Philosophical Significance of the Doctrine of Transmigration

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WHAT becomes of men after death? This question leads us to that doctrine which, if not the most significant in the Indian conception of the universe, is yet certainly the most original and influential, the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul, which from Upanishad times down to the present has held a foremost position in Indian thought, and exercises still the greatest practical influence.* Mankind, as S'ankara somewhere expresses it,¹ is like a plant. Like this it springs up, develops, and returns finally to the earth. Not entirely, however. But as the seed of the plant survives, so also at death the works of a man remain as a seed which, sown afresh in the realm of

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¹ On Brahmasûtra 2. 1. 34, and frequently.

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* In Jaipur I met in December 1892 an old Pandit almost naked, who approached me groping his way. They told me that he was completely blind. Not knowing that he had been blind from birth, I sympathised with him, and asked by what unfortunate accident the loss of sight had come upon him. Immediately and without showing any sign whatever of bitterness, the answer was ready to his lips :—*kenacid aparādhena pūrvasmin janmani kritena*, "by some crime committed in a former birth."

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ignorance, gives rise to a new existence in exact correspondence with his character. Each life with all its actions and sufferings is on the one hand the inevitable consequence of the actions of a former birth, and conditions on the other hand by the actions committed in it the next succeeding life. This conviction begets not only a real consolation in the sufferings of existence, which are universally seen to be self-inflicted, but is also a powerful incentive to habitual right conduct, and the instances from Indian epic and dramatic poetry are numerous in which a sufferer propounds the question, What crime must I have committed in a former birth? and adds immediately the reflection, I will sin no more to bring upon myself grievous suffering in a future existence.

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This conception, mythical as it is, nevertheless contains a germ of philosophical truth, which it is yet difficult to draw out in detail. For, properly speaking, the entire question "What becomes of us after death?" is inadmissible, and if anyone could give us the full and correct answer we should be quite unable to understand it. For it would presuppose an intuition of things apart from space, time and causality, to which, as forms of perception, our knowledge is for ever limited. If we determine, however, to do violence to truth, and to conceive in terms of space that which is without space, the timeless in terms of time, the causeless from the point of view of causality, then we may to the question, "What becomes of us after death?" (which is as it stands incorrectly put, because it assumes the forms of time) give three answers, inasmuch as we have only the choice between (1) annihilation, (2) eternal retribution in heaven and hell, and (3) transmigration. The first supposition is in conflict not only with a man's self-love, but with the innate certainty more deeply rooted than all knowledge of our metaphysical being as subject to no birth or dissolution. The second supposition, which opens up the prospect of eternal reward or punishment for an existence so brief and liable to error, so exposed to all the accidents of upbringing and environment, is condemned at once by the unparalleled disproportion in which cause and effect here stand to one another. And for the empirical solution of the problem (itself strictly speaking inadmissible) only the third supposition remains, that our existence is continued after death in other forms, other conditions of space and time, that it is therefore in a certain sense a transmigration. The well-known argument of Kant also, which bases immortality on the realisation of the moral law implanted in us, a result only attainable by an infinite process of approximation, tells not for immortality in the usual sense, but for transmigration.

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Although therefore the doctrine of the soul's migration is not absolute philosophical truth, it is nevertheless a myth which represents a truth for ever inconceivable for us, and is accordingly a valuable substitute for the latter. Could we abstract from it the mental framework of space, time and causality, we should have the complete truth. We should then discern that the unceasing return of the soul is realised not in the future and in other regions, but here already, and in the present, but that this "here" is everywhere, and this "present" is eternal.

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These views agree essentially with those of the later Vedânta, which clings to belief in transmigration. This belief, however, is valid only for the exoteric aparâ vidyâ; for the esoteric parâ vidyâ, the reality of the soul's migration falls to the ground with the reality of the universe.

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We propose now to endeavour to trace the origin of this remarkable doctrine in the light of the Vedic texts. We must first, however, guard against a misunderstanding.

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When it is said occasionally of the fathers that they “move along, adopting the external form of birds”; or when the soul of the Buddhist mother at death enters into a female jackal in order to warn her son on his journey of the unhealthy forest; when the dead pass into an insect that buzzes round the last resting-place of the bones; or when the fathers creep into the roots of plants;¹ these are popular representations, which are on a level with the entrance of the *Vetâla* into the corpse, or the yogin's animating of several bodies, but have nothing to do with belief in transmigration. They have as little to do with any such doctrine as the ancient Egyptian idea that the dead can return and assume any form at pleasure (which Herodotus in ii. 123 seems to interpret erroneously of the soul's migration), or the seven women in Goethe's poem, who appear by night as seven werewolves. Superstitious ideas like these have existed amongst all peoples and at all times, but do not imply belief in transmigration, nor have they given rise to such teaching, least of all in India. Indeed, they have exercised scarcely any influence upon it; since, as we shall show, the theory of transmigration rests on the conviction of due recompense awarded to good and evil works, and this was at first conceived as future. Only later, for reasons which the texts disclose to us, was it transferred from an imaginary future into the present life. If therefore this recompense involves at times existence as an animal or plant, this is merely an incidental consequence on which no stress is laid from first to last; though it is true that this circumstance appeared to the opponents of the doctrine from the very beginning to be its especial characteristic, and has called forth their derision since the times of Xenophanes.²

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¹ Oldenberg, *Religion des Veda*, pp. 563, 581 f.

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² *Diog. L.* 8. 36.

2. Ancient Vedic Eschatology

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In no Vedic text earlier than the Upanishads can the doctrine of the soul’s transmigration be certainly traced, although the Upanishads themselves ascribe it even to the Rigveda. The artificial manner however in which this is done is in favour of the view that we have to do with a doctrine of recent origin, for which a confirmation was sought in the ancient sacred texts. Three passages have to be considered.

