The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c34.s3.10

v2.c34.s3.10

There is much evidence of connexion with stars. This, however, is very different from a normal transmigration: it obviously is connected with the belief in the departure of the souls to the regions of heaven, and on the philosophical side it appears as the doctrine of the identity of the soul with Āditya.¹ The epic notoriously is fond of seeing the souls of the great heroes and priests of the past in the constellations of the heavens. The Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa² calls the stars women and the light of those who by their good works have reached the heaven. The same view is found in the Sūtra of Āpastamba.³ It is possible also that the same idea may be referred to in the Rigveda⁴ in the reference to the seers who watch the sun, or those who stand high in heaven through the giving of plenteous largesse to the priest.⁵ Perhaps too the name of the Great Bear as the Seven Seers,⁶ of one of the Pleiades as Arundhatī, and even the view of the Kṛttikās as wives of the Bears, may be traced to this idea. The view that the moon is the abode of the souls is found also in the later period, but there is no identification with the moon, but merely by a transfer of ideas the change of the resting-place of the souls.⁷