Theme of Rebirth In Philosophies of India

To understand the Indian, or Hindu, concept of rebirth, one must first recognize that the relationship of the soul and the body in the religion of Hinduism (and related Indian philosophies) is one in which the former does not depend for its existence on the latter.

As we read in Smith, the souls of individuals come into the world in an unknown manner. Birth and rebirth occur by the power of God, certainly, but the precise nature of this phenomenon is spelled out only in mythical terms in Indian philosophies, as Prabhupada writes. The interpretation of the Indian sacred book, the Bhagavad-Gita, provides us with this explanation of birth and rebirth: "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up old and useless ones" (Prabhupada, 1972, p. 28). The further explanation of this passage gives us further insight: "Change of body by the atomic individual soul is an accepted fact . . . Transference of the atomic individual soul to another body is also made possible by the grace of the Supersoul" (p. 28).

On the one hand, then, the process of birth and rebirth can be seen as a means whereby the soul moves from body to body and life to life in order to gr

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tions of super-righteous individuals from the past who eventually will fall from their high positions" (Kinsley, 1982, p. 86). Of course, the process is not insignificant, for the very purpose of the various disciplines in Indian philosophy are designed to help free the individual from this otherwise endless cycle of karma and rebirth. Clearly, the life style of the people can be regulated by authorities by emphasizing these beliefs in karma and rebirth. In fact, as long as the people are aware of these beliefs and their applicability to their own lives, they will behave in ways that will be aligned to social restrictions. It so happens, of course, that the behavior which brings bad karma into an individual's life and leads to a lowered value of life in the next rebirth is the same behavior that social restructions would apply to. A thief will create bad karma for himself when he steals, and he will also be arrested and put in jail if he is caught stealing by the earthly authorities. Those authorities then have a double-barrelled argument to present to the people which will encourage them to obey the law, both the law of morality and the law of social restruction. It is bad to be put into jail for thievery, but it is, in
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Approximate Word count = 1895
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)