Outlines of Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Paul Deussen
Publisher: Crest Publishing House

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OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
man in the world to come we often find mentioned an indefinite fear of dying again and again even in the other world (punarmrityu). This notion of a repeated death led on to the idea that it must be preceded by a repeated life, and in transferring this repeated living and dying from the world beyond to the earth, the Hindus came finally to that dogma which has been in all subsequent ages more characteristic of India than anything else - the great doctrine of metempsychosis. The first passage where this creed clearly appears is in the Brihadâranyaka-Up.,and it discloses to us also the real motives of the remarkable dogma. Yâjnavalkya, when asked what remains of man after death, takes the interrogator by the hand, leads him from the assembly to a solitary place, and reveals to him there the great secret: "and what they spoke was work, and what they praised was work; verily a man becomes holy by holy works, wicked by wicked works." This passage together with several others proves that the chief motive of the dogma of transmigration was to explain the different destinies of men by the supposition that they are the fruits of merit and demerit in a preceding life.
Development of this Doctrine in the Upanishads
19. A religion, after having come to a better view of things, cannot discard the preceding and less perfect steps of development which have led up to it. Thus the New Testament cannot emancipate itself from the Old Testament and its very different spirit. So too the Upanishads, after having come to the creed of metempsychosis, had to retain at the same time the old