I. Brihad-araTiyaka VI. (8) 2, 13:

' A man lives so long as he lives, and then when he dies, they take him to the fire, (the funeral pile) ; and then the fire is his fire, the fuel is his fuel, the
1 The translations here given differ in several places from those given in my translation in the S. B. E., vols. i and xv. In my translation in the S. B. E. I placed myself more completely on the standpoint of Sankara, except in cases where he was clearly wrong. In the present translations I have tried, as much as possible, not to allow myself to be influenced by Sankara, in order to be quite fair towards Ramanu and the Vedanta-sutras. I have also availed myself of some con- jectural emendations, proposed by other scholars, wherever they seemed to me reasonable.
JOURNEY OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. 115
smoke his smoke, the light his light, the coals his coals, and the sparks his sparks. In that fire the Devas, the gods, offer man (as a sacrifice), and from that sacrifice man (purusha) rises, brilliant in colour.
' Those who thus know this and those who in the forest worship the True as faith1, go to light, from light to day, from day to the waxing half of the moon (new moon), from the waxing half of the moon to the six months when the sun goes North2, from those six months to the world of the Devas, from the world of the Devas to the sun, from the sun to the place of lightning3. When they have reached the place of lightning, a person, not a man4, comes near them
1 Yagwavalkya III. 192 explains this by sraddhaya paraya yuta/«, endowed with the highest faith. The exact meaning is not clear. The True is meant for Brahman.
' Cf. Deussen, Sutr., p. 19 ; Syst., p. 509.
3 On the connection of lightning with the moon, see Hillebrandt, Ved. Myihologie, vol. i. pp. 345, 421.
4 The right reading here and in the .SMndogya-Upanishad IV. 15, 5, seems to be purusho amanavaA. We have, however, for the other reading manasaft the authority of Yagwavalkya III. 194, but amanavaft is strongly supported by the Vedanta-sutras and by the commentators (see p. 134). Professor Boehtlingk prefers manasa/i, and translates : ' Now conies the spirit who dwells in the thinking organ and takes them to the places of Brahman.' This cannot be.
Sankara here explains purusho manasa/j as a man produced by Brahman through his mind. This is possible, and better at all events than Boehtlingk's translation. For purusho manasaft, if it means the spirit that dwells in the thinking organ, as, for instance, in Taitt. Up. I. 6, could not be said to approach the souls, for they would be themselves the purushas who have reached the lightning. If we read manasa, wo could only take it for a purusha, a person, though not a material being, who may therefore be called manasa/*, either as a being visible to the mind (manas) only, or as a being created by the mind, in fact a kind of spirit in. the form of a man, though not a real man. I prefer, however, to read amanava. What confirms me in this belief is that in the Avesta also, which shares many ideas about the journey of the souls after death with the Upanishads, we read that when the soul of the departed approaches the Paradise of the
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116 LECTURE V.
and leads them to the worlds of Brahman. In these worlds of Brahman they dwell for ever and ever (para/t par(ivata/i) 1, and there is no return for them.'
Here you see a distinctly mythological view of a future life, some of it hardly intelligible to us. The departed is supposed to rise from the pile on which his body was burnt, and to move on to the light (ar/ds) 2. This is intelligible, but after the light follows the day, and after the day the six months of the sun's journey to the North. What can be the meaning of that"? It might mean that the departed has to wait a day and then six months before he is admitted to the world of the Devas, and then to the sun, and then to the place of lightning. But it may mean also that there are personal representatives of all these stations, and that the departed has to meet these half-divine beings on his onward journey. This is Badarayana's view. Here you see the real difficulties of a trans- Endless Lights, a spirit, or, as we read in one of the Yashts (S. B. E., xxiii. p. 317), one of the faithful, who has departed before him, approaches the new comer and asks him several questions, before Ahura Mazda gives him the oil and the food that are destined in heaven for the youth of good thoughts, words, and deeds. This shows how careful wo should be not to be too positive in our translations of difficult passages. We may discard the authority of Saiikara, possibly even that of Badarilyana, who takes purusho amanava/j as a person, not a man. But before we can do this, we ought to show by parallel passages that purusho manasaft, not manomaya/j, has ever been used in the Upanishads in the sense of the spirit who dwells in the thinking organ. Till that is done, it would be better for Professor Boehtlingk not to treat the traditional interpretations of Badarayana and Saiikara with such undisguised contempt.
1 This seems to correspond to siisvati/t sama/t in V. 10, 1, and to have a temporal rather than local meaning.
* This cannot be meant for the fire of the funeral pile by which he has been burnt, for the dead is supposed to bo in the lire, and consumed by it. It is sometimes supposed to be meant for the Agniloka, the world of Agni.
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lation. The words are clear enough, but the difficulty is how to connect any definite ideas with the words.
So much for those who pass on the Devayana, the, Path of the Gods, from the funeral pile to the worlds of Brahman, and who are not subject to a return, i. e. to new births. If, however, the departed has not yet reached a perfect knowledge of Brahman, he proceeds after death on the Pitr&yana, the Path of the Fathers. Of them the Brihad-ara^yaka (VI. (8) 2, 16) says :
' But they who conquer the worlds by sacrifice, charity, and austerity go to smoke, from smoke to night, from night to the waning half of the moon, from the waning half of the moon to the six months when the sun moves South ; from these months to the world of the Fathers, from the world of the Fathers to the moon. Having reached the moon, they become food, and the gods consume them there, as they con- sume Soma (moon) the King, saying, Wax and wane ! But when this is over, they go back to the same ether1, from ether to air, from air to rain, from rain to the earth. And when they have reached the earth, they become food, they are offered again in the fire which is man, and thence are born in the fire of woman2. Then they rise upwards to the worlds, and go the same round as before. Those, however, who know neither of the two paths, become worms, insects, and creeping things.'
We have now to examine some other passages in the Upanishads, where the same two paths are described.
1 See £Mnd. Up. V. 10, 4.
" This sentence is left out by Boehfclingk ; why ? See Up. V. 7 and 8.
118 LECTURE V.