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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c9.s2: XXX. The Vedic Doctrine of the Five Fires

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c9.s2

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Contents

XXX. The Vedic Doctrine of the Five Fires

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Chândogya-Up. 5, 3—10 (Bṛihadāraṇyaka-Up. 6, 2).

1. Introduction

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Çvetaketu, the son of Āruṇi (cf. above p. 262), comes to the assembly of the Pañcālas. There king Pravāhaṇa, son of Jibala, asks him five questions:

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1. "Knowest thou whither the creatures go from hence?"
2. "Knowest thou how they return hither again?"
3. "Knowest thou the parting of the two ways, the Path of the Gods and the Path of the Fathers?"
4. "Knowest thou why that world does not become full?"
5. "Knowest thou how at the fifth offering the waters speak with human voice?"

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To all these questions Çvetaketu knows no answer. Downcast, he comes to his father and complains that he has been inadequately taught by him. The latter declares that he himself is unable to answer the questions asked. Both then set out and come to the king who grants Āruṇi a boon. As this boon Āruṇi chooses the solution of the questions asked, and after some resistance the king consents to impart the following instructions to him and says he is the first Brahman who had received them (cf. above p. 18).

2. The Five Sacrificial Offerings

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As in the sacrifice the offerings are thrown into the fire to come forth from it again in a spiritualised form, so too the fire, wherein the corpse is burnt, is a sacrificial fire, through which man passes to come forth out of it again "in a luminous form" (Bṛih.). This conception of the rising from the body as an offering, is also applied by the section under discussion to the descent of the soul into the body from the Beyond: this descent is a passing through five transformations, which are spoken of as five successive sacrificial acts and are described in detail.

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The first sacrificial fire, through which man passes, is the other world; its elements (fuel, smoke, flame, coals, sparks) are the sun, its rays, the day, the moon, and the stars. In this fire the Gods offer Faith, and from this offering goes forth King Soma.

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The second sacrificial fire, consisting of wind, vapour, thunderbolt, and hail, is Parjanya, that is, here: the storm cloud; in this fire the Gods offer king Soma, and from this offering goes forth Rain.

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The third sacrificial fire, consisting of the year (that is time), space, night, and the cardinal points is the Earth (Bṛih.: this world); in this fire the Gods offer rain, and from this offering goes forth Food.

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The fourth sacrificial fire, consisting of speech, breath, tongue, eye, ear, is Man; in this fire the Gods offer Food, and from this offering goes forth the Seed.

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The fifth sacrificial fire, consisting of the generative organs and functions of woman, is Woman; in this fire the Gods offer the seed, and from this offering goes forth the Embryo.

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"Thus it happens that at the fifth offering the waters [one may understand by this either the subtle body or the moral character; of this, later] speak with human voice. Then when this embryo, surrounded by its chorion, has lain for ten months or however long it may be, in the womb, it is born. After it is born, it lives as long as may be. Then when it dies, it is borne away to its destination in the fire, even thither whence it came, whence it arose."

3. The Path of the God (devayāna)

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"Those now who know this, and those others who practise "faith and penance (Bṛih.: Truth) in the forest, enter into the "flame, [of the funeral pyre] from the flame into the day, from "the day into the light half of the month, from the light half “of the month into the summer months [literally: into the six “months in which the sun journeys northwards], from the “months into the year, from the year into the sun (Bṛih.: the “world of the Gods), from the sun into the moon, from the “moon into the lightning—there indeed is a man, who is not “as a human being, he leads them to Brahman.” (Addition in Bṛih.: “there in the world of Brahman they dwell far, far “away. For such there is no return.”) “This is the Path of the Gods.”

4. The Path of the Fathers (pitṛiyâna)

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“On the other hand, those who [only] practise sacrifices, “pious deeds, and alms-giving in the village (Bṛih.: who “through offerings, alms, and penance gain heaven), these “enter into the smoke [of the funeral pyre], from the smoke “into the night, from the night into the other [dark] half of “the month, from the other half of the month into the six “winter months [literally: the six months, in which the sun “journeys southwards]; these do not reach the year, but pass “from the months into the world of the Fathers, from the “world of the Fathers into the Âkâça, from the Âkâça into “the moon, who is King Soma, therefore he is the sustenance “of the Gods, him the Gods enjoy.” (Otherwise Bṛih.: “When “they have attained to the moon, they become food; in that “place, just as one enjoys King Soma with the words: ‘swell “up and shrink,’¹²⁵ so also are they enjoyed by the Gods.”)