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In Bṛih. 1. 4. 10 it is said of Vâmadeva, the poet of Rigveda IV., that he (by virtue of a *śâstra-dṛishṭi*, an inspired conception, as Bâdarâyaṇa says,¹ quoting this instance) recognised himself as Brahman; and as a proof of his knowledge of Brahman alleged his acquaintance with his former births as Manu and Sûrya :—" Knowing this, Vâmadeva the ṛishi began :²—

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¹ I. 1. 30.

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² Rigv. IV. 26. 1.

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I was once Manu, I was once the sun."

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More clearly in Ait. 2. 4 the authority of Vâmadeva is invoked in order to prove that a third birth after death follows on the first birth (as a child), and the second birth (by spiritual education) :—" After he has completed what he has to do, and has become old, he departs hence; departing hence, he is once more born; this is his third birth. Therefore says the ṛishi :³—

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³ Rigv. IV. 27. 1.

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While yet tarrying in my mother's womb,
I have learnt all the births of these gods;
Had a hundred iron fortresses held me back,
Yet like a hawk of swift flight I had escaped away.

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So Vâmadeva spake though he still lay thus in his mother's womb." The quotation from the hymn of Vâmadeva admits of interpretation here only if we understand by the hawk the soul, and by the iron fortresses the bodies through which it wanders.¹

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¹ cp. Bṛih. 2. 5. 18.

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That neither quotation of Vâmaveda has anything to do with the doctrine of the soul’s transmigration, needs no elaborate proof. In the first Indra glorifies his magical power, which enables him to assume all manner of forms.² In the second is depicted the cunning hawk of Indra already in his mother’s womb, as he leaves his fortified dwelling-place, in order to fetch the soma from heaven; or perhaps the wise soma itself relates how it, borne away by the hawk from its iron strongholds, “as a hawk” (i.e. carried by it) comes down to earth.

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² cp. Ṛigv. VI. 47. 18, *Indro mâyâbhiḥ pururûpa’ îyate*.

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At first sight the doctrine in question appears to be more closely related to a third quotation. In the great transmigration text it is said in a reference to the way of the gods :³—“And thou hast indeed failed to comprehend the word of the seer, who speaks thus:—

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³ Bṛih. 6. 2. 2.

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Two ways, I heard, there are for men,
The way of the fathers and the way of the gods;
On the latter everything meets
That moves between father and mother.”

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This translation is correct in the sense of the Upanishad, but not in the sense of the original, which is found in Ṛigv. X. 83. 15 (overlooked by all former translators) in a hymn celebrating Agni in his twofold character as sun by day and fire by night. In view of this connection, it can hardly be doubtful that by the two ways that unite all that moves between earth and heaven day and night are to be understood, and thus the passage is to be rendered:—“I have heard from my forefathers that there are two ways alike for gods and men.” They are all subject to the laws of day and night.

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The hymns of the Rigveda therefore know nothing yet of a migration of the soul, but teach for the good a continued existence with the gods under the control of Yama, for the evil a journey only dimly indicated into the abyss. The standpoint of the Atharva hymns and of the Brāhmaṇas is the same; only that the conception of a recompense for works is carried out in detail. This recompense however lies always solely in the future, and in the Upanishads for the first time is transferred into the present. A brief glance at the ancient Vedic eschatology will confirm this.

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Immortal life with the gods is represented in many hymns of the Rigveda, especially the older, as a peculiar gift of the grace of the gods, to confer which Agni,¹ the Maruts,² Mitra-Varuṇa,³ Soma,⁴ and other gods are entreated, and which is offered in particular to the generous worshipper.⁵ Later on it is Yama, the first man, who has found the way for many descendants to that glorious height, and who there sits enthroned as the gatherer together of men.⁶ In order to attain to him, the soul must successfully pass by the two spotted four-eyed broad-nosed dogs of Yama,⁷ which apparently guard the entrance to the heavenly world and do not admit everyone. Here is probably to be found the first trace of a judgement of the dead, as it is put into practice by Yama in the late Indian eschatology. Elsewhere⁸ to these dogs is assigned the office of wandering up and down amongst men, and dragging off those appointed to die. According to X. 165. 4 the dove (kapota) is Yama's messenger of death. Mention is made also⁹ of the fetters or the catch-net (paḍbiś'am) of Yama, so that for the singers of the Ṛigveda he already represents also the terrors of death. Usually however in these older times Yama is conceived as the ruler in the kingdom of the blessed, as he sits enthroned afar,¹ in the midst of heaven,² in the bosom of the ruddy morning,³ in the highest heaven,⁴ in eternal light.⁵ There he sits, drinking with the gods, under a tree with fair foliage,⁶ there the dead gather around him, in order to see Yama, or Varuṇa;⁷ they leave imperfection behind them, and return to their true home,⁸ to the pasturage of which no one will again rob them,⁹ where the weak is no longer subject to the strong,¹⁰ where in immortal life in association with Yama they “delight themselves at the banquet” with the gods.¹¹ Stress has frequently been laid on the sensuous character which is thus borne by the ancient Vedic pictures of the future life. But on this point it may be remarked that a conception of the joy of heaven on the analogy of that of earth is natural to man and inevitable (so far as he shrinks from an absolute denial of its existence); that even Jesus represents the kingdom of heaven as a festal gathering, where they sit down to table,¹² and drink wine;¹³ and that even a Dante or a Milton could not choose but borrow all the colours for their pictures from this world of earth. In other respects great differences are shown in the ancient Vedic descriptions of the other world, varying indeed according to the individual character of the poet,—from the fancy of the poet of Atharvav 4. 34, that runs riot in a vulgar sensuality (who indeed already sufficiently reveals his disposition by the manner in which he praises his rice-pap and the gift of it to the Brâhmans; the whole might almost be regarded as a parody), to the more spiritual perception of the beautiful verses, Rigv. IX. 113. 7–11, of which we give a rendering with the omission of the refrain :—

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¹ I. 31. 7.

