The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s10.34

v2.c40.s10.34

The earliest notice of the doctrine of transmigration preserved for us, apart from a few very dubious allusions in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa,⁶ is to be traced in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad in the section ascribed to Yājñavalkya. It is founded in an idea which is plainly expressed but merely as an incidental view in the Rigveda⁷ that at death the eye of man goes to the sun, the breath to the wind, the speech to the fire, and the members are also dispersed. This conception which has no importance for the Rigveda is developed in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa⁸ in one of the passages which approach the Upaniṣad character, and in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka,⁹ after a long enumeration of the modes of disposal of the parts of man in this way, it is asked where the man then remains. On this Yājñavalkya takes the questioner Ārtabhāga apart and confers with him in secret, and what they conversed about was work, and what they commended that was work. In truth, it is added, a man becomes good by good works, evil by evil. In a subsequent passage¹⁰ the matter is further explained by the doctrine that on death, like a caterpillar—or grass leech—proceeding from one leaf to another, the soul, having shaken off the body and freed itself from ignorance, presumably empirical life, makes a beginning on another body. As a goldsmith chisels out a newer and fairer form from a piece of carving, so the soul fashions for itself another newer, fairer form, whether it be of the Fathers, or the Gandharvas, or the gods, or Prajāpati, or Brahman, or other living beings;¹¹ just as man 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. Hence is explained the view that man is composed of desire, in proportion to desire is his will, in proportion to his will he performs acts, and according to his acts does it happen to him. Or, as an appended verse has it, having attained the end of his deeds committed on earth, he returns from yonder world to the world of work.