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Rebirth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Roy W. Perrett
Roy W. Perrett
Affiliation:
University of Otago
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Traditional Western conceptions of immortality characteristically presume that we come into existence at a particular time (birth or conception), live out our earthly span and then die. According to some, our death may then be followed by a deathless post-mortem existence. In other words, it is assumed that (i) we are born only once and die only once; and (ii) that – at least on some accounts – we are future-sempiternal creatures. The Western secular tradition affirms at least (i); the Western religious tradition – Christianity, Judaism, Islam – generally affirms both (i) and (ii). The Indian tradition, however, typically denies both (i) and (ii). That is, it maintains both that we all have pre-existed beginninglessly, and that we have lived many times before and must live many times again in this world. The Indian picture, then, is that we have died and been reborn innumerable times previous to this life and (failing our undertaking some spiritual discipline) we will be reborn many times in the future. This is sometimes called the Indian belief in reincarnation. The difficulty with this usage is that the term ‘reincarnation’ suggests a belief in an immortal soul that transmigrates or reincarnates. However Buddhism, while affirming rebirth, specifically denies the existence of an eternal soul. Thus the term ‘rebirth’ is preferable for referring to the generally espoused Indian doctrine.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

References

page 41 note 1 An excellent locus for material on Indian views is O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed., Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).Google Scholar The idea of rebirth is, of course, by no means confined to India: compare the selections in Head, Joseph and Cranston, S. L., eds., Reincarnation in World Thought (New York: Julian Press, 1967).Google Scholar For a recent attempt to rehabilitate reincarnation within Christianity see MacGregor, Geddes, Reincarnation as a Christian Hope (London: Macmillan, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 41 note 2 A notable exception is to be found in the recent writings of Hick, John: see especially his Death and Eternal Life (London: Collins, 1975), chs. 16–19;Google ScholarPhilosophy of Religion 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), ch. 10.

page 42 note 1 Geach, Peter, God and the Soul (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 2.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 Similar conclusions are urged in McTaggart, J. M. E., Some Dogmas of Religion (London: Edward Arnold, 1906), ch. 4;Google ScholarThe Nature of Existence, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927), ch. 63. However, much of McTaggart's argumentation concerning pre-existence and post-existence is inextricably connected with the special peculiarities of his own metaphysical system.

page 43 note 2 For a review of some of these arguments see Smart, Ninian, Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1964), ch. 12.Google Scholar

page 43 note 3 Nyāyasütra III. 1. 18, 21. There is a brief discussion of these arguments in Potter, Karl H., ed., Indian Metaphysics and Epistemology: The Tradition of Nyāya-VaiŚeşika up to Gańgeśa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 35–7.Google Scholar

page 43 note 4 On the sorts of arguments see Herman, Arthur L., The Problem of Evil and Indian Thought (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), part III.Google Scholar

page 43 note 5 See The Tattvasangraha of Śāntarakşita with the Commentary of Kamalaśīla, vol. 2, trans. Jha, Ganganatha (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1939), pp. 887–935.Google Scholar This seems to be the unspecified source for the ‘Buddhist Idealist’ argument cited in Smart, pp. 160–1.

page 44 note 1 This sort of view can be found in Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośa: compare Potter, Karl H., Presuppositions of India's Philosophies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 130–7;Google ScholarStcherbatsky, Th., The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word ‘Dharma’ (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1923).Google Scholar

page 47 note 1 Potter, Karl H., ‘Pre-existence’ in Raju, P. T. and Castell, Alburey, eds., East-West Studies on the Problem of the Self (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), pp. 193–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This paper was originally presented in 1965 and Potter briefly reiterates the argument in order to build upon it in his ‘Freedom and Determinism from an Indian Perspective’, Philosophy East and West, XVII (1967), 113–24 (especially pp. 114–16). The argument has an ancestral connection with one offered in Wisdom, John, Problems of Mind and Matter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), pp. 123–6.Google Scholar