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¹²⁵ 1. The Soma-plant is placed in water which makes it swell; then it is pressed, which makes it shrink and the Soma-drink trickles out.—2. To this earthly Soma corresponds as a heavenly Soma the moon, which decreases when the Gods drink it, and then increases again; Rigv. 10, 85, 5: *yat tvâ, deva, prapibanti, tata’ âpyâyase punaḥ*.—3. The increase and decrease of the moon is however on the other side conditioned by the rising of the dead to the moon, where they enjoy the fruit of their works, and their subsequent re-descent to a new life upon earth.—4. A combination of these ideas gives us the concept, that the dead, in virtue of their works, rise to the moon, where they, that is, their works, are enjoyed by the Gods (according to Atharva-V. 3, 29, 1, the Gods take only ¹/₁₆ of the works as tribute), until they are consumed. The being-enjoyed by the Gods is on the other hand an enjoying of the fruit of

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“—After they have dwelt there, so long as any residuum is left, they return by the way they came, back again into the Âkâça, from the Âkâça into the wind; after they have become wind, they become smoke, after becoming smoke, vapour, after becoming vapour, cloud, after becoming cloud, they descend as rain; these same are born here below as rice and barley, as herbs and trees, as sesame and beans. Thence truly it is more difficult to escape; for only the man who eats him as food, who emits him as seed, only his increase (descendant) does he become.—(The following down to the end only in Chând.) Now those whose conduct here was fair, for them there is the prospect that they will come into a fair womb, the womb of a Brahman, or a Kshatriya or a Vaiçya;—those, however, whose conduct here was foul, for them there is the prospect that they will come into a foul womb, a dog's womb, a swine's womb, or (even) into the womb of a Caṇḍâla,”

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5. The third Place.

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(Chândogya-Up.) “But upon neither of these two ways are to be found those minute, ever-returning beings, who originate and pass away, as quickly as one says it bites. This is the third place.— “Therefore that world grows not full.”

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(Bṛihadâraṇyaka-Up.) “But those who know not these two paths, those are the worms, birds, and whatsoever bites.”

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6. Epilogue (only in Chândogya-Up.).

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“Therefore should one beware! — On this there is this verse:

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works on the part of the dead; just as, when a man enjoys a woman, so the woman on her side enjoys the man (Çank. on Chând. p. 343, 10). The person and his works melt into one another in these fancies; more of this, later.

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“The thief of gold and drinker of strong drinks, “The slayer of a Brahman, and he who defiles his teacher’s bed, “These four perish and fifthly he who goes with them.”

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“But on the other hand, he who thus knows these five fires, “he verily consorts not with them and is not stained with their “evil, but remains pure and unspotted in the world of the “pure, he who knows this, who knows this.”—

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7. On the two Recensions of the Doctrine of the Five Fires.

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The difference between these two passages cited from Brih. and Chând. is, in spite of all verbal agreement, very considerable. Penance (*tapas*) according to Brih. does not liberate but according to Chând. it does liberate; further the whole system of the three paths after death is essentially modified and much confused by the additions in Chând.; their confusion is increased in the Vedânta-sûtras since they go back generally to Chând., but also to Brih., so that it is hardly possible to obtain a uniform and consistent view.

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The conception in Brih. is perfectly clear: the wise by the *Devayâna* enter into liberation, the performers of pious works rise on the *Pitriyâna* to the moon, and thence descend, as it seems, only into human bodies. Those who possess neither knowledge nor works are shut out from both paths and enter as punishment into the bodies of animals.

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It is otherwise in Chând.; here too the Path of the Fathers according to the opening words, is destined for those who have practised pious works. But this determination is quite lost sight of in the addition at the end, which distinguishes, among those who return upon the *Pitriyâna*, between those of fair conduct and those of foul conduct and accordingly destines the former to life in one of the three higher castes and the latter either to animal life or to existence in a lower caste. Through this “the third place” properly becomes superfluous and is left to low and short lived animals, which accordingly, as it seems, remain entirely shut out from ascent and descent in the transformation of the soul, quite contrary to the drift of the Vedânta system.—It is a further inconsistency, that Chând. recognises both reward and punishment for those who go by the Pitriyâna on their return to earth-life, but in the Beyond on the contrary reward only; this inconsistency our system removes by inserting, as contrast to the reward on the moon, the pains of hell in the Beyond also. How it further finds a way through the contradictions of its Vedic sources, we shall see further on.

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We turn now to an examination of the single phases of transmigration; and in this we shall give the remaining Vedic texts in their proper places, assuming on the other hand that the main passage translated in the present chapter is always present in the reader's mind.

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