Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/108

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INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

The conception seems natural enough as an expression of the resolution of the body into the elements from which it is derived, just as in later Sanskrit it is regularly said of man that he goes to the five elements when he dies; and it is, therefore, much more likely that the phrase is thus to be interpreted than that we are to see in it the primitive idea that the soul of the dead may go into plants and so forth. The passage is almost isolated, however, so that the sense must remain uncertain.