Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 6, Brahmana 2. The five fires, and the two paths after death
New to these pages?
Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.
Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.
Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.
Last fire, the cremation
Then they carry him to the fire. His fire becomes the very fire; the fuel, the fuel; the smoke, the smoke; the flame, the flame; the embers, the embers; the sparks, the sparks. In this fire the gods offer the man. Out of that oblation the man arises, of radiant colour.
When the man dies, his kin carry him to the cremation fire. Now the ordinary fire becomes the sacrificial fire, the firewood its fuel, the smoke its smoke, and so on through flame, embers, and sparks. In this last fire the gods offer the man himself, and from that offering the man arises again, now shining and radiant (the subtle body that goes on to one of the two paths).