Religion: Cults, doctrines and

metaphysics
The Religion of the Vedas
 Gods of the Rig Veda
• Harappans – Mother Goddess, horned fertility
god; sacred trees and animals, ritual ablutions
• Rig veda – 1028 humns – 1500 to 900 B.C
• A collection of hymns for use at the sacrifices
• Sama veda – rearranged Rig veda for liturgical
purpose
• Yajur veda – sacrificial formulae in prose and
verse – adhvaryu priest – (Black/White)
• Atharva veda – magical spells and incantations in
verse – latest – reflects a lower cultural level
 Vedic literature
• Brahmanas – appendices to the Vedas (800 to 600 B.C.)
• Aranyakas and Upanishads – mystical appendices to
Brahmanas (600 B.C. onwards)
• What was the religion of these people? Brahmanism or
Vedism as distinguished from Hinduism
• Yaska’s Nirukta (etymology) – 500 B.C.
• Devas – chief object of worship
• Sky connection; predominantly male
• Female gods – Prithvi, Aditi, Usas, Ratri, Aranyani
• Dyaus compared with Zeus and Jupiter
 Vedic deities
• Indra – war god and weather god; thunderbolt (vajra);
dragon slayer and wild rider of storm
• Maruts – sings martial songs; aids the war god
• Surya – sun god
• Savitr – another solar god – Gayatri mantra
• Agni – fire god; god of the priest; god of the home –
domestic hearth; intermediary between god and men
• Soma – divinity of special character – Plant – potent
drink – plant growth connected with the moon – all
hymns in 9th mandala – special god of the brahmanas –
king or “patron deity”
 Vedic deities
• Varuna – Second in importance after Indra – known as
Asura; mighty emperor sitting in a great palace in
heavens; Controls Mitra (god of vows and compacts);
guardian of Rta, the cosmic order (a concept of highest
flight of Rig Vedic thought) – compare Anrta
(untruth/sin)
• Creator-god; ethically the highest; severe punisher of
sin
• Rudra – Amoral; remote god; plague and disaster
• Vayu – wind god
• Gandharvas – divine musicians; Apsaras – nymphs,
mistresses of gods and men
 Vedic deities
• No definitive genealogy; relationships vague;
no tidy scheme of precedence
• Rig veda is an imperfect syncretism of many
tribal beliefs and cults
• “Whom, then, shall we honour with our
oblations?”
• God called Ka (Who?) was invented
 Cult of Sacrifice
• Grihya sutras earliest texts describing sacrifice
• Rig veda is concerned with great sacrifices, paid for by
chiefs and wealthier tribesmen
• Complex rites, slaughter, several well-trained priests
• Main Purpose – gratification of the goods to obtain
boons – quid pro quo basis
• Rituals – brahman – sacred utterence (mantra) – Om
(pranava) – essence of the vedas ; utmost power and
mystery
• The conception that Universe itself arose from a
primeval sacrifice
 Cult of sacrifice
• No outright creator god in Rig veda
• Prajapati – end of the Rig vedic period – identified with
Brahma; thought of as a primeval man (purusa), who
existed before Universe was founded – man was sacrificed
– from the body of the divine victim the universe was
produced
• New meaning of sacrifices – priests mystically repeated the
primeval sacrifice; world born anew
• Without regular sacrifices all cosmic processes would cease
and chaos
• Emphasis on Brahmanas – most powerful than any earthly
king; supreme social servant
• This is the basic doctrine of the Brahmanas
 New developments of doctrine
• Death as a concept – hell/heaven;
metempsychosis
• Brihadaranyaka upanishad – first form of the
doctrine of transmigration – 7th to 6th centuries
B.C – primitive belief that conception occurred
through the eating by one of the parents of a fruit
or vegetable containing the latent soul of the
offspring – new and a rare idea
• Beginning of the concepts of samsara
(transmigration) and karma (result of the deeds
of one life affecting the next)
 Doctrine of Karma
• Repeated passage of the soul from life to life for all
eternity or for an inestimably long time
• Linking all forms of life as a single system – gods
included – water, dust and air had minute animalculae
and these too had souls
• All these changes determined by conduct
• One’s status (higher or lower) in the scale of existence
in future is determined by behaviour in the present
• This is the doctrine of Karma – literally “deed” – soon
became fundamental to most Indian thought
 Doctrines of Karma and Samsara -
Advantages
• Concept of Karma is a satisfactory explanation to
the mystery of suffering
• It justified the manifest social inequalities of the
