The question therefore which Kitra addresses to Svetaketu can refer to these two roads only, and though the text is very corrupt, and was so evidently even at the time when the commentary was written, we must try to restore it in accordance with the teaching imparted by Kitra in what follows. I propose to read: Gautamasya putra, asti samvritam loke yasmin ma dhasyasy anyatamo vadhva tasya (or yasya) ma loke dhasyasi, 'Is there a hidden place in the world where you (by your sacrificing and teaching) are able to place me, or is it the other way, and will you place me in the world to which it leads?' Even thus the text is by no means satisfactory, but it is better than anyam aho vadhva, adopted by the commentator and explained by him: Is there a hidden place in that world in which you will place me as another, i. e. as different from the whole world or identical with the whole world, and, if as different, then having bound me (vadhva = baddhva) and made me a different person? We may read anyataro for anyatamo vadhva. The commentator sums up the question as referring to a hidden or not hidden place, where Kitra should be placed as another person or not another person, as bound or not bound; or, as Professor Cowell renders it, 'O son of Gautama, is there any secret place in the world where thou canst set me unconnected, having fixed me there (as wood united with glue); or is there some other place where thou canst set me?' The speculations on the fate of the soul after death seem to have been peculiar to the royal families of India, while the Brahmans dwelt more on what may be called the shorter cut, a knowledge of Brahman as the true Self. To know, with them, was to be, and, after the dissolution of the body, they looked forward to immediate emancipation, without any further wanderings.

^273:1 Worthy to know Brahman, or, as the commentator, who reads brahmargha, thinks, to be honoured like Brahman.

^273:2 Both roads lead to the moon, and diverge afterwards.

^274:1 I should like to read aparapakshe praganayati, instead of aparapakshena, or aparapakshe na. The negative is out of the question, for praganayati, he sends into a new life, is exactly what the moon does to those who do not proceed on the Devapatha to the Brahmaloka. Therefore if the reading aparapakshena must be retained, it should be rendered by 'the moon with the dark half sends them into a new life.'

^274:2 This is supposed to be the hidden place, or rather the way to it, when the departed leave the moon, and pass on to lightning and to the world of Brahman. This is in fact the Devayana, as opposed to the Pitriyana, described in the Khandogya-upanishad.

^274:3 Parasva, dandasukaviseshah. There is no authority for translating it by dog; cf. Indische Studien I, 396.

^274:4 This might even include naraka or hell.