Pitṛyāna
Pitṛyāna · pitṛ-yāna, “the path of the pitṛs”
Grammar: neuter noun; a compound of pitṛ (the ancestors, the pitṛs) and yāna (path, going): “the path of the pitṛs”.
Meaning: the path of return, by which those who have gone to svarga through yajña, tapas and dāna reach the Candraloka and then come back to be born on earth. Its pair is the devayāna, the path of no return.
In the scriptures: Agnideva teaches the two paths of the jīvātmā in the chapter on samādhi.
Agnihotrīs who desire offspring reach svarga by the path in the pitṛyāna that runs from the Upavīthi to the middle of the Agastya nakshatra. Those devoted to dāna and endowed with the eight guṇas also travel by this path. Eighty-eight thousand gṛhastha munis, the propagators of dharma, are the cause of return; they went to the devaloka by the path between the Saptarshis and the Nāga-vīthi.
Those who reach svarga through yajña, tapas and dāna go in order to the lokas of the presiding devatās of smoke (dhūma), night (rātri), the kṛshṇa paksha (the dark fortnight), the dakshiṇāyana (the southern course of the sun), the Pitṛloka and the Candraloka. Then they return to Bhūloka by the path of ākāśa, vāyu and water. Born in this world, after death they travel again by that same path.
The vānaprasthas full of śraddhā, who know the ātmā and practise the upāsana of satya, go instead by the devayāna: to the lokas of fire, the day, the śukla paksha, the uttarāyaṇa, the devaloka, the Sūrya-maṇḍala and the devatās of lightning, and from there the mānasa purusha leads them to Brahmaloka, from which there is no return. One who does not know these two paths of the jīvātmā is born as a serpent, a winged insect, an insect or a worm (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 376).
In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Śuka tells Parīkshit that the śāstra teaches two means, karma and upāsana, and that the jīva going to other lokas takes one of two paths: the dakshiṇa mārga, the southern path, which gives the enjoyment of the fruits of karma, or the uttara mārga, the northern path, which is the cause of krama-mukti. Both paths are under Īśvara, the giver of the fruits of karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 6).
Kapila tells Devahūti that those who do the karmas from garbhādhāna to the antyeshṭi reach the Pitṛloka ruled by Aryamā by the southern path; when their puṇya is exhausted they are born again as children of their own descendants (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 32). Satī tells Daksha that men like him do kāmya karma in the smoke of the yajña, eat the yajña-food, go by the southern path to svarga and the other worlds, enjoy small fruits and are born again (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 4). In the story of Purañjana, Nārada explains that the man who hears the Veda in the form of the karma-kāṇḍa and performs karmas goes by the Pitṛyāna after death; that karma-kāṇḍa is the gate called Dakshiṇa Pañcāla (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 4, Chapter 29).
Nārada gives Yudhishṭhira the stages of the path. The man of pravṛtti, after death, takes a subtle body made from the āhutis he offered in the Vedic rites and goes by the Pitṛyāna through the smoke of the homa, the night and the kṛshṇa paksha, each with its presiding devatā, to the Candraloka. When his puṇya is exhausted his divine body wanes; through the rain he enters plants and grain, becomes food, becomes seed in a man and is born again through a woman. The Vaidika purified by the saṃskāras from garbhādhāna to antyeshṭi follows these paths, and the one who, with the śāstra as his eye, knows the Pitṛyāna and the Devayāna taught by the Veda is not deluded even while living in the body (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 15).
Related terms: Devayāna · Pitṛ · Pitṛloka · Candraloka · Dakshiṇāyana · Uttarāyaṇa · Svarga
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 376
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 6; Skandha 3, Chapter 32; Skandha 4, Chapters 4, 29; Skandha 7, Chapter 15