that the completed philosopher abhors is looked upon as a
blessing, viz., rebirth, body and all, even on earth.[56] Thus in one
passage, as a reward for knowing some divine mystery (as often
happens, this mystery is of little importance, only that 'spring is
born again out of winter'), the savant is to be 'born again in this
world' _(punar ha v[=a] 'asmin loke bhavati, Cat. Br._ i. 5. 3. 14).
The esoteric wisdom is here the transfer of the doctrine of
metempsychosis to spring. Man has no hope of immortal life (on
earth);[57] but, by establishing the holy fires, and especially by
establishing in his inmost soul the immortal element of fire, he lives
the full desirable length of life (_ib_. ii. 2. 2. 14. To the later
sage, length of life is undesirable). But in yonder world, where the
sun itself is death, the soul dies again and again. All those on the
other side of the sun, the gods, are immortal; but all those on this
side are exposed to this death. When the sun wishes, he draws out the
vitality of any one, and then that one dies; not once, but, being
drawn up by the sun, which is death, into the very realm of death (how
different to the conception of the sun in the Rig Veda!) he dies over
and over again.[58] But in another passage it is said that when the
sacrificer is consecrated he 'becomes one of the deities'; and one
even finds the doctrine that one obtains 'union with Brahm[=a],' which
is quite in the strain of the Upanishads; but here such a saying can
refer only to the upper castes, for "the gods talk only to the upper
castes" (_Cal. Br._. xi. 4. 4. 1; iii. 1. 1. 8-10). The dead man is
elsewhere represented as going to heaven 'with his whole body,' and,
according to one passage, when he gets to the next world his good and
evil are weighed in a balance. There are, then, quite diverse views in
regard to the fate of a man after death, and not less various are the
opinions in regard to his reward and punishment. According to the
common belief the dead, on leaving this world, pass between two fires,
_agnicikhe_ raging on either side of his path. These fires burn the
one that ought to be burned (the wicked), and let the good pass by.
Then the spirit (or the man himself in body) is represented as going
up on one of two paths. Either he goes to the Manes on a path which,
according to later teaching, passes southeast through the moon, or he
goes northeast (the gods' direction) to the sun, which is his 'course
and stay.' I