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 ||
Kāśyapa nói: “Bản ngã (Ātman), sau khi lìa khỏi Prakṛti, làm sao có thể rời bỏ thân xác do Prakṛti sinh ra? Và khi đã thoát khỏi thân, bằng tiến trình nào mà linh ngã cá thể (jīvātman) lại đi đến một sự thọ thân khác?”
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.