energy, and becomes better; in the other he weakens it and becomes worse” (ib. ii. 2. 2. 19).  The second sin, expressly named and reprobated as such, is adultery.  This is a sin against Varuna.[52] In connection with this there is an interesting passage implying a priestly confessional.  At the sacrifice the sacrificer’s wife is formally asked by the priest whether she is faithful to her husband.  She is asked this that she may not sacrifice with guilt on her soul, for “when confessed the guilt becomes less."[53] If it is asked what other moral virtues are especially inculcated besides truth and purity the answer is that the acts commonly cited as self-evidently sins are murder, theft, and abortion; incidentally, gluttony, anger, and procrastination.[54]

As to the moral virtue of observing days, certain times are allowed and certain times are not allowed for worldly acts.  But every day is in part a holy-day to the Hindu.  The list of virtues is about the same, therefore, as that of the decalogue—­the worship of the right divinity; the observance of certain seasons for prayer and sacrifice; honor to the parents; abstinence from theft, murder, adultery.  Envy alone is omitted.[55]

What eschatological conceptions are strewn through the literature of this era are vague and often contradictory.  The souls of the departed are at one time spoken of as the stars (T[=a]itt.  S. v. 4. 1. 3.); at another, as uniting with gods and living in the world of the gods (Cal.  Br.. ii. 6. 4. 8).

The principle of karma if not the theory, is already known, but the very thing that the completed philosopher abhors is looked upon as a blessing, viz., rebirth, body and all, even on earth.[56] Thus in one passage, as a reward for knowing some divine mystery (as often happens, this mystery is of little importance, only that ’spring is born again out of winter’), the savant is to be ’born again in this world’ (punar ha v[=a] ’asmin loke bhavati, Cat.  Br. i. 5. 3. 14).  The esoteric wisdom is here the transfer of the doctrine of metempsychosis to spring.  Man has no hope of immortal life (on earth);[57] but, by establishing the holy fires, and especially by establishing in his inmost soul the immortal element of fire, he lives the full desirable length of life (ib. ii. 2. 2. 14.  To the later sage, length of life is undesirable).  But in yonder world, where the sun itself is death, the soul dies again and again.  All those on the other side of the sun, the gods, are immortal; but all those on this side are exposed to this death.  When the sun wishes, he draws out the vitality of any one, and then that one dies; not once, but, being drawn up by the sun, which is death, into the very realm of death (how different to the conception of the sun in the Rig Veda!) he dies over and over again.[58] But in another passage it is said that when the sacrificer is consecrated he ‘becomes one of the deities’;