The words Pitriyana and Devayana are used many times in the Rigveda. But the distinction made in the Upanishads about the soul's path, according as a man died during the dark or the bright half of the year, was unknown to the bards of the Rigveda, who held the view that the soul of a man always travelled by the Pitriyana road, whatever the time of his death. It is therefore clear that the doctrine of the Upanishads was a later development, probably evolved after physical light and darkness had come to be connected with moral good and evil and the dual character of the world was established. Now, if along with this we consider that death during the Southern passage of the sun was regarded as inauspicious from the Arctic times, we can see how the distinction arose between the paths of a man's soul according as he died in the dark or the bright part of the year.

As to the series of steps in each path, since Agni was believed to be the only leader of the soul on its path, and both paths ended with the passages of the sun, the starting and halting points thus settled, it was not difficult to fill in the intermediate steps. The dual character of the world is in Agni as flame and smoke. The flame was therefore the starting point of one path and smoke, of the other. Day and night, increasing and decreasing moon, Northern and Southern passages of the sun came next in natural order. The number of steps can easily be increased, and as a matter of fact has been increased in the Kaushitaki and some other Upanishads, on the same general principle.

Another point in this connection may be noted. There is nothing in the second or Pitriyana path to correspond with Agni, in the first. We must therefore either reduce the number of steps in the first path by taking the words "fire" and "flame" in appositional relation and translate the same as "fire, that is flame," or increase the steps in the second by adding "fire" as one.

^195:26 The paths are eternal, because Samsara is eternal.

^195:27 Knowing that one of the paths leads to Samsara and the other to Moksha, the Yogi takes up the one leading to illumination and rejects the other

^196:28 This--the truth imparted by the Lord in answer to the questions of Arjuna at the beginning of the present chapter.