Does the soul in its descent through ether, and so on, stay at each
stage for a not very long time, or is there nothing to define that time?--
It stays at each stage for an indefinite time, there being nothing to
define the time.--
Not so, the Sûtra decides. For there is a special statement, i.e. the
text says that when the soul has become rice or grain or the like, the
passing out of that stage is beset with difficulties. From this we infer
that as there is no such statement concerning the earlier stages, the
soul stays at each of them for a short time only.--Here terminates the
adhikarana of 'the not very long time.'
24. Into (plants) animated by other souls, because the statement is as
in the previous cases.
The text declares that 'he descending souls are born as rice, corn,'
&c., 'they are born here as rice, corn, herbs, trees,' &c. The question
here is whether the souls cling to plants animated by other souls which
have those plants for their bodies; or whether the descending souls
themselves are born with those plants for their bodies.--The latter view
is the right one; for the text says, 'they are born as rice, grain,' and
so on, and this expression is of the same kind as when we say 'he is
born as a man, as a deva,' and so on. The text therefore means that the
souls are embodied in the different plants.--This view the Sûtra
rejects. The souls merely cling to those plants which constitute the
bodies of other souls; 'since the statement is as in the previous
cases,' i.e. because the text only says that the souls become plants as
it had previously been said that they become ether, and so on. Where the
text means to say that the soul enters on the condition of an enjoying
soul (i.e. of a soul assuming a new body for the purpose of retributive
enjoyment), it refers to the deeds which lead to such enjoyment; so e.
g. in the passage, 'Those whose works have been good obtain a good
birth,' & c. But in the text under discussion there is no such reference
to karman. For those works--viz. sacrifices and the like--which were
undertaken with a view to reward, such as enjoyment of the heavenly
world, are, in the case of the descending souls, completely wiped out by
the enjoyment of the heavenly world (which precedes the descent of the
souls); and those works on the other hand, the action of which has not
yet begun, lead to the embodiments mentioned further on ('Those whose
works are good'). And in the interval between those two conditions no
new karman originates. When, therefore, the text says that the souls are
born as plants, the statement cannot be taken in its literal sense.