It seems however that though such a view may be regarded as having been expounded in the Upani@sads in an imperfect manner, there is also side by side the other view which looks upon the effect as the product of a real change wrought in the cause itself through the action and combination of the elements of diversity in it.  Thus when the different objects of nature have been spoken of in one place as the product of the combination of the three elements fire, water and earth, the effect signifies a real change produced by their compounding.  This is in germ (as we shall see hereafter) the Pari@nama theory of causation advocated by the Sa@mkhya school [Footnote ref 1].

Doctrine of Transmigration.

When the Vedic people witnessed the burning of a dead body they supposed that the eye of the man went to the sun, his breath to the wind, his speech to the fire, his limbs to the different parts of the universe.  They also believed as we have already seen in the recompense of good and bad actions in worlds other than our own, and though we hear of such things as the passage of the human soul into trees, etc., the tendency towards transmigration had but little developed at the time.

In the Upani@sads however we find a clear development in the direction of transmigration in two distinct stages.  In the one the Vedic idea of a recompense in the other world is combined with

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[Footnote 1:  Cha.  VI. 2-4.]

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the doctrine of transmigration, whereas in the other the doctrine of transmigration comes to the forefront in supersession of the idea of a recompense in the other world.  Thus it is said that those who performed charitable deeds or such public works as the digging of wells, etc., follow after death the way of the fathers (pit@ryana), in which the soul after death enters first into smoke, then into night, the dark half of the month, etc., and at last reaches the moon; after a residence there as long as the remnant of his good deeds remains he descends again through ether, wind, smoke, mist, cloud, rain, herbage, food and seed, and through the assimilation of food by man he enters the womb of the mother and is born again.  Here we see that the soul had not only a recompense in the world of the moon, but was re-born again in this world [Footnote ref 1].

The other way is the way of gods (devayana), meant for those who cultivate faith and asceticism (tapas).  These souls at death enter successively into flame, day, bright half of the month, bright half of the year, sun, moon, lightning, and then finally into Brahman never to return.  Deussen says that “the meaning of the whole is that the soul on the way of the gods reaches regions of ever-increasing light, in which is concentrated all that is bright and radiant as stations on the way to Brahman the ’light of lights’” (jyoti@sa@m jyoti@h) [Footnote ref 2].