The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris JastrowHopkins, Edward Washburn
Religion
The Religions of India: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow
Hopkins, Edward Washburn
India -- Religion
On the other hand, in the later speculative portions, Yama is not
death. "Yama is not death, as some think; he is one that gives bliss
to the good, and woe to the bad."[76] Death and life are foolishness
and lack of folly, respectively (literally, 'non-folly is
non-mortality'), while folly and mortality are counter opposites. In
pantheistic teaching there is, of course, no real death, only change.
But death is a female power, personified, and sharply distinguished
from Yama. Death as a means of change thus remains, while Yama is
relegated to the guardianship of hell. The difference in regard to the
latter subject, between earlier and later views, has been noted above.
One comparatively early passage attempts to arrange the incongruous
beliefs in regard to _sams[=a]ra_ (re-birth) and hell on a sort of
sliding scale, thus: "One that does good gets in the next life a good
birth; one that does ill gets an ill birth"; more particularly: "By
good acts one attains to the state of gods; by 'mixed' acts, to the
state of man; by acts due to confusion of mind, to the state of
animals and plants (_viyon[=i][s.]u_); by sinful acts one goes to
hell" (_adhog[=a]mi_, iii. 209. 29-32).[77] Virtue must have been, as
the epic often declares it to be, a 'subtile matter,' for often a tale
is told to illustrate the fact that one goes to hell for doing what he
thinks (mistakenly) to be right. Thus K[=a]uçika is sent to hell for
speaking the truth, whereas he ought to have lied to save life (viii.
69. 53), for he was "ignorant of virtue's subtilty."[78] A passage (i.
74. 27 ff.) that is reflected in Manu (viii. 85-86) says that Yama
V[=a]ivasvata takes away the sin of him with whom is satisfied "the
one that witnesses the act, that stands in the heart, that knows the
ground"; but Yama tortures him with whom this one (personified
conscience) is dissatisfied. For "truth is equal to a thousand
horse-sacrifices; truth is highest _brahma_" (_ib._ 103, 106).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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