Shloka 3
Dehānta (Cyavana) and Upapatti: Kāśyapa’s Questions and the Siddha’s Account of Death, Pain, and Karmic Re-embodiment
आत्मा च प्रकृतिं मुक्त्वा तच्छरीरं विमुज्चति । शरीरतश्न निर्मुक्त: कथमन्यत् प्रपद्यते,जीवात्मा प्रकृति (मूल विद्या) और उससे उत्पन्न होनेवाले शरीरका कैसे त्याग करता है? और शरीरसे छूटकर दूसरेमें वह किस प्रकार प्रवेश करता है?
ātmā ca prakṛtiṁ muktvā taccharīraṁ vimucyati | śarīrataś ca nirmuktaḥ katham anyat prapadyate ||
Dijo Kāśyapa: «¿Cómo el Sí mismo (Ātman), tras desligarse de Prakṛti, abandona el cuerpo nacido de ella? Y una vez libre del cuerpo, ¿por qué proceso el jīvātman (alma individual) pasa a otra encarnación?»
काश्यप उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse frames a key metaphysical inquiry: the relation between consciousness (ātman/jīva) and material causality (prakṛti), asking how death occurs (the self’s separation from the body) and how rebirth occurs (the self’s movement to another embodiment), thereby pointing to karma-driven transmigration and the possibility of liberation through disentanglement from prakṛti.
Kāśyapa, as a teacher-figure, poses a doctrinal question to clarify the mechanics of embodiment: how the jīva departs the present body and how it comes to take up another. The focus is explanatory and ethical-philosophical, preparing for an account of karma, subtle embodiment, and the conditions that lead either to further birth or to release.