A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

vice or virtue”; ‘there is nothing free but the first cause,’ I, 144, 272, 273, 467, 374, 146. Were it otherwise, He could not be spoken of as “ just.’’ So the dawn wind of creation must be thought of as of a double origin: one of the Spirit, moving without motion or any why, the other actuated by and because of past events.

It is not proposed to discuss here in any detail the doctrine of reincarnation, punar apadana, punar dvytit. We shall take it for granted that in its original and pure form** this doctrine simply implied a return from angelic to corporeal existence, in-accordance-with-a-natural-law (Sasita, rtvya, dharmya)*® affecting all those who have not by gnosis (jana, vidya) already achieved a total emancipation (ati-mukiz), nor embarked on the angelic voyage (devayana) of progressive emancipation (krama mukit), and so have neither escaped, nor are in the way to escape from the bondage of desirous works (Ramya karma) which are the determinants of merit and demerit (dharmadharmau, punya-papa). We take it for granted also, what is perhaps less certain, that the return (punar avariana, avasarpana, etc.) was originally conceived as taking place not immediately, but in another aeon, and under a new dispensation : either in another manvaniara, or yuga, or kalpa, or even in another para with the resurrection of the cosmic horse, the birth of another Brahma-Prajapati.*°

It is with this last return and resurrection that we are primarily concerned. Granting the aforesaid premises, it is abundantly apparent that Brahma-Prajapati, Purusa, Son, First Sacrificer, Cosmic Horse and Tree of Life, in so far as they exist in and of the Three Worlds, could in no way have been thought of as exempt from the universal law of latent causality, piirva or adysta karma. For the works of Prajdpati, his twin sacrifices (yajfa), are preeminently kamya, desirous : “ Prajapati, desiring offspring (praja-kamya), sacrificed,’ Satapatha Brahmana, Il, 4, 4, I. Prajapati, in fact, behaves like a Patriarch (pity), and as such no other way or voyage can be