The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s10.41

v2.c40.s10.41

That this doctrine does not teach the transmigration from one body to another is asserted by Schrader,¹ but this view can only be taken as a *tour de force*, even apart from the appended verse, which expressly makes the transmigration clear. It is also certain that, apart from the verse which is doubtful in sense,² it is a simple transmigration by reason of character or action. It is a change of the soul³ from one body into another, and the instances cited are better bodies, as they are of better results from good action in the present life : the other beings who are mentioned are, therefore, to be understood of higher beings, in all likelihood, than man. It is only in the later Mādhyandina recension of this passage that the form of a man is inserted. Yājñavalkya, then, considered that transmigration was the fate of men, who had not the knowledge of the identity of the individual and the absolute, which ended the possibility of transmigration of any kind : exactly what sort of fate awaited the bad, he does not say, but clearly they would take on at best the forms of beings inferior to themselves, perhaps men of lower degree, animals, &c.