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² V. 55. 4.

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³ V. 63. 2.

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⁴ I. 91. 1.

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⁵ yaḥ priṇāti sa ha deveshu gac'chati, etc., I. 125. 5–6.

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⁶ saṅgamano janānām, X. 14. 1 f.

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⁷ X. 14. 10.

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⁸ X. 14. 12.

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⁹ X. 97. 16.

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¹ I. 36. 18.

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² X. 15. 14.

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³ X. 15. 7.

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⁴ Vâj. Saṃh. 18. 51, Atharvav. 18. 2. 48.

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⁵ IX. 113. 7.

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⁶ X. 135. 1.

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⁷ X. 14. 7.

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⁸ hitvâya avadyam punar astam ehi, X. 10. 8.

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⁹ X. 14. 2.

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¹⁰ Atharvav. 3. 29. 3.

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¹¹ sadhamâdam madanti, Ṛigv. X. 14. 10, Atharvav. 18. 4. 10, etc.

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¹² Matt. 8¹¹.

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¹³ Matt. 26²⁹.

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7. The kingdom of inexhaustible light,
Whence is derived the radiance of the sun,
To this kingdom transport me,
Eternal, undying.

8. There, where Yama sits enthroned as king,
Among the holiest of the heavenly world,
Where ever living water streams,
There suffer me to dwell immortal.

9. Where we may wander undisturbed at will,
Where the third loftiest heaven spreads its vault,
Where are realms filled with light,
There suffer me to dwell immortal.

10. Where is longing and the consummation of longing,
Where the other side of the sun is seen,
Where is refreshment and satiety,
There suffer me to dwell immortal.

11. Where bliss resides and felicity,
Where joy beyond joy dwells,
Where the craving of desire is stilled,
There suffer me to dwell immortal.

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There also “the fathers” dwell in company with the gods, and like them are invoked to draw near and partake of the sacrifice. To the fathers as well as to the gods are ascribed the wonders of creation,¹ the adornment of the sky with stars,² the bringing forth of the sun,³ etc. They therefore stand generally on an equality with the gods, and though occasionally there is found as early as the Rigveda⁴ an indication of a different abode of the fathers, no distinction of different degrees of blessedness, such as a later text assumes for the fathers, the unbegotten gods and the gods of creation,¹ is as yet recognised.

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¹ Rigv. VIII. 48. 13.

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² X. 68. 11.

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³ X. 107. 1.

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⁴ X. 15. 1–2.

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¹ Bṛih. 4. 3. 33, Taitt. 2. 8.

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Of the fate of the wicked obscure indications only are contained in the Rigveda. They are "predestined for that abysmal place,"² are hurled by Indra and Soma into the pit,³ or into bottomless darkness,⁴ into the grave,⁵ or into the outer darkness.⁶ Perhaps also the expression should be quoted "the blind darkness" (*andham tamas*) frequently employed by the Upanishads,⁷ into which already, according to Rigv. X. 89. 15, 103. 12, the demons are to be plunged. They however do not understand by the "joyless regions veiled in blind darkness" into which the ignorant pass after death an imaginary hell, but this world in which we live.

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² *idam padam ajanata gabhîram*, Rigv. IV. 5. 5.

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³ *vavra*, VII. 104. 3.

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⁴ *anârambhanam tamas*, *ib.*

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⁵ *karta*, IX. 73. 8.

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⁶ X. 152. 4.

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⁷ Bṛih. 4. 4. 10 f., Îsâ 3. 9. 12; cp. Kâṭh. 1. 3.

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The eschatological views of the Rigveda meet us further developed in the hymns of the Atharvaveda and in the Brâhmaṇas. More exact accounts are given of the fate of the good and the wicked. Verses such as Atharvav. 5. 19. 3, 13 remind us already of the later descriptions of hell:—

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Those who spit at Brâhmans,
Or cast on them the mucus of the nose,
They sit there in pools of blood,
Chewing their hair for food.

The tears that rolled down from his eyes,
Bewailing himself, tormented,
Which the gods quaff as their drink,
Such are appointed for thee, torturer of Brâhmans.

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In greater detail the Brâhmaṇas describe "the world of the pious" (*sukṛitâm loka*).⁸ These rise again in the other world, their body complete with all its limbs and joints (*sarvatanu, sarvânga, sarvaparus*).¹ This new body is stronger, and in the other world in proportion to the faithfulness with which they have observed the rites of sacrifice, many of the pious need to take food once only in fourteen days, in four, six or twelve months, or a hundred years, or finally they are able altogether to dispense with it.² Thus they live in perpetual intercourse, in fellowship with the worlds and with living beings (*sâyujyam, salokatâ, sarûpatâ*), with the gods, with Âditya,³ with Agni, Varuṇa and Indra,⁴ or even with the impersonal Brahman.⁵ In S'atap. Br. 10. 5. 4. 15 indeed it is said already of the wise:—“He himself is free from desires, has gained all that he desires, no longer does desire (entice) him to anything. Concerning this is the verse:—

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⁸ The expression occurs only once in the Rigveda, X. 16. 4, but afterwards, characteristically, becomes more and more common, Vâj. Saṃh. 18. 52, Atharvav. 3. 28. 6, 9. 5. 1, 11. 1. 17, 18. 3. 71, etc.

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¹ Atharvav. 11. 3. 32, S'atap. Br. 4. 6. 1. 1, 11. 1. 8. 6, 12. 8. 3. 31. ² S'atap. Br. 10. 1. 5. 4. ³ Ait. Br. 3. 44, Taitt. Br. 3. 10. 9. 11. ⁴ S'atap. Br. 2. 6. 4. 8. ⁵ S'atap. Br. 11. 4. 4. 2. ⁶ As Weber assumes, *Zeitschr. d. D. M. G.*, ix. 139.