Aryan community
• Universal acceptance of Karma theory in short
time shows it men in great measure ancient
India’s spiritual needs
• Concept of Samsara – offers infinite potentialities
of new experience to the soul – holds hope for
humblest of living things and the most evil beings
too – therefore more attractive
 Contrary opinion to Karma
• Death is unpleasant; numerous deaths are
frightening
• Continuous births are boring too
• Life – inadequate and drab
• Birth of the doctrine of transmigration coincides
with the birth of pessimistic ideas
• Rebirth in heaven is not enough – a way had to
be found to escape the cycle of birth and death
altogether
• Mystical knowledge – Meditation and asceticism
 Asceticism
• Upanishadic asceticism of difference classes
• Ascetics as solitary psychopaths
• Ascetics who dwelt in “penance-grounds”
• Ascetics of mental and spiritual exercises of meditation
• Original motive – acquisition of magical power
• New meaning of sacrifices by the time of upanishads –
prosperity, long life, rebirth in heaven – Not sustaining
the cosmic order
• Metaphysical interpretation of the ascetic’s mystical
knowledge varies from sect to sect – but fundamental
experience is the same
 New direction for Brahmanism
• Great development of asceticism and mysticism cannot be
ignored by materialistic Brahmanism
• Place was found for hermit and wandering ascetic in Aryan
social structure by the formula of four stages of life – first
appears in Dharma Sutras
• Accounts of discussions and teachings of early mystics
collected and added to Brahmanas as Aranyakas
• Later, short treatises of mystical character were composed
in verse, as upanishads
• Later still, a system of mystical training, often known as
Yoga (Union) was accepted as an orthodox element of the
Brahmanism
• Indian religion in new direction
 Asceticism – result of a crumbling
tribal society
• Asceticism, pessimism and mysticism – deep
psychological anxiety
• Feeling of group solidarity was removed; men
stood face to face with the world – no refuge in
their kinsmen
• Chieftains were overthorown, courts dispersed,
lands and tribesmen absorbed as part of greater
kingdoms
• A new order coming up – deep feeling of
insecurity
 Cosmogonic theories
• Prajapati (Purusa) required companionship
and produced a wife
• Idea of creation by a cosmic sexual act played
a great part in later religious thought
• Heterodox teachers – naturalistic, atheistic
cosmogonic theories – water, fire, wind, ether
(akasa)
• Fate (niyati), time (kala), nature (svabhava),
chance (samgati), ripening (parinama)
• Buddha thought speculation on first causes as a useless
waste of time
• Out and out skeptics to materialists to atomists
• Intellectual life of India in the 7th and 6th centuries was
very vigorous
• Ascetics with the support of contemporary kings
• Janaka of Videha and Ajatasatru of Kasi – 7th century
B.C.
• Vanaprastha (forest hermits) and Parivrajakas
(wanderers) - Upanishads developed from out of
Vanaprastha
 Upanishads
• Upanishad – “sit down near” or “a session”
• 108 upanishads – probably
• Brahadaranyaka and Chandogya – earlier upanishads -
prose – question and answer on some aspect of new
doctrines
• Katha and Svetasvatara – later upanishads - verse –
contents more closely integrated
• Speculations of the Upanishads differ considerably, but
main purport is the same
• One entity, called Brahman, fills all space and time
• This is the ground beyond and below all forms and
phenomena, and from it the whole universe, including gods
themselves, has emerged
 Upanishads
• Great knowledge – not in mere recognition of
Brahman but in continual consciousness of it
• Brahman resides in human soul – indeed
Brahman is the human soul, is Atman, the Self
• Realisation of this leads to freedom from
transmigration – coz., his soul becomes one
with Brahman, and he transcends joy and
sorrow, life and death
 Conversation – Tat Vam Asi –
Chandogya Upanishad
• “Fetch me a fruit of the banyan tree”
• “Here is one, sir”
• “Break it”
• “I have broken it, sir”
• “What do you see?”
• “Very tiny seeds, sir”
• “Break one seed”
• “I have broken it, sir”
• “Now what do you see?”
• “Nothing sir”
• “My son”, the father said, “what you do not perceive is the
essence, and in that essence the mighty banyan tree exists.
Believe me, my son, in that essence is the Self of all that is. That is
the True, that is the Self. And you are that Self, Svetaketu!”
