rts
of the universe. They also believed as we have already seen in
the recompense of good and bad actions in worlds other than our
own, and though we hear of such things as the passage of the
human soul into trees, etc., the tendency towards transmigration
had but little developed at the time.

In the Upani@sads however we find a clear development in
the direction of transmigration in two distinct stages. In the one
the Vedic idea of a recompense in the other world is combined with

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[Footnote 1: Cha. VI. 2-4.]

54

the doctrine of transmigration, whereas in the other the doctrine
of transmigration comes to the forefront in supersession of the
idea of a recompense in the other world. Thus it is said that
those who performed charitable deeds or such public works as the
digging of wells, etc., follow after death the way of the fathers
(_pit@ryana_), in which the soul after death enters first into smoke,
then into night, the dark half of the month, etc., and at last reaches
the moon; after a residence there as long as the remnant of his
good deeds remains he descends again through ether, wind, smoke,
mist, cloud, rain, herbage, food and seed, and through the assimilation
of food by man he enters the womb of the mother and is
born again. Here we see that the soul had not only a recompense
in the world of the moon, but was re-born again in this world [Footnote
ref 1].

The other way is the way of gods (_devayana_), meant for those
who cultivate faith and asceticism (_tapas_). These souls at death
enter successively into flame, day, bright half of the month, bright
half of the year, sun, moon, lightning, and then finally into
Brahman never to return. Deussen says that "the meaning of
the whole is that the soul on the way of the gods reaches regions
of ever-increasing light, in which is concentrated all that is bright
and radiant as stations on the way to Brahman the 'light of
lights'" (_jyoti@sa@m jyoti@h_) [Footnote ref 2].

The other line of thought is a direct reference to the doctrine
of transmigration unmixed with the idea of reaping the fruits of
his deeds (_karma_) by passing through the other worlds and without
reference to the doctrine of the ways of the fathers and gods,
the _Yanas_. Thus Yajnavalkya says, "when the soul becomes
weak (apparent weakness owing to the weakness of the body with
which it is associated) and falls into a swoon