Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s14.2.4

v1.c8.s14.2.4

Later we find the conception that those who merely perform rites without knowledge are born again and repeatedly become the food of death.⁴ In another passage⁵ there is suggested the Upaniṣad conception of a higher state than that of desire and its fulfilment, the condition of true immortality. “This soul is the end of all this. It abides in the midst of all the waters; it is supplied with all objects of desire; it is free from desire, and possesses all objects of desire, for it desires nothing.” “By knowledge men ascend to that condition in which desires have passed away. Thither gifts do not reach nor austere devotees who are destitute of knowledge. For one who does not possess this knowledge does not attain that world by gifts or by rigorous abstention. It pertains only to those who have such knowledge.”⁶ The Brāhmaṇas contain all the suggestions necessary for the development of the doctrine of rebirth. They are, however, only suggestions, while individual immortality is the main tendency. It is left for the Upaniṣads to systematise these suggestions into the doctrine of rebirth. While the conceptions of karma and rebirth are unquestionably the work of the Aryan mind, it need not be denied that the suggestions may have come from the aborigines, who believed that after death their souls lived in animal bodies.