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By knowledge they climb upwards,
Thither, where desire is quenched,
No sacrificial gift reaches thither,
Nor penance of the ignorant.

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For that world cannot be won by sacrificial gifts nor by asceticism by the man who does not know this; for only to him who knows this does that state belong.” Here already in place of works and asceticism knowledge makes its appearance, and in harmony with this emancipation instead of the glory of heaven. Transmigration therefore is not presupposed,⁶ for there is no mention of transmigration earlier than the Upanishads. Probably however the germs of it are latent already in the Brâhmaṇas, as we propose now to show.

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3. The Germs of the Doctrine of Transmigration

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The chief aim of the Brâhmaṇas is to prescribe the acts of ritual, and to offer for their accomplishment a manifold reward, and at the same time sufferings and punishment for their omission. While they defer rewards as well as punishments partly to the other world, in place of the ancient Vedic conception of an indiscriminate felicity of the pious, the idea of recompense is formulated, involving the necessity of setting before the departed different degrees of compensation in the other world proportionate to their knowledge and actions. Since however the oldest form of punishment among all peoples in a natural state is revenge, this recompense also consists originally in the doing to us in the other world of the very same good and evil which we have done to anyone in this. This theory is realistically expressed in the words of S'atap. Br. 12. 9. 1. 1:—"For whatever food a man eats in this world, by the very same is he eaten again (praty-atti) in the other." A second proof is furnished by the narrative in S'atap. Br. 11. 6. 1 of the vision of the punishment in the other world which was permitted to Bhṛigu; and we may entirely assent to the view of Weber,¹ who was the first to discuss this question, when he explains the liturgical interpretation of this vision as a subsequent addition of the Brâhman author. Removing this there is left as the kernel, that Bhṛigu in the different regions sees men shrieking aloud, by whom other men shrieking are hewn in pieces limb by limb, chopped up and consumed with the words:—"Thus have they done to us in yonder world, and so we do to them again in this world." When the vision concludes with the black man with yellow eyes and the judge's staff in his hand, at whose side stand beautiful and ugly women (good and evil works), assuredly no doubt is left as to its original meaning.

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¹ Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., ix. 237 f.

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From the primitive doctrine of retribution, as this extract preserved accidentally in a later Brāhmaṇa text exhibits it, the idea of an equalising justice may have been developed by degrees, as it appears in S'atap. Br. 11. 2. 7. 33 :—"For they lay it (the good and evil) on the scales in yonder world; and whichever of the two sinks down, that will he follow, whether it be the good or the evil." Not all, according to a somewhat different view, find the way to the heavenly world:¹—"Many a man may fail to find his place when he departs hence, but bewildered by the fire (at the corpse burning), and clouded by the smoke, he fails to find out his place." Others are kept at a distance from the world of the fathers for a longer or shorter time by their misdeeds:²—"Whosoever threatens (a Brāhman) he shall atone for it with a hundred (years); he who lays violent hands on him with a thousand; but he who sheds his blood shal! not find the world of the fathers for as many years as the grains of dust number that are moistened by its streams. Therefore men should not threaten a Brāhman, or lay hands on him, or shed his blood, for there is involved in it so great an offence." Here the "world of the fathers" seems still, as in the Rigveda, to present itself before the mind as the highest goal.

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In course of time however a distinction arose between the way of the gods and the way of the fathers,³ and similarly between the world of the gods as the abode of the blessed and the world of the fathers as the place of retribution. Precisely again as in the later doctrine of transmigration it is said that the entrance to the heavenly world lies in the north-east,⁴ and the entrance to the world of the fathers in the south-west,¹ a distinction which is of all the more importance because it is found in two different passages, and is therefore not to be ascribed to an incidental process of systematising. Every man is born in the world fashioned by himself.² We hear of an “immortality” which lasts only a hundred years;³ and that he who sacrifices to the gods “does not gain so great a world as he who sacrifices to the âtman.”⁴ In another text it is said that “day and night (time) consume in yonder world the worth (of good works) for him who does not know this”;⁵ and Naciketas solicits as his second wish the imperishableness (akshiti) of good works.⁶ With especial frequency do we meet with the fear that, instead of the hoped for immortality (amṛitatvam, the “not-dying-any-more-ness”) a renewed death (punarmṛityu, death over again) may await man in the other world, and to avoid this all kinds of means are provided. “He who builds up or knows the Naciketas fire;

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he escapes renewed death.”⁷ “He who celebrates the day of the equinox, he overcomes hunger and renewed death.”⁸ “He therefore who knows this escape from death in the agnihotram is delivered from renewed death”;⁹ “The yajamâna, who builds up the fire, becomes the divinity of the fire, and vanquishes thereby renewed death.”¹⁰ “He who knows how hunger flees before food, thirst before drink, misfortune before happiness, darkness before light, death before immortality, before him all these flee, and he escapes renewed death.”¹¹ A like escape is his who builds up the fire in the appointed way,¹² offers an appointed sacrifice,¹³ in the appointed way studies the Veda.¹ Thus “escape from renewed death” becomes finally a stereotyped formula,² which is occasionally employed even where it seems to give no meaning.³ We meet it even in the texts of the older Upanishads :—He escapes recurrent death who knows that death is his own self,⁴ that sacrifices to the âtman avail,⁵ that there is a water to quench the fire of death,⁶ that the wind is the sum and substance of all.⁷ That this renewed death is to be understood of a repeated dying in the other world is taught especially by two passages :—“Accordingly he brings his fathers, who are mortal, to a condition of immortality, and causes them who are mortal to rise again from out of the condition of immortality ;

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in truth, he who knows this averts renewed death from his fathers.”⁸ “They then who know this or do this work rise again after death, and when they rise again they rise to immortality ; but they who do not know this or fail to do this work rise again after death, and become again and again its prey.”⁹ From the parallel which this passage draws between immortality and recurrent death it is clear that the latter also is not to be understood as transmigration, but only of a resurrection and repeated death in the other world. It was only necessary however to transfer that renewed death from an imaginary future world into the present in order to arrive at the doctrine of transmigration. This takes place first in the Upanishads, and the reasons that led to this last step will not evade us. Here it is only necessary to remark further that not all the Upanishad texts know or recognise a transmigration of souls, and when it is said in Bṛih. 1. 5. 16,—“The world of men is to be gained only through a son, not at all by works; by works the world of the fathers is gained, by knowledge the world of the gods," this text also knows nothing as yet of a transmigration, unless it is to be considered as a protest against the new up-start dogma. Similarly passages like Bṛih. 1. 4. 15 (good works come at last to nought) and 3. 8. 10 (sacrifice and asceticism win only finite reward) are still to be understood of an exhaustion of the value of works in the other world.

