Vedic Mythology c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

One who reads the Veda in a particular way is said to be freed from dying again and to attain identity of nature (*sātmatā*) with Brahmā (ŚB. 10, 5, 6⁹). As a reward for knowing a certain mystery a man is born again, in this world (ŚB. 1, 5, 3¹⁴). Thus we have in the ŚB. the beginnings of the doctrine of retribution and transmigration. That doctrine (as well as the doctrine of hell) is not only to be found in the earliest Sūtras⁹, but appears fully developed in the later Brāhmaṇa period, that is to say, in the oldest Upaniṣads, the Chāndogya, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, and especially the Kaṭha Upaniṣad¹⁰. In the latter Upaniṣad the story is related of Naciketas, who pays a visit to the realm of Death and is told by the latter, that those who have not sufficient merit for heaven and immortality, fall again and again into the power of death and enter upon the cycle of existence (*saṃsāra*), being born again and again with a body or as a stationary object. He who controls himself reaches Viṣṇu's highest place. On the other hand, there is no hell for those not found worthy¹¹.