The embodied spirit,
enchained by destiny and reaping the fruits of its own actions, thus
undergoes birth after birth but he that has lost touch of his actions,
is conscious of the immutable destiny of all born beings.[4]'
[3] More literally, the state of the gods. It may appropriately
be remarked here that the ordinary Hindu gods, of the post-Vedic
period, like the gods of Ancient Greece and Italy, were simply a
class of superhuman beings, distinctly contra-distinguished from
the Supreme Spirit, the _Paramatman_ or _Parabrahma_. After
death, a virtuous man was supposed to be transformed into one of
these so-called gods.
[4] This is the well-known and popular doctrine of
transmigration of souls.
"Yudhishthira asked, 'O snake, tell me truly and without confusion how
that dissociated spirit becomes cognisant of sound, touch, form,
flavour, and taste. O great-minded one, dost thou not perceive them,
simultaneously by the senses? Do thou, O best of snakes, answer all
these queries!' The snake replied, 'O long-lived one, the thing called
_Atman_ (spirit), betaking itself to corporeal tenement and manifesting
itself through the organs of sense, becomes duly cognisant of
perceptible objects. O prince of Bharata's race, know that the senses,
the mind, and the intellect, assisting the soul in its perception of
objects, are called _Karanas_. O my son, the eternal spirit, going out
of its sphere, and aided by the mind, acting through the senses, the
receptacles of all perceptions, successively perceives these things
(sound, form, flavour, &c).
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