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¹ Taitt. Br. 3. 10. 11. 1.

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² Atharvav. 15. 12, etc.

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³ Taitt. Saṃh. 2. 6. 10. 2.

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⁴ S'atap. Br. 6. 6. 2. 4.

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¹ S'atap. Br. 13. 8. 1. 5.

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² S'atap. Br. 6. 2. 2. 27.

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³ S'atap. Br. 10. 1. 5. 4.

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⁴ S'atap. Br. 11. 2. 6. 14.

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⁵ Taitt. Br. 3. 10. 11. 2.

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⁶ Taitt. Br. 3. 11. 8. 5.

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⁷ Taitt. Br. 3. 11. 8. 6.

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⁸ Kaush. Br. 25. 1.

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⁹ S'atap. Br. 2. 3. 3. 9.

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¹⁰ S'atap. Br. 10. 1. 4. 14.

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¹¹ S'atap. Br. 10. 2. 6. 19.

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¹² 10. 5. 1. 4.

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¹³ 11. 4. 3. 20.

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¹ S'atap. Br. 11. 5. 6. 9.

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² 10. 6. 1. 4 f.

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³ 12. 9. 3. 11.

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⁴ Bṛih. 1. 2. 7.

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⁵ Bṛih. 1. 5. 2.

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⁶ Bṛih. 3. 2. 10.

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⁷ Bṛih. 3. 3. 2.

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⁸ S'atap. Br. 12. 9. 3. 12.

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⁹ S'atap. Br. 10. 4. 3. 10.

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⁵ Bṛih. 1–2.

4. Origin of the Doctrine of Transmigration

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The chief text that sets forth the doctrine of transmigration, on which almost all subsequent texts are dependent, is found in a twofold recension for the most part in verbal agreement with one another. These passages are Chând. 5. 3–10 and Bṛih. 6. 2.¹ The Indian authorities call it the doctrine of the five fires (*pañcâgnividyâ*). It is a combination of two different parts,² the doctrine of the five fires (in a narrower sense)³ and the doctrine of the two ways.⁴ While reserving these two names for the two parts, we propose here and in the sequel to term the combination of the two briefly the chief text.

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¹ cp. S'atap. Br. 14. 9. 1.

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² cp. Deussen, Upan., p. 137 f., where this has been already shown.

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³ Chând. 5. 4. 1–5. 9. 2 = Bṛih. 6. 2. 9–6. 2. 14.

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⁴ Chând. 5. 10 = Bṛih. 6. 2. 15–16.

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It is remarkable in the first place that a text of such supreme importance for all that follows is found in Bṛih. 6. 2 only in an appendix (*khilakâṇḍam*), and not in the two chief divisions of this Upanishad, the *madhukâṇḍam* and the *Yâjñavalkyakâṇḍam*.⁶ When these two were collected, and later on combined with one another, it must surely have been still unknown; for why otherwise should it have been passed over, when later on it gained the admission which its importance demanded? This of itself proves that the text is of late origin and a secondary product; still more so do its contents.

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⁶ Bṛih. 3–4.

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This so-called chief text teaches a double retribution, once by reward and punishment in the other world, and again by rebirth upon earth. This feature is evidently primitive, and is nothing more than a combination of the traditional future recompense found in the Veda with the novel recompense of the transmigration doctrine. We must therefore look for the original doctrine where it appears by itself alone and apart from combination with the ancient Vedic recompense in the other world. This leads us again to the Yâjñavalkhya sections,¹ in which we have already so often found the earliest form of Upanishad doctrine. In them we can still observe the origin of the doctrine of the soul's transmigration, together with the motives prompting it. According to a conception which is likewise already ancient Vedic, existing by the side of that usually current and hardly reconcilable with it, the eye of a man at death goes to the sun, his breath to the wind, his speech to the fire, his limbs to the different parts of the universe. With these thoughts already expressed in Rigv. X. 16. 3, and further expanded in S'atap. Br. 10. 3. 3. 8, is connected the passage which we here quote in full, since it gives expression for the first time, as far as our knowledge goes, to the thought of the soul's transmigration, which it regards as a great mystery; and at the same time it enables us to recognise the motive which led to this transference of the retribution from the future world to the present.

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¹ Bṛih. 3-4.

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“‘Yâjñavalkhya,’ so he (the son of Ritabhâga) spake, ‘when after a man’s death his speech enters into the fire, his breath into the wind, his eye into the sun, his manas into the moon, his ear into the pole, his body into the earth, his âtman into the âkâs'a (space), the hair of his

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body into herbs, the hair of his head into trees, his blood and seed into water,—‘where then does the man remain?’ Yâjñavalkhya answered:—‘Take my hand, Ârtabhâga, my good friend; on this matter we must come to an understanding alone by ourselves, not here in the company.’ Then they went aside, and conferred with one another; and what they said that was work, and what they commended that was work. In truth, a man becomes good by good works, evil by evil works.”¹

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¹ Bṛih. 3. 2. 13.

