more often of the nature of sacrificial duties than ordinary good
works. These ideas of the possibilities of a necessary connection
of the enjoyments and sorrows of a man with his good and bad
works when combined with the notion of an inviolable law or
order, which we have already seen was gradually growing with
the conception of @rta, and the unalterable law which produces
the effects of sacrificial works, led to the Law of Karma and the
doctrine of transmigration. The words which denote soul in the
@Rg-Veda are _manas_, _âtman_ and _asu_. The word _âtman_ however
which became famous in later Indian thought is generally used
to mean vital breath. Manas is regarded as the seat of thought
and emotion, and it seems to be regarded, as Macdonell says, as
dwelling in the heart[Footnote ref 1]. It is however difficult to
understand how âtman as vital breath, or as a separable part of man
going out of the dead man came to be regarded as the ultimate essence
or reality in man and the universe. There is however at least one
passage in the @Rg-Veda where the poet penetrating deeper and
deeper passes from the vital breath (_asu_) to the blood, and thence
to âtman as the inmost self of the world; "Who has seen how
the first-born, being the Bone-possessing (the shaped world), was
born from the Boneless (the shapeless)? where was the vital
breath, the blood, the Self (_âtman_) of the world? Who went to
ask him that knows it [Footnote ref 2]?" In Taittîrya Âra@nyaka I. 23,
however, it is said that Prajâpati after having created his self (as
the world) with his own self entered into it. In Taittîrya Brâhma@na
the âtman is called omnipresent, and it is said that he who knows
him is no more stained by evil deeds. Thus we find that in the
pre-Upani@sad Vedic literature âtman probably was first used to
denote "vital breath" in man, then the self of the world, and then
the self in man. It is from this last stage that we find the traces