 Atman
• Upanishads – immaterial; jainas – soul-stuff matter
• Atman – soul or self
• Tat Vam Asi – you (the individual) are that (universal
essence) – the leading theme of the upanishads
• Universal Essence is sometimes defined in purely
negative terms – “neti, neti” – imperishable,
unattached, does not fail, does not suffer - sage
Yajnavalkya
• Bhagavadgita – full-fledged theism, change from
religion of sacrifice to one of devotion
 Buddhism –
Buddha (Enlightened/Awakened)
• Story of Buddha
• Growth of Buddhism –
• First council – Rajagriha – Upali –Vinaya pitaka
(rules of the order) as told by Buddha
• Ananda – Sutta pitaka (collection of Buddha’s
sermons on doctrine and ethics)
• Second council – Vaisali – 100 years after death –
SCHISM – small points of monastic discipline –
STHAVIRAVADINS (Pali – theravadi) versus
MAGASANGHIKAS – later doctrinal differences
 Evolution of Buddhism
• At Buddha’s time – no direct antagonism btwn
Buddhism and brahmanism – but there was
hostility between Buddhism and other heterodox
sects – vigorous propaganda among laymen for
their support
• Buddha himself encouraged two groups of
followers – full timers and lay folk
• Buddhism – 200 years after Buddha was a distinct
religion although Buddha wanted to found a
religion was highly questionable
• Ashoka’s 5 religious classifications
 Buddhism – contd.
• Viharas – monasteries and temple – Ashoka’s time
• Chaityas – sacred spots – evolution
• After Buddha’s death – monks gave up practice of constant
travel and settle down near chaityas – Monasteries grow in
size and stature
• Cult of Chaitya – Stupas are born – Ashokas stupas across
India
• Buddha symbolism venerated – Buddha raised to divinity –
• stupa (parinirvana) – bodhi tree (enlightenment)
• Worship by circumambulation and prostrations, offering of
flowers
• Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Deer park at Saranath, Kusinagara
 Buddhism – contd.
• Buddhism between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. –
outnumbers Brahmanism & Jainism together in
religious remains
• Donations to the Order, inscriptions, revenues of whole
villages, vows of poverty taken lightly
• SARVASTIVADINS – Mathura and Kashmir
• Kanishka’s patronage – Fourth council – Kashmir –
Mahavibhasa
• Sarvastivadins and Mahasanghikas become Mahayana
buddhism (greater vehicle)
• Sthaviravadins become Hinayana buddhism (lesser
vehicle)
 Buddhism – contd.
• Why Mahayana became popular? It fitted the mood of
the times
• Teachers of early Christian centuries gave Buddhism a
new outlook – many people can have salvation –
influence of Western and Persian ideas
• Hinayana loses ground
• Hinayana in Srilanka, Thailand, Burma and SE Asia
• Mahayana – divided by various schisms – went to
China and Japan
• During Hiuen Tsang’s visit (7th century) – Hinayana
almost extinct in India
 Buddhism – contd.
• Nalanda under Palas – Padmasambhava goes to
Tibet in 8th century
• Students from China and SE Asia in Nalanda
• Rise of new ideas – primitive ideas of sympathetic
magic and sexual mysticism
• Buddhism is affected
• Third vehicle – Vajrayana – East India – 8th C
• Tibet converts to Vajrayana in 11th century due to
the effort of Vajrayana monastery of Vikramasila
 Persecution of Buddhism
• 6th century Huna king Mihirakula
• Sasanka – fanatical Saivite king from Bengal almost
destroyed the Bodhi tree
• Persecution was not the main cause of decline of
Buddhism
• Revival and reformation of Hinduism – Sankara travels
and disputes – organized body of monks
• New form of devotional Hinduism had emotional
appeal – Hinduism’s tendency to assimilate and not to
attack
• Buddhist family – Hindu rituals; perception of
Buddhism for an ordinary layman
 Buddhism – contd.
• 9th century North India – Buddha as 9th avatar
• Buddhism loses individuality, an unorthodox
Hindu sect
• Onslaught of Muslim invasion – Hinduism
suffers, Buddhism seriously weakened
 Hinayana (lesser vehicle)
• Also called as Sthaviravadins and Theravada Buddhism
• Written scriptures – tri pitakas
• Vinaya (Conduct), Sutta (Sutra in Sanskrit) pitaka
(Sermon) & Abhidhamma (Metaphysics)
• Fahsien’s difficulty in finding a copy of vinaya pitaka
• Vinaya pitaka – pronouncements attribute to Buddha,
laying down numerous rules for conduct of the Sangha
(Order). With each rule circumstances which led
Buddha to propound it are given – so Vinaya is
traditional
 Hinayana – contd.
