Khila Kanda. Adhyaya 6, Brahmana 2. The five fires, and the two paths after death
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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.
The path of the gods, no return
Those who know this, and those in the forest who worship faith as truth, pass into the flame; from the flame, into the day; from the day, into the bright fortnight; from the bright fortnight, into the six months during which the sun moves northward; from the months, into the world of the gods; from the world of the gods, into the sun; from the sun, into the region of lightning. A being made of mind, coming to those who have reached the lightning, leads them to the worlds of Brahman. In those worlds of Brahman they dwell, far beyond, for vast stretches of time. For them there is no return.
Two destinies are now set out. The first is the path of the gods (devayana): those who know this five-fires teaching, and the forest hermits who worship faith and truth, go after death to the deity of the flame, then to the day, the bright (waxing) fortnight, the six months of the sun's northward course, the world of the gods, the sun, and the realm of lightning. There a being made of mind (a non-human guide from Brahman) leads them onward to the worlds of Brahman, where they dwell far away for immense ages, and from which they do not come back to be born again.
devayāna
the path of the gods. The northern path of light, by flame and the bright fortnight and the sun, by which the knower goes to the worlds of Brahman and does not return.
Where the schools meet, and where they part
There are two roads the dead may travel, and they are not the same: the path of the gods (devayana), which leads on and does not turn back to this round of birth, and the path of the fathers (pitryana), which returns. The mantra is read by all as the charter of these two destinies, and the worshipper this brahmana describes is placed on the first.
The knower is not left to walk alone. At the last station a being that is not human (amanava purusa) receives the traveller and leads him onward; the soul is conducted, not abandoned, and what it reaches it does not lose by returning.
The devayana is real and its fruit is no return, but Sankara will not let it be confused with the highest freedom. This road belongs to the worshipper of the qualified Brahman and the knower of the five fires; it carries them to the world of Brahma, the sphere of Hiranyagarbha, where, their subtle desires worn away, they are at last released and never come back. This is gradual liberation (krama-mukti), salvation by stages through the saguna. The knower of the attributeless Self stands wholly apart from the verse: being already the one reality, he has nowhere to be led and no path to travel, for the two roads move only within the realm of name and form.
On Madhva's settled doctrine the devayana is the ascent of the soul fit for release toward the Lord, and the not-returning is its entry into His presence, never a merging into Him. The soul reaches Brahman as Vishnu and abides with Him in graded bliss, distinct and dependent (paratantra) forever; which souls take this road, and how high each rises, is itself governed by their innate gradation (taratamya), so that release is real but never equal and never identity. Madhva's own Brhadaranyaka-bhasya on this passage is not reliably available to us in translation, so this reads his doctrine onto the verse rather than quoting his gloss; that much we flag.
Read through Ramanuja's settled teaching, the path of the gods is the archiradi-marga, the way of light by which the released soul is led, station by station, by guiding deities (ativahikas) to Brahman as Narayana, the antaryamin who is its inner Self. The being that is not human is the Lord's appointed conductor, and the not-returning is the soul's arrival at unbroken communion: it gains the likeness of Brahman and the fullness of its own dharma-bhuta-jnana, yet abides a real and distinct person, the inseparable mode of the One it serves. Release is eternal nearness and service, never the erasure of the difference between the soul and its Lord. No verbatim Ramanuja gloss on this mantra is sourced; this applies his framework.
All three send the knower up the path that does not return, but to what end? Is the not-returning the soul's dissolving into the one Self it always was, with no second left to arrive anywhere; or its gradual ripening in the world of Brahma until that release dawns; or its eternal arrival into the presence of the Lord, distinct and dependent forever, to serve and be near but never to become? The single road carries all three, and the schools part on what waits at its end.
