7. 'Those whose conduct has been good, will quickly attain some good birth, the birth of a Brâhmana, or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a Kandâla.
8. 'On neither of these two ways those small creatures (flies, worms, &c.) are continually returning of whom it may be said, Live and die. Theirs is a third place.
'Therefore that world never becomes full[1] (cf. V, 3, 2).
- ↑ In this manner all the five questions have been answered. First, why in the fifth oblation water is called man; secondly, to what place men go after death, some by the path of the Devas, others by the path of the fathers, others again by neither of these paths; thirdly, how they return, some returning to Brahman, others returning to the earth; fourthly, where the paths of the Devas and the fathers diverge, viz. when from the half-year the path of the Devas goes on to the year, while that of the fathers branches off to the world of the fathers; fifthly, why that world, the other world, does never become full, viz. because men either go on to Brahman or return again to this world.
Many questions are raised among Indian philosophers on the exact meaning of certain passages occurring in the preceding paragraphs. First, as to who is admitted to the path of the Devas? Householders, who know the secret doctrine of the five fires or the five libations of the Agnihotra, as described above, while other householders, who only perform the ordinary sacrifices, without a knowledge of their secret meaning, go by the path of the fathers. Secondly, those who have retired to the forest, and whose worship there consists in faith and austerities, i.e. Vânaprasthas and Parivrâgakas, before they arrive at a knowledge of the true Brahman. The question then arises, whether religious students also enter the path of the Devas? This is affirmed, because Purânas and Smritis assert it, or because our text, if properly understood, does not exclude it. Those, on the contrary, who know not only a conditioned, but the highest unconditioned Brahman, do not proceed on the path of the Devas, but obtain Brahman immediately.
Again, there is much difference of opinion whether, after a man
