The two that travel
Of the five kinds of body a soul can have, two go with it between births and never leave it until liberation: the karmic body, which is its karma, and the fiery body, which is its warmth. Everything else is left behind.
The gross body of a human or an animal, the transformable body of a god or a hell-being, the projected body a rare ascetic makes: these are put on at birth and put off at death. The kārmaṇa śarīra, the body made of karma itself, and the taijasa, the body of heat that digests and burns, have been with the soul without beginning and are with it in the passage. In transit the soul works through the karmic body alone - kārmaṇa yoga, 2.26 - which is why it can take nothing in on the bends: the gross body that eats is not there.
The view lays a passage out samaya by samaya and marks what is present in each: the soul, the two bodies, the yoga, and the intake, which returns only with the first samaya in the new body. The eight samayas of the omniscient use the same three yogas in a different order, and the view sets the two side by side.
Measurements and counts
| Go with the soul | kārmaṇa śarīra - the karmic body · taijasa śarīra - the fiery body |
|---|---|
| Stay behind | audārika - the gross body · vaikriya - the transformable body · āhāraka - the projected body |
| Stop | speech · mind · breath |
| Yoga in transit | kārmaṇa - 2.26 |
| Until | liberation, when both are shed |