The third discourse (iv. 3-4) is another dialogue between Janaka and Yājnavalkya. It presents a picture of the soul in the conditions of waking, dreaming, deep sleep, dying, transmigration, and salvation. For wealth of illustration, fervour of conviction, beauty and elevation of thought, this piece is unequalled in the Upanishads or any other work of Indian literature. Its literary effect is heightened by the numerous stanzas with which it is interspersed. These are, however, doubtless later additions. The dreaming soul is thus described:—
- Leaving its lower nest in breath's protection,
- And upward from that nest, immortal, soaring,
- Where'er it lists it roves about immortal,
- The golden-pinioned only swan of spirit (IV. iii. 13).
- It roves in dream condition up and downward,
- Divinely many shapes and forms assuming (ib. 14).
Then follows an account of the dreamless state of the soul:—
As a falcon or an eagle, having flown about in the air, exhausted folds together its wings and prepares to alight, so the spirit hastes to that condition in which, asleep, it feels no desire and sees no dream (19).
This is its essential form, in which it rises above desire, is free from evil and without fear. For as one embraced by a beloved woman wots not of anything without or within, so also the soul embraced by the cognitional Self wots not of anything without or within (21).
With regard to the souls of those who are not saved, the view of the writer appears to be that after death they enter a new body immediately and without any intervening retribution in the other world, in exact accordance with their intellectual and moral quality.
