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I QUESTION, 15.
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(future) world, and return again. Therefore the Rishis who desire offspring, go to the South, and that path of the Fathers is matter (rayi).
10. But those who have sought the Self by penance, abstinence, faith, and knowledge, gain by the Northern path Âditya, the sun. This is the home of the spirits, the immortal, free from danger, the highest. From thence they do not return, for it is the end. Thus says the Sloka?:
II. Some call him the father with five feet (the five seasons), and with twelve shapes (the twelve months), the giver of rain in the highest half of heaven; others again say that the sage is placed in the lower half, in the chariot ? with seven wheels and six spokes.
12. The month is Pragậpati; its dark half is matter, its bright half spirit. Therefore some Rishis perform sacrifice in the bright half, others in the other half.
13. Day and Nights are Pragậpati ; its day is spirit, its night matter. Those who unite in love by day waste their spirit, but to unite in love by night is right.
14. Food is Pragâpati. Hence proceeds seed, and from it these creatures are born.
15. Those therefore who observe this rule of Pragâpati (as laid down in § 13), produce a pair, and to them belongs this Brahma-world here? But
Rig-veda I, 164, 12. We ought to read upare vikakshanam.
Saptakakre, i.e. rathe. The seven wheels are explained as the rays or horses of the sun; or as half-years, seasons, months, halfmonths, days, nights, and muhûrtas.
* Taken as one, as a Nychthemeron. • In the moon, reached by the path of the Fathers. [15]
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