Karma and Rebirth

Author(s): T G Kalghatgi
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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T. G.:Kalghatgi
that Comperz thinks that Pythagorean thought must have been influenced by the doctrine of reincarnation prevalent in India at the time of and before the Buddha. But some others would say it is possible that both these thoughts must-have originated simultaneously. The doctrine of transmigration and rebirth is so prominent in Plato's scheme of thought that we find it presented in some of his dialogues like the Phaeudo, the Meno and the Republic in various forms. He gives arguments for pre-existence and the continuity of life. He sometimes speaks in mythical language also, as in the Republic. In Plato's dialogues we get a systematic picture of the nature of soul and its destiny. Socrates was primarily concerned with the care of the soul. "I spend my whole time in going about persuading you all to give your best and chiefest care to the perfection of your souls, and not till you have done that, to that of your bodies or your wealth.": Crito asked Socrates how they should bury him. “As you please" said Socrates; "only you must catch me first and not let me escape you." “My friends, I cannot convince Crito that I am the Socrates who has been conversing with you and arranging his arguments in order. He thinks that I am the body which he will presently see a corpse, and he asks how he is to bury me." And “Of the things which a man has, next to the gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his own ... and in our opinion he ought to honour her as second only to the gods". Therefore when we are dead, the bodies of the dead are rightly said to be our shades or images; for the true and immortal being of each one of us, which is called the soul goes on her way to other gods, that before them she may give an account.9 Belief in the divinity of soul and its immortality is a primary conviction in the Dialogues of Plato. The Phaedrus gives the most brilliant account of pre-existence of soul and its heavenly origin. “The soul is immortal because it is simple and eternal. It belongs to the world of pure ideas and forms-because of their rational nature-the souls all pass into the human form. Their second incarnation depends on the kind of life they have led in their first earthly period of probation, and each subsequent incarnation is similarly determined by the use made of the preceding life. In the Timaeus Plato represents the sout and body as everywhere united: throughout the created universe. He speaks of the human soul as implanted in bodies by necessity.10
Plato gives an imaginative picture of the states of the soul on the basis of the work that has been done previously. Those who appear to be incurable from the enormity of their sins are hurled down to Tartarus,
8. The Apology. 9. The Laws, 959. 10. Timaeus, 42.