• Largest and most important of the “three baskets” – Sutta
Pitaka – divided in to 5 groups
• Digha Nikaya (long) – longer sermons
• Majjhima Nikaya (medium) – shorter sermons
• Samyutta Nikaya (connected) – brief sermons on kindred
topics
• Anguttara Nikaya (graduated) – sermons on the trinity of
thought, word and deed
• Khuddaka Nikaya (minor) – prose and verse – contains
Dhammapada (verses on virtue), Theragada and Therigata
(hymns of elder monks and nuns), Jataka tales (ascribed to
Buddha – recollections of previous births when he was a
Bodhisattva – a being destined to become Buddha)
 Hinayana – contd.
• Abhidhamma – Buddhist psychology and metaphysics –
last of the 3 pitakas
• Semi-canonical – Milindapanho – Nagasena & Greco-
Bactrian King Menander – 1st cen BC
• Dukkha – sorrow/suffering/dissatisfaction and other
manifold unpleasantness is due to Tanha (thirst or
craving) – eliminate the craving of personal ambition,
desire, longing and selfishness of all kinds
• According to Buddha, craving is due to ignorance – a
sort of cosmic ignorance which leads to the delusion of
the selfhood
 Hinayana – contd.
• Dharmachakrapravartana sutta – contains the
“Four Noble Truths” and the “Eight Fold Path”
• Follow the middle course between self-
indulgence and extreme asceticism and lead a
moral and well-ordered life
• Paticcha-samudpaada – emphasizes on dukkha
and craving
• Fundamental nature of universe is divided in to
three – sorrow (dukkha), transient (anicca),
soulless (anatta)
 Hinayana – contd.
• Dukkha- Buddhism would not deny happiness – but in
some form sorrow is inevitable in every aspect of life
• “Ocean has only one flavour – salt – my doctrine has
one flavour – emancipation from sorrow” – Buddha
• Aniccha – Every being however stable and
homogeneous is in reality transient and composite –
Buddhism knows no being but only becoming
• Universe is in continous flux – all idea of permanence is
part of the basic ignorance
• Anatta – No immortal soul – universe is soulless – no
transmigration - Brahman of upanishads is an illusion
 Hinayana – contd.
• Hinayana is without souls and without god
• Only stable entity is Nirvana – state of bliss reached by the
Buddhas and Arhants (perfected beings)
• Complete annihilation? Neither of being nor of annihilation
– according to Buddha
• Sthaviravadin sect survives in Srilanka, Burma, Thailand,
Cambodia, Laos
• Sarvastivadins – (They who say “All is”) – Constituents of
Dharmas do exist in some form
• Sautrantikas – Our knowledge of the outside world is only
a feasible inference
• Sammitiyas – reject soullessness and to postulate a sort of
soul in the pudgala or person, which passes from life to life
 Hinayana – contd.
