Note 302 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

अन्धतमसं “great darkness.”

Without entering here into the details of metaphysical refinements which the Hindus exhibit in their various systems of philosophy, we may content ourselves to state that, in general, they adopt two kinds of bodies or persons, a subtile, and a substantial or grosser one. The first transmigrates through successive bodies, which it assumes as a mimic shifts his disguises to represent various characters. In the Bhagavad gita, it is intimated, that soul retains the senses and mind in the intervals of migration: “At the time that spirit obtains a body, and when it abandons one, it migrates, taking with it those senses, as the wind wafts along with it the perfumes of the flowers.” The grosser body, propagated by generation, is perishable. According to Manu (XII. 16): “After death, another body, composed of the five rudimental elements, is immediately produced, for wicked men, that they may suffer the tortures of the infernal regions.” This concords with what is said above.