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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
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Ātman and Mokaa
follow, acts as a self that transmigrates. Ward explains this process in clear terms in the following passage "The Buddha taught clearly and persistently that, though there is no living entity in man, which will survive the death of the body, Karma (the good and evil fruits of his actions) survives. We may say, therefore, that in the Buddha's thought Karmn took the place of the soul in man and made Rebirth possible." The only persistent and abiding thing that remains behind, after the complete dissolution of the body into its constituent elements, is the abstract Karma-energy, which finally derermines its subsequent mode of life. It is widely known that Buddhism holds that amidst the Aux of Reality what remains enduring and persistent from time to time in certain sets of conditions is the Kamma. Some Buddhists, as it is found in the Pitakas, could not resist the temptation to believe that 'consciousness' (vijñāna) is the thing that passes from one birth to another. Sir Monier Williams explains the actual process of the passing of Kamma from one body to the other. He writes —“Theoretically it (the soul) perishes with the other Skandhas, but practically is continued, since exact counterpart is reproduced in a new body ....For although when a man dies, all the five constituents of existence are dissolved, yet by the force resulting from his actions (Karma), combined with Upādāna, `clinging to existence' (one form of the fetters) a new set of five,
1 Ward C. H. S. : Buddhism. Vol. I, p. 83. g Ibid. p. 86.
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