• Though Buddha disapproved speculation on
the origin and end of the world, Hinayanists
devised a cosmological scheme
• Existence of the world without a creator
• Existence of “Buddha cycles” and “empty
cycles”
• Four Buddhas – Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni,
Kashyapa, Sakyamuni) have taught and a fifth
(Maitreya) is yet to come
 Evolution of Mahayana
• Pali scriptures never claimed Buddha as a supernatural
being
• But his Birth, Enlightenment, Death were cosmic events of
highest importance
• After Parinirvana, the chain of existence was broken and
Buddha ceases to affect the universe
• “Three Jewels” – Buddha / Sangha / Dharma
• Buddha taught he was the last of a long succession of
earlier Buddhas
• Carvings of the Bharhut and Sanchi stupas – adoring
worshippers revernsing symbols of the Buddha
• All Buddhist sects started worshipping Buddhist images by
middle ages
 Mahayanism
• Cult of Maitreya – from Zoroastrianism - idea of
Saviour (Saoshyant)
• Cult of Bodhisattvas – can be incarnated as men,
animals or divine beings
• Neither omniscient nor almighty – celestial
Bodhisattvas may be prayed – part of their
mission is to answer prayer
• Invention of Bodhisattva gave rise to Buddhist
mythology
• This was the Hallmark of Mahayana Buddhism
 Mahayanism
• Arhants Vs. Bodhisattvas; selfishness versus
transference of merit
• Bodhisattva as a suffering saviour
• Chief Bodhisattva is Avlokiteshvara or Padmapani –
special attribute is compassion – he helps even Avici
• Manjushri – stimulate understanding – depicted with a
naked sword in one hand, to destroy error and
falsehood, and a book in the other, describing the ten
paramithas (spiritual perfections), which are the
cardinal virtues of Bodhisattvas
 Mahayanism
• Vajrapani – a stern Bodhisattva, is the foe of sin
and evil and has a thunderbolt in his hand like
Indra
• Maitreya – future Buddha is also worshipped as a
Bodhisattva
• Sanskrit was the official language of Mahayanism
in India – Lalitavistara was the earliest text of
Mahayana
• Two philosophical schools of Mahayanism –
Madhyamika and Yogacara
Madhyamika school (intermediate)
• Middle path – not uncompromising realism of
Sarvastivadins or the idealism of Yogachara
• Nagarjuna – contemporary of Kanishka wrote
Madhyamika karika – basic text
• If cosmic flux was unreal, consciousness which
perceived it was also part of the flux
• So samsara, did not really exist
• If the world of change was unreal, its contrary, Nirvana
was also unreal – no difference between samsara and
nirvana – both are non-entities only
• SUNYAVADA – EMPTYNESS – PHILOSOPHICAL NIHILISM
 YOGACHARA ( Way of Union)
• Also called as Vijnanavadin school
• Rejected the realism of Hinayana and developed thorough
idealism
• World was built by consciousness and had no more reality
than a dream
• Only reality was “Suchness” – Tathata or Dharmadhatu
• Less influential than Madhyamika
• Asanga – 4th/5th century – Sutralankara is the earliest text
of Yogacara
• Vasubandhu – brother of Asanga and Dignaga and
Dharmakirti
• Lankavatarasutra – important text of this school
 Vajrayana Buddhism
• Feminine divinities in Mahayana
• Buddhas and Bodhisattvas – endowed with wives
– who were the active aspect – the “force” or
“poteny” of their husbands
• God transcendent and aloof; goddess active in
the world – so easy to approach
• Suggestion of sexual union for productive activity
– sexual symbolism, even intercourse as a
religious rite came in to the schools of Buddhism
and Hinduism
 Vajrayana
• Rise of new magical mysticism
• Hinayana – Nirvana by gradual loss of
individuality through self-discipline and
meditation
• Mahayana – grace and help of the heavenly
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas assisted the process of
Nirvana
• Vajrayana – Nirvana best attained by acquiring
magical power (vajra – thunderbolt or diamond)
 Vajrayana
• Freelancers attempting feats of sorcery and
necromancy – which Buddha condemned
• Pala kings patronage in Bengal and Bihar
• Hiuen Tsang as witness in 7th century
• Chief divinities – “Taras” – Saviouresses – spouses of
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
• Matangis, Yoginis and Dakinis
• They need to compelled and not persuaded –
textbooks outlining the means (sadhana) were called
as Tantras – hence Tantricism
• Mantra and Yantra worship – highest bliss
 JAINISM
(Religion of the conquerors)
• No fundamental changes in Jaina doctrine
• Nowhere near in appeal compared to
Buddhism
• Never left India
• Mahavira’s early life
• Nirgranthas (Free from bonds) – Parsvanatha
• Dispute with Gosala of Ajivikas
• 13th year of Ascenticism – he becomes Jina
 Jainism
• First Schism – Bhadrabhahu and Sthulabhadra
• White garments of Sthulabadra (Svetambara)