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In the last words the motive which lies at the basis of the doctrine of transmigration is clearly expressed. It is the great moral difference of character, existing from birth, upon which the singers of the Rigveda had already pondered,² and which the philosopher explains in our passage on the hypothesis that a man has already existed once before his birth, and that his inborn character is the fruit and consequence of his previous action.

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² Rigv. X. 117. 9.

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Yâjñavalkhya expresses himself more clearly still in another well-known passage.³ Here immediately after the departure of the soul from the body has been described it is said:—“‘Then his knowledge and works take him by the hand, and his former experience (pûrvaprajñâ). As a caterpillar, after it has reached the tip of a leaf, makes a beginning upon another, and draws itself over towards it, so the soul also, after it has shaken off the body, and freed itself from ignorance (i.e. empirical existence), makes a beginning upon another, and draws itself over towards it. As the goldsmith takes the material from a piece of carving, and from it chisels out another newer, fairer form, so also this soul, after it has shaken off the body and rid itself of ignorance, fashions for itself another newer, fairer form, whether it be of the fathers or the Gandharvas, or the gods or Prajâpati, or Brahmân or other living beings, . . . in proportion as a man consists now of this or that, just as he acts, just as he behaves, so will he be born. He who does good will be born good, he who does evil will be born evil; he becomes holy by holy deeds, evil by evil. Therefore, in truth, it is said:¹—‘Man is altogether and throughout composed of desire (*kâma*); in proportion to his desire so is his discretion (*kratu*), in proportion to his discretion so he performs acts (*karma*), in proportion to his acts so does it result to him.’ On this subject is the verse:—

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³ Bṛih. 4. 4. 2–6.

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¹ cp. S'atap. Br. 10. 6. 3. 1, Chând. 3. 14. 1.

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To that he clings, after that he strives with deeds,
By which his inner man and his desire hold fast;
He who has arrived at the final goal
Of the deeds which he here commits,
He returns from yonder world again
Back to this world of work.

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This is the experience of those who feel desire (*kâmayamâna*).”

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This passage does not yet recognise a twofold retribution, in a future world and again upon earth, but only one by transmigration. Immediately after death the soul enters into a new body, in accordance with its good or evil deeds. This is shown not only by the illustration of the caterpillar, which as soon as it has eaten up one leaf transfers itself to another, but also by the fact that the sphere of transmigration is extended through the worlds of men, fathers and gods up to Prajâpati and the personal Brahmân, that consequently the worlds of the fathers and the gods cannot be set apart, as according to the later theory, for a recompense by the side and independent of that by transmigration. It would be otherwise if in the appended verse we were obliged with S'ankara to understand *prâpya antam* as *bhuktvâ phalam*:—“After that he has enjoyed (in the other world) the fruit of his deeds, he returns from that world to this world of action.”

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In that case the verse (which under any circumstances is a later addition) would be in contradiction with the preceding words. It may however very well mean :—" After that he has finished with one life-course (like the caterpillar with its leaf), he returns after death to a new life."

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The eschatology therefore of Yājñavalkhya¹ does not yet recognise a twofold retribution, in a future world and again by a new life, but as is natural, only one by a rebirth in the sphere of empirical reality (the worlds of men, fathers and gods). In place of the ancient Vedic recompense in the other world, there is found the recompense by transmigration. It is no longer said of the man who obtains deliverance,—" He escapes recurrent death," but " he does not return back again."²

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¹ Bṛih. 1-5.

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² Chând. 4. 15. 6, 8. 15, Bṛih. 6. 2. 15, Pras'na 1. 10, etc.

5. Further Development of the Doctrine of Transmigration

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The ancient element in religious faiths is wont, as we have often had occasion to emphasise,³ to assert its traditionally consecrated right side by side with conceptions of later origin. Accordingly we see here also how by the side of the belief in a return to earth the ancient ideas of a recompense of good and evil in the other world persist, and become united with the doctrine of transmigration, so that now all good and evil actions experience a twofold retribution, once in the other world and again by a renewed life upon earth. And thus that which has already received a full recompense is recompensed yet again, and strictly speaking the entire conception of a recompense is destroyed. This is the case in the chief text of the doctrine of transmigration.⁴ We have however, as already remarked,¹ to distinguish two parts in this chief text, an older part,² which we propose to call the doctrine of the five fires (in a narrower sense), and a later,³ to which we give the name of the doctrine of the two ways. Two of the questions proposed at the outset refer to the former, the three others to the latter. The difference of the two parts is clearly shown by the fact that according to the doctrine of the two ways, faith, *śraddhā*, leads to Brahman without return, while according to the doctrine of the five fires it is this which above all constitutes the motive for the return to earth.

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³ Allgemeine Einleitung, p. 180, supra p. 117.

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⁴ Chând. 5. 3-10=Bṛih. 6. 2.

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¹ cp. Deussen, *Upan.*, p. 137, where a fuller discussion of this point will be found.

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² Chānd. 5. 4–9 (Bṛih. 6. 2. 9–14).

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³ Chānd. 5. 10 (Bṛih. 6. 2. 15).

