has walked in the Path of Righteousness during life, it spends its time in chanting the sacred hymns, and experiences as much joy as the whole of the living world can experience collectively.[1] It is anxiously longing for the rewards which are to take place at the end of the third night after death.[2]
Precisely the reverse is the case if the dead happens to be wicked. The soul of such a one sits near the skull and clamours in bewilderment and confusion about the terrible lot that awaits it, and experiences as much suffering as the whole of the living world can experience collectively.[3]
Daena accompanies the soul to the next world. Of the various spiritual faculties of man, the daena is the only one besides the soul of which we hear at great length after the dissolution of the body. It is in the power of every one to keep his daena pure by good thoughts, good words, and good deeds and every one is enjoined to do so.[4] If one does not live according to this salutary advice and indulges in evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds, his own daena delivers him to the world of darkness.[5] On the dawn of the fourth day after death, the romantic journey of the soul begins and its voyage into the hereafter is described in allegorical and picturesque words. The soul of the righteous one makes its triumphal ascent to heaven, wending its way among fragrant perfumes, and amid a wind that blows from the regions of the south, a sweet-scented wind, sweeterscented by far than any which the soul ever inhaled on earth.[6] There appears then to the soul its own daena, or religious conscience, in the shape of a damsel of unsurpassed beauty, the fairest of the fair in the world.[7] Dazzled by her matchless beauty and grandeur, the soul halts and inquires who this image may be, the like of which it had neither seen nor heard tell of in the material world. The apparition replies that she is the impersonation of the soul's own good thoughts, good words, and good deeds in life. She is nothing more than the true reflex of its own character. For, when his friends and neighbours in the corporeal world indulged in wickedness, the spirit abiding in the true believer always embraced good thoughts, good words,
