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Rebirth----A Philosophical Study
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before the invasion of the Aryan conquerors. Therefore, the hypothesis could be advanced that the Indo-Aryans arrived at their doctrine of metempsychosis in a manner similar to that of the Celtic Druids...... ..."54
The Karma with its principle of moral retribution has been worked out by Indian philosophers in calculable details. For instance, Manusmrti describes the rewards an individual gets in the next birth for the deeds that he does in this world. As we have described earlier, one who steals gold will get poor nails, one who drinks alcohol will have black teeth. One who kills a Brahmin will suffer from consumption. One who is unchaste with the wife of a teacher will have skin disease. 55 In the Buddhit Texts we get similar descriptions. A man who is greedy and cruel will be reborn as an elephant. One who is charitable and who gives food and drink to the Brahmins and monks, will get abundance in his next life. In the Devi Bhāgavata Purāņa it is stated that one who commits murder for money and other needs, first comes to Majjakunda hell. He stays for a hundred thousand years. He then becomes a fish seven times in successive existences, seven times a mosquito, three times a hog, seven times a cock, and so on. If one steals the property of a Brahmin he goes to the hell Pāsanakunda. He is then reborn three times as a tortoise. In the next three existences he becomes a leper, and so on. Such statements need not be taken literally, They suggest the foundations of the principle of Karma and retribution which nobody can avoid. The graphic picture of the suffering mentioned here are meant as a deterrant to the common man who is not able to grasp the philosophical implication of the fundamental assumption of Karma and retribution. It was reported that the Buddha foretold the rebirths of other persons who were associated with him. The Buddhist tradition gives a number of births which the Buddha had to go through before the attainment of the Buddhahood. The Jaina Tirthankaras were able tɔ describe the consequences of the actions of an individual in his successive births, Religious stories of the Jainas give interesting description of the transmigration of the souls in a chain of lives due to their actions. The long catalogues of good and evil deeds which definite existences have as a consequence, therefore, rightly show that a simple and abstract teaching is sufficient only for a few, that it is capable of satisfying the feeling of the masses only when it gives concrete details and is trimmed with fanciful combinations,56 And such statements have to be understood in the sense that a definite deed has a tendency to mature a definite Karma, but this tendency is also modified by the effects of other deeds.
54. Glasenapp : Immortality and Salvation In Indian Religion, p. 27. 55. Manusmyti, Book XI. 56. Glasenapp : Immortality and Salvation in Indian Religion, p. 30.
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