• Space clad become Digambaras
• Schism became final in 1st century AD
• NEVER ANY FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINAL
DIFFERENCES
• Oral sacred literature – Bhadrabahu
• First council – Pataliputra – Sthulabhadra – 12
Angas (replaced 14 Purvas) – accepted by
Svetembaras only
 Jainism
• Second Council – Valabhi – Gujarat – 5th century
A.D. – Svetambara canonical literature reduced to
writing
• New material in the form of 12 Upangas
• Prakrit and Sanskrit
• Nayachandra – 14th century – Sanskrit poet
• Mallinatha – commentary on the poems of
Kalidasa
• Jaina passion – Love of literature and copy of
manuscript
 Jainism
• Between Mauryas and Guptas
• Gujarat and Rajasthan (Svetambara sect)
• Karnataka – Digambara
• Chalukya king Kumarapala – Gujarat – 12th
century – Jaina reformation
• Digambaras – hit in South by devotional
Saivism and Vaishnavism
 Jaina doctrine
• Like Buddhism, fundamentally atheitic
• Don’t deny the existence of gods – refuses
them any importance in the universal scheme
• The world, for the Jaina, is not created,
maintained or destroyed by a personal deity,
but functions according to universal law
• Universe is eternal & cyclical
• Utsarpini (improvement) and Avasarpini
(Decline)
 Jaina doctrine
• 63 Salaka purushas (great men) including 24
Tirthankaras, 12 Universal emperors
(Chakravartins)
• Giant men and dwarfs in cycles
• No cataclysmic universal destruction in Jainism –
unlike Hinduism and Buddhism
• Universe functions thro interaction of living souls
(jivas – lives) and 5 categories of non living
entities (ajiva) – ether (akasa), dharma
(movement), adharma (rest), kala (time), pudgala
(matter)
 Jaina doctrine
• Souls are there in animals, plants, stones, rocks,
running water and natural objects
• Soul is made of karma (matter)
• Karma adheres to the soul as a result of activity
• Transmigration can be escaped by dispelling the karma
already adhering to the soul and by ensuring that no
more is acquired
• Slow and difficult process; some may never attain
Nirvana
• Annihilation (nirjara) of karma comes through penance,
prevention (samvara) of the influx and fixation
(bandha)
 Jaina doctrine
• Theory of epistemology of great subtlety –
speculation on space and time bordering on
theory of relativity in physics
• Tirthankaras were adored as deities and Hindu
gods found minor place in the Jaina pantheon,
but Jainism never compromised on atheism
• Full salvation is not possible to the layman
• Monastic life (fasting, self-mortification) and
nudity are absolutely essential
• Sallekhana is a favoured method of death
 Jainism doctrine
• Insistence of ahimsa – agriculture/feather
dusters/meat-eating/veils over mouths
• Lighting or putting out fire
• Periodical retreats for laymen
• At one time, Jainism maintained a cult of
stupas, like Buddhism
• Tirthankaras adored in temples, in the form of
icons
 Ajivika sect
• Rigorous discipline and complete nudity
• Gosala Maskariputra
• Feud with Mahavira at Sravasti (487 BC)
• Ajivikas = Purana Kassapa (antinomian) +
Pakuda Katyayana (atomist) + GOSALA himself
• Glory during Mauryan times – Ashoka and
Dasaratha
• 14th century – South India
 Ajivika sect
• Polemic literature – only source
• Atheistic and strict determinism
• Doctrine of karma – man’s free will to change it denied
by Ajivikas
• Impersonal cosmic principles – Niyati or destiny
• Impossible to influence the course of transmigration
• Then why severe asceticism and self-mortification?
Accusations of immorality
• Dravidian Ajivikas developed doctrine like Mahayanists
• “Niyati” to a certain extent resembles “Sunyavada”
 Other sects
• Ajita keshakambalin – contemporary of
Buddha
• Simpler pleasures of life – Buddha condemned
them of no motives
• Charvakas and Lokayatas
• Arthashastra and Kamasutra
• TATTVOPAPLAVASIMHA (The lion destroying all
religious truth) – Jayarasi in 8th century
 SOUL/KARMA/SAMSARA
Hinduism
• Karma – unseen ripening of past actions –
accumulating and dispersing (severe in
Jainism)
• Through Karma the body of the next life,
divine, animal, hellish was acquired
• Character, fortune, happiness depended on
previous karma
• Every act is account for – good or evil
 SOUL/KARMA/SAMSARA
Hinduism
• No fatalism – law of karma could be used to our advantage
by judgement and forethought
• Transmigration (Samsara) – interpretation different in
different sects
• It does not transmigrate in nudity; but with a sheath of
subtle matter
• Deprived of sense-organs, mind, soul cannot remember
previous births or passage from one body to another
• Very advanced souls – exception against rule
• Until the death of Brahma – final dissolution of the universe
at the end of 100 Brahma years, they are absorbed in to the
world spirit and karma is annihilated