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The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c9.s3.t4: 5. The Path into the Beyond

The System of the Vedânta according to Bâdarâyana's Brahma-Sûtras and Çankara's Commentary c9.s3.t4

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5. The Path into the Beyond

c9.s3.t4.1

Sūtram 4, 2, 7.

c9.s3.t4.2

After the soul has drawn back into itself its perceptive powers, the organs, in the way just described, it then (according to Bṛih. 4, 4, 1) enters into the heart (in which, however, according to p. 311 above it already is); "thereupon the point of "the heart becomes luminous; from this, after it has become "luminous, the soul departs, either through the eye, or through "the skull, or through other parts of the body" (Bṛih. 4, 4, 2, above p. 192 f.); up to the moment when the point of the heart becomes luminous and thereby lights up the way (p. 1104, 9), everything is the same for the ignorant and for the (exoteric) knower; here, however, the way divides, in that the knowers depart through the head, the ignorant through other parts of the body (p. 1104, 10), for thus says the Scripture (Chānd. 8, 6, 6 = Kāṭh. 6, 16):

c9.s3.t4.3

“One hundred and one are the veins of the heart,
“Of these the one leads upward to the head,
“Who upward mounts by that, has conquered death;
“The others serve to lead the soul elsewhere.”

c9.s3.t4.4

While the knower thus mounts by the 101st vein ¹³⁰ to tread the Path of the Gods, which, as the exoteric Path to Liberation, will occupy us further in the following part, the others depart through other veins (p. 1105, 3). The further stages of the Pitṛyâna, upon which Bâdarâyaṇa and Çaṅkara give no further details, are according to the doctrine of the Five Fires, the following, in their order: (1) Smoke, while the Devayâna leads through Flame. Originally in both cases the smoke and flame of the funeral pyre seem to have been meant (although already in Chând. 4, 15, 5, translated above p. 166, the entrance into the arcis, ray or better flame, is made independent of the performance of the funeral ceremony); in our work, which makes the departure of the soul occur, not on the burning, but already on the growing cold of the corpse (p. 402), Çaṅkara explains the “flame” (arcis), as we shall see here after, as “the Godhead presiding over the flame,” and in accordance with this, in the Commentaries on Bṛih. 1059, 11. Chând. p. 341, 13, “Smoke” is also taken to mean the Godhead of the smoke.—The following stages also are referred to the Gods presiding over these phenomena: (2) Night, (3) the halves of the month wherein the moon decreases, (4) the halves of the years wherein the days decrease. We must here think of these not as phases of time, but spatially as planes one above another, through which the soul mounts upward, in order to reach the following stages; these are: (5) the world of the Fathers, (6) (only Chând.) the Ether, (7) the Moon, upon which retribution takes place, subject to the limitations, of which we have now to treat.

c9.s3.t4.5

¹³⁰ This artery is called suṣhumnâ Maitri-Up. 6, 21; as also in the Commentaries on Bṛih. p. 877, 8, on Praçna p. 190, 8, on Taitt. p. 25, 14, on Kâṭh. p. 157, 5 and in the gloss to Çaṅkara’s Commentary on the Brahmasûtras p. 1104, 24. In the latter itself, on the other hand, we do not yet find this name but in place of it paraphrases such as that also employed on Chând. 529, 7. 563, 6. 570, 5,—: mûrdhanyâ nâḍî (cf. especially p. 1105, 1).

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