The mantra says the knower, led by a being that is not human, reaches Brahman by the devayana and does not return. The three readings of where this ends are:
- Only a description of the afterlife with no bearing on liberation
- Proof that the moon is a literal destination for all souls
- Identical in all three: the soul is annihilated at death
- Advaita: gradual release in the world of Brahma, the knower of the attributeless Self needing no path at all; Visistadvaita: the soul led to Narayana for eternal communion, still distinct; Dvaita: the dependent soul reaching the Lord in graded bliss, never identity
Show the answer
In Sankara's reading, who actually walks the path of the gods described in this mantra?
- The worshipper of the qualified Brahman and the knower of the five fires, who reach the world of Brahma and are released by stages (krama-mukti)
- Only those who performed village sacrifices for wealth
- No one, since the path is purely symbolic
- The knower of the attributeless Self, who needs the path to be freed
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The road that does not turn back
Two roads open from the place of the dead, and the Upanisad will not pretend they are one. By the path of the fathers a soul goes into smoke and the dark fortnight and the southern months, reaches the moon, is spent there like an offering, and falls back into rain and food and a new birth, to do it all again. By the path of the gods a soul goes into flame and the bright fortnight and the northern months, reaches the lightning, and there a being that is not human comes to meet it and leads it on to Brahman. Of that second road the mantra says the thing the whole brahmana was reaching toward: from there they do not return.
Who walks it, and to what end, is where the schools quietly divide, and we keep the division open. Sankara honours the road and its fruit, yet draws a fine line through it. This is the way of the one who worshipped the qualified Brahman in the forest, and of the one who knew the five fires; it carries them to the world of Brahma, the sphere of Hiranyagarbha, and there, their last subtle longings worn thin, they are released and never come back. He calls this gradual freedom, liberation by stages. And then he says the harder thing: the knower of the attributeless Self is not on this road at all. Being already the one reality, he has nowhere to be led and no path to need, and so, on Sankara's reading, both roads run only inside the world of name and form.
Ramanuja's school reads the same ascent as the way of light, and fills the not-returning with presence rather than dissolution. The guiding deities carry the soul from station to station until it arrives at Narayana, the inner Self who was indwelling it all along; there it comes into the likeness of Brahman and the full reach of its own awareness, and serves in unbroken nearness. But it arrives as someone. The soul that does not return is not erased into the One; it abides a real and distinct person, the inseparable mode of the Lord it has reached, different from Him forever even in the fullness of communion.
Madhva keeps the soul distinct more firmly still, his doctrine brought to the verse where a sourced gloss was wanting. The path of the gods is the ascent of the soul fit for release, and the not-returning is its entry into the presence of Vishnu, to abide in His bliss as a dependent being who never becomes Him. And which souls take this road, and how high each is raised, follows the gradation written into their very natures, so that the release is real, and graded, and never identity.
So the one road holds three endings, and the mantra names only the road. Is the not-returning the soul melting back into the Self it always was, with no second left to arrive; or its slow ripening in the world of Brahma until freedom dawns; or its eternal homecoming into the Lord, near and serving and distinct? We do not close the question. We keep the road, and the three who walk it differently, and the silence at its far end where they do not agree.
The knower does not return: whether into the one Self with no second left, or into the world of Brahma until release ripens, or into the Lord's presence as a soul still distinct. The mantra names the road and leaves the ending open.
When the soul goes by the path that does not turn back and reaches Brahman, does anyone arrive, or has the very one who set out been found to be Brahman all along?
In the commentaries
This is the verse of the path that does not turn back, and Sankara reads it with exact care about who walks it. Those who know the five fires as taught, and those who in the forest worship the qualified Brahman (Satya-Brahman, saguna) with faith and austerity, pass at death into the flame, then the day, the bright fortnight, the six months of the sun's northern course, the world of the gods, the sun, the lightning; and there a being not human leads them on to Brahman. This is the path of the gods (devayana), and Sankara is emphatic on its fruit: they reach the world of Brahma, the sphere of Hiranyagarbha, and from there they do not return to this round of birth. Yet he is equally careful that this is gradual release (krama-mukti), liberation reached in stages through the qualified Brahman, not the immediate freedom of the knower of the attributeless Self, who, having no place to go and no one to be led, needs no path at all.