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The first and older part, the doctrine of the five fires, apparently assumes, like the expressions of Yājñavalkhya that have been already quoted, the absence of recompense in the other world; but depicts how the soul, after it has journeyed to heaven on the burning of the corpse “in radiant form,”⁴ returns thence immediately, as it seems, through the three regions of the universe, heaven atmosphere and earth, and through the bodies of father and mother, these being the five transit stations, to a new existence. This is the reply to the question proposed at the beginning:—“Do you know how at the fifth sacrifice the waters come to speak with human voice?”⁵ Just as with Yājñavalkhya the doctrine of transmigration makes its appearance as a great mystery,⁶ so here also it comes before us veiled in secrecy as something new, not to be profaned. And just as to the Christians, who bury the body, the comparison of it to a seed buried in the earth suggested itself,⁷ so in India, where the corpse is burnt, it is natural to conceive of this burning as a sacrifice. As the libation poured into the fire (soma, milk, etc.) ascends in spiritual form to the gods, so the immortal part of man ascends to heaven from the funeral pyre. This immortal part is termed by Yâjñavalkhya *karman*, work,¹ and in our passage is described after the analogy of the sacrificial fluid as “water,” and later on as “faith.” These mystically veiled expressions cause the Vedanta theologians much trouble.² They signify however essentially the same, inasmuch as the peculiar essence and so to speak the soul of the work (*karman*) that ascends as the sacrificial vapour (*âpas*) is the faith (*śraddhâ*) with which it is offered. This “work,” in Yâjñavalkhya’s phrase, this “faith,” as our passage describes it, probably not independently of him, ascends to heaven as the immortal part of man, and is there five times in succession offered up by the gods in the sacrificial fires of the heaven, the atmosphere, the earth, the man, and the woman. By this means it is changed successively from faith to soma, from soma to rain, from rain to food, from food to seed, and from seed to the embryo; thus it is led to a renewed existence on earth.

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⁴ Bṛih. 6. 2. 14.

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⁵ Chānd. 5. 3. 3, Bṛih. 6. 2. 2.

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⁶ Bṛih. 3. 2. 13, *sup.* p. 329 f.

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⁷ 1 Cor. 15.

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¹ *sup.* p. 330.

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² *cp.* *Syst. d. Vedânta*, pp. 401, 408.

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The second half of the chief text, which we propose to call the doctrine of the two ways, marks a considerable further advance, and combining the ancient Vedic eschatology with the doctrine of transmigration, teaches a twofold recompense (a recompense therefore of that which has been already recompensed), on the one hand in the other world, and once again by a return to earth. To this end it represents the souls of the dead as ascending by two different ways, the *Devayâna* (way of the gods) and the *Pitṛiyâna* (way of the fathers). These lead through several stations, that at times appear strange but which yet admit of explanation, if we take into consideration the origin of the doctrine. As early as the Rigveda and the Brâhmaṇas mention is frequently made of the *Devayâna*, which was originally in all probability the way by which Agni bore the sacrificial gifts to the gods, or the latter descended to them. It was then also the way by which the pious dead ascended to the gods, in order to live in eternal felicity with them, or, as later times preferred to express it, with Brahman. A more detailed description of the way of the gods is given in Chând. 4. 15. 5. On the burning of the corpse the soul enters into the flame, thence into the day, thence into the bright half of the month, thence into the bright half of the year (the summer season), thence into the year, thence into the sun, thence into the moon, thence into the lightning, and so finally into Brahman. The use of periods of time here as divisions of space occurs elsewhere also,¹ and needs in India no further remark. The meaning of the whole is that the soul on the way of the gods reaches regions of ever-increasing light, in which is concentrated all that is bright and radiant, as stations on the way to Brahman, who is himself the “light of lights” (*jyotishâm jyotis*).

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¹ S'atap. Br. 1. 3. 5. 11, Chând. 2. 10. 5.

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The *Pitṛiyâna* or way of the fathers was next explained after the analogy of this *Devayâna*. As everything that was bright and radiant was directed to the latter, so to the former the counterpart of darkness and gloom. The difficulty however arose here that it was impossible to omit the moon from the *Pitṛiyâna*, and that this already belonged to the *Devayâna*. For, according to an old somewhat obscure conception, the moon was the abode of the departed,² and thus later on³ its waxing and waning were brought into connection with the ascent and descent of the souls. Maintaining therefore the moon as the final goal, the *Pitṛiyâna* was explained in other respects in analogy with the *Devayâna*, the soul entering into the smoke not the flame, the night not the day, the dark half of the month not the bright, the months of winter not of summer, the world of the fathers not the year, the âkâs'a¹ not the sun, and finally as in the Devayâna into the moon, not however as a transit station, but in order to remain there “as long as a remnant (of good works) yet exists.² Our text skilfully evades giving a description of the transitory blessedness in the moon. In its place the ancient idea of the soma cup of the gods makes its appearance, which, after they have drained it, is each time refilled.³ As far as this repletion is possible by means of the souls,⁴ the latter are enjoyed by the gods; and this is again interpreted in the later Vedânta of a mutual enjoyment of the gods and the pious dead in intercourse with one another. The felicity in the moon lasts yâvat sampâtam “as long as a remnant exists.”⁵ In this it is implied that the retribution there is complete. Nevertheless there follows a second recompense upon earth. The descent is here not, as in the doctrine of the five fires, a passing through the five sacrificial fires as faith, soma, rain, food and seed, but a progressive materialisation of the substance of the souls into ether, wind, smoke, mist, cloud, rain, herbage, food and seed, to which succeeds the entrance into the womb of a new mother and the renewed birth. By the side of the way of the gods, which for the wise and faithful leads to an entrance into Brahman without return, and the way of the fathers, which in requital for sacrifice, works of piety, and asceticism guides to the moon and thence back to earth, our text originally but only obscurely pointed to the “third place” as the fate of the wicked, who are born again as lower animals.

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² Kaush. 2. 8.

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³ Bṛih. 6. 2. 16, Kaush. 1. 2, but not Kaush. 2. 9.

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¹ Only in the Chând.

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² Chând. 5. 10. 5.

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³ cp. Rigv. X. 85. 5 :—“when they drain thee, O god, thou dost thereupon well up again.”

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⁴ Kaush. 2. 8, 1. 2.

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⁵ Chând. 5. 10. 5.

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The additions which are wanting in Bṛih. 6. 2. 16, and inserted in Chând. 5. 10. 7 alone, take us a step further in the development of these ideas. In contrast with the original text of the doctrine of the two ways, a distinction is here drawn among the souls returning from the moon between those of "pleasing conduct" and those of "abominable conduct." The former are born again as Brâhmans, Kshatriyas or Vais'yas, the latter as dogs, pigs or c'aṇḍâlas. By this means the "third place" by the side of the ways of the gods and the fathers becomes now superfluous, and ought entirely to disappear, but is nevertheless allowed to remain.