page 48 note 1 Such an analysis is offered in Kaufman, Arnold S., ‘Ability’, Journal of Philosophy LX (1963), 537–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 49 note 1 On such analyses and their difficulties see Davis, Lawrence H., Theory of Action (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978), ch. 3.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 A similar difficulty for Chisholm's account of agent causalism is pointed out in Oddie, Graham, ‘Control’ in Durrant, R. G., ed., Essays in Honour of Gwen Taylor (Dunedin: Philosophy Department, University of Otago, 1982), pp. 198–9.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 Cf. the suggestion in Danto, Arthur C., Analytical Philosophy of Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)Google Scholar that the limits of my self are defined by my repertoire of basic actions. Danto, however, identifies basic actions with physiological processes and hence identifies agents with their bodily processes. The account I am proposing is neutral with regard to the question of whether there are irreducibly mental basic acts.

page 50 note 2 The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, trans. Hume, Robert Ernest, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), p. 140.Google Scholar

page 51 note 1 For the suggestion that the self is simply a set of actual or potential desires (needs, wants, and interests) see Herman, , pp. 192–5.Google Scholar

page 52 note 1 For an interesting discussion of these sorts of objections in relation to Theravāda Buddhism see Forrest, Peter, ‘Reincarnation Without Survival of Memory or Character’, Philosophy East and West, XXVIII (1978), 91–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 53 note 1 Leibniz Selections, Wiener, Philip P. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), p. 340.Google Scholar

page 53 note 2 See, for instance, Majjhima Nikāya, I. 248; Samyutta Nikāya, II. 213. There are numerous other references in the Pāli Canon to the ability of an adept to recall past lives: see Digha Nikāya, I. 81; Majjhima Nikāya, I. 482, II. 31, III. 99, etc.

page 53 note 3 On such cases the careful researches of Professor Stevenson, Ian should be consulted: see his The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations (Tadworth: M. C. Peto, 1961);Google ScholarTwenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1974); Cases of the Reincarnation Type, vols. I–III (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1975–1979).

page 54 note 1 Cf. Ducasse, C. J., A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life After Death (Springfield, III.: Charles C. Thomas, 1961), p. 225.Google Scholar

page 54 note 2 Parfit, Derek, ‘Personal Identity’, Philosophical Review, 8 (1971), 15.Google Scholar

page 55 note 1 Conze, Edward, Buddhist Scriptures (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959), pp. 149–150.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 Cf. Mahābhārata, XII, 218 (220), 35 where there is a criticism (apparently directed at the Buddhist view) of the idea that karma should fall to the lot of other than the doer of the deed. Ofcourse, the Buddhist would concede this but deny that ‘same doer or agent’ is equivalent to ‘same person’. Moreover, he would point out that his Hindu opponents must also admit this non-equivalence. Where they differ is on the question of whether ‘a is the same (agent) as b’ involves absolute or only relative identity.

page 56 note 1 Cf. Forrest, , p. 94.Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 Death and Eternal Life, p. 354. However, Hick is much more impressed by the argument that the doctrine of karma cannot satisfactorily explain away the problem of suffering (including the inequality of human birth and circumstances) because it involves an infinite regress of explanations which ultimately leaves the phenomenon unexplained: see Death and Eternal Life, pp. 308–9; Philosophy of Religion, pp. 141–2. This argument seems to me unsatisfactory, based as it is upon a confusion about the nature of explanation and explanatory ultimates. For criticism see my ‘Karma and the Problem of Suffering’ Sophia, XXIV, No. I (1985), 4–10.

page 57 note 1 Cf. Potter, ‘Pre-existence’, p. 205.

page 57 note 1 Elsewhere, however, I have discussed some aspects of this question: see my ‘Regarding Immortality’, Religious Studies, XXII (1986), 219–33; ‘Dualistic and Non-Dualistic Problems of Immortality’, Philosophy East and West, xxxv (1985), 333–50.