A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c6.s3.t2.30

c6.s3.t2.30

very same verse¹ which we find in the celebrated Puruṣasūkta, which has been rightly recognised as one of the late productions of the Vedic period. It even contains the famous verse² on the “Two Birds” which later plays such an important part in the Muṇḍaka Upanishad. All these things point unmistakably to the fact that the hymn of the Ṛgveda which we are considering must be regarded as a late hymn of the Ṛgveda, even though it has the privilege of being included in the canon of the first Maṇḍala. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the very important revelations which it makes on the subject of the idea of transmigration have been strangely neglected. In spite of the Herakleitean style in which the whole hymn has been composed, in spite of the fact that it contains allusions to such various conceptions as those of the Fire, the Cow and the Calf, and the First-born of the Law, a psychological vein is ever present through the whole hymn, and among other things, the reference to the “Two Birds,” namely the individual soul and the universal soul, makes it unmistakable that the poet is darkly expressing, in his own metaphorical way, his ideas about the nature of soul and the relation between the individual and universal souls. For example, the poet asks us, who has ever seen the precise mode in which the boneless soul, the very life-blood and informing spirit of the earth, comes to inhabit a bony tenement? And if a man did not know this himself, who has ever moved out of himself and gone to the wise man to receive illumination on it?³ Then the seer says categorically that this breathing, speedful, moving life-principle is firmly established inside these tenements of clay.¹ Moreover he tells us that the immortal principle, conjoined with the mortal one, moves backwards and forwards by virtue of its natural power; but the wonder of it is, the poet goes on to say, that the mortal and immortal elements keep moving ceaselessly in opposite directions, with the result that people are able to see the one but are unable to see the other.² These two last verses were regarded by Roth and Böhtlingk and Geldner as against Oldenberg to have supplied sufficient evidence as to the proof of the existence of the idea of transmigration in the Ṛigveda, as they rightly thought that the verses tell us that the soul is a moving, speedful life-principle which comes and goes, moves backwards and forwards, comes in contact with the body and then moves from it in the opposite direction. Oldenberg is evidently wrong when he understands verse 38 to refer to the morning and evening stars, as he must acknowledge that the verse speaks of the mortal and immortal principles. But the culminating point of the whole doctrine is reached when the poet tells us that he himself saw (probably with his mind's eye) the guardian of the body, moving unerringly by backward and forward paths, clothed in collected and diffusive splendour, and that it kept on *returning frequently* inside the mundane regions.³ That this "guardian" is no other than the soul may be seen from the way in which verse 31 follows immediately on verse 30 which mentions the "breathing, speedful, moving life-principle"; moreover, the frequentative (*varīvarti*) tells us the *frequency* of the soul's return to this world. It was with this idea uppermost in his mind that the poet talks, in Herakleitean fashion, of those who come hither as those who are moving away, and those who are moving back as already returning hither, as Herakleitos should talk of the gods being mortals and the men immortals.