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This contradiction, like the above-mentioned incongruity involved in the position of the moon on the ways both of the gods and the fathers, seems to have been early noticed. Kaush. 1. 2 is to be regarded as an attempt to relieve both these disadvantages. Here it is emphatically declared, with the view of obviating the necessity for the "third place," that "all who depart from this world go without exception to the moon." There however their knowledge is put to the test, and according to the result they go either by the *Devayâna*¹ which leads to Brahman without return, or (the name *Pitṛiyâna* is not used) they enter upon a new birth, "whether as a worm or a fly or a fish or a bird or a lion or a boar or a serpent or a tiger or a man, or as something else." This enumeration seems to be an imitation of that found in Chând. 6. 9. 3, 6. 10. 2; for there it was justified by the context, while here it appears somewhat superfluous.

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¹ Kaush. 1. 3.

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Of later passages, which all to a greater or less extent depend upon that already discussed, we propose in conclusion to cite only the most important. In Kâṭh. 2. 10 the transitoriness of the treasure of good works¹ is taught. In reference to the return it is further said:²—

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¹ *s'evadhi*, as in Taitt. Bṛ. 3. 10. 11. 2.

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² Kâṭh. 5. 7.

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One goes into the womb of a mother,
Becoming incarnate in bodily form;
Another enters into a plant,
Each according to his deeds, according to his knowledge.

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Muṇḍ. 1. 2. 10 exhibits more evidently its dependence on Chând. 5. 3–10:—

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Having tasted joy on the summit of the heaven of works,
They return back into this world, and even lower.

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In a later passage also reference is made to the five fires of the *Pañcâgnividyâ*:³—

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³ Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 5 ; cp. Chând. 5. 4 f.

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From it originates the fire, whose fuel the sun is,⁴
From the soma the rain springs,⁵ plants from the earth,
The husband pours out the stream upon the wife,⁶
Many descendants are born to the spirit.

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⁴ Chând. 5. 4. 1.

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⁵ Chând. 5. 5. 2.

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⁶ Chând. 5. 8. 2.

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The ways of the fathers and of the gods are described in Pras'na 1. 9–10 on the basis of Chând. 5. 10 (misunderstanding however the expression "*s'raddhâ tapa*" iti of Chând. 5. 10. 1). For confirmation reference is made to the verse Ṛigv. I. 164. 12, which nevertheless has nothing to do with the subject.

XV. Emancipation

1. Significance of the Doctrine of Emancipation

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Love of life is the strongest of all the instincts implanted in human nature. In order to preserve life we make any sacrifice. We desire a long life for ourselves and our friends; we congratulate those who attain it, and commiserate those who are called away before their time. And the reason of our mourning for one so prematurely deceased is (when once we give to ourselves a clear account of it) not so much that he is wanting to us, as rather that we are wanting to him. We pity him because he has been so early deprived of existence, as though this were a supreme good. When we console ourselves over the death of a relative by recalling the sufferings, perils and hardships, from which he has escaped, this is the voice of reflection. A purely natural feeling expresses itself differently. It tells us that the loss of life is the most serious by which a man can be overtaken; that the most severe punishment is always that of death. Indeed, so strong in us is the instinct for life, that our whole existence is nothing more than this desire unfolding itself in space as the body and in time as the life.

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How is it possible under these circumstances that in the course of development there could arise repeatedly amongst men and become established a disposition to regard that craving for life, upon which our entire empirical existence depends, as something which ought not properly to be? So that man's true duty is conceived to be not the satisfaction of the natural craving, but its suppression, and therefore the highest goal appears as a release (*moksha*), and that not such a release as death brings from a definite existence, but release from existence in general, which as our innate consciousness shows is not to be attained simply through death.

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This rarest of all changes of inclination may be traced nowhere more clearly than in India, where deliverance, unmodified by the play upon it of the accidental events of history, appears not as a ransom, an atonement, a propitiation, etc., but merely as a release from empirical existence with all its desires, these last being regarded as fetters (*bandha, graha*), as bonds (*granthi*), which bind the soul to the objects of sense. Even in India it was not always so, and a long period of development, a vast interval, separates the poets of the Rigveda, who, filled with a warm desire for life, shrink from death,¹ and wish for themselves and their posterity a life of a hundred years, from the words with which the greatest Indian poet closes his masterpiece :—

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¹ Rigv. VII. 89.

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May he, the god, who fashioned me by his almighty power,
Himself avert from me and destroy my re-birth.

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Yet the philosophy of the future will often turn its glance to India in order to study the doctrine of emancipation in the land of its birth. We propose now to do what we can to render intelligible this most remarkable of all doctrines.

2. Origin of the Doctrine of Emancipation

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Albrecht Weber in one of his very remarkable expositions² gave utterance to the conjecture that the doctrine of emancipation is necessitated by the dogma of transmigration. The idea that for the deeds of this brief life either eternal reward or eternal punishment must follow in the other world would have jarred upon the gentle disposition and thoughtful mind of the Indian. From this dilemma he tried to save himself by the dogma of transmigration. In reality however he only became deeper entangled, since on the eternal retribution *a parte post* is imposed yet another *a parte ante*. He therefore eventually saved himself by "cutting the knot," by representing the destruction of the entire individual existence as effected in emancipation; so that now that which in the olden time was reckoned as the severest punishment appears as the supreme reward of all endeavour. Apart however from the fact that the emancipation of pre-Buddhistic times was from beginning to end no annihilation, but rather the precise opposite, a transcending of that which was in itself worthless, this ingenious explanation fails to harmonise with the course of historical development, for the additional reason that, as we shall see, the doctrine of emancipation is older than that of transmigration, and cannot therefore be a consequence of the latter.

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