Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 596

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CHAPTER
II
— Explanation of this Religious Doctrine. — Penalties
— The Hindus as Authors of the Doctrine of
Metempsychosis. — Difference between them and the Greeks in this
Naraka, or Hell Punishments endured there. — Abodes
Respect.
Metempsychosis.
for Different Sins.
;
of Bliss.
There are few Hindu books in which the doctrine of
metempsychosis is not explained and expounded. This
doctrine is, as is generally known, one of the fundamental
principles of the Hindu religion.
The following is an
extract from the Bhagavata
Vishnu, the Supreme Being,
before creating anything which now exists, began by creat-
ing souls \ which at first animated bodies of fantastic
shapes.
During their union with these bodies they either
committed sin or practised virtue. After a long abode in
these provisional dwelling-places, they were withdrawn and
:
—
before the tribunal of Yama, who judges the
This divinity admitted into Swarga (paradise) those
and he shut up in
souls which had led virtuous lives
Naraka (hell) those souls which had given themselves up
Souls which had been partly virtuous and partly
to sin.
sinful were sent to earth to animate other bodies, and so
to endure proportionately the pain due for their sins and
Thus every new
to receive the reward of their virtues.
birth, whether happy or unhappy, is the result of deeds
practised in previous generations, and is either the reward
We may thus judge by the con-
or punishment for them.
dition of a person in an existing generation what he has
been in the previous one.
Nevertheless, those who die in holiness are no longer
exposed to new births they go straight to Swarga.
The souls of men, after death, go to animate other
Sometimes it is the body of an insect, of a reptile,
bodies.
of a bird, or of a quadruped, and sometimes it is the body
summoned
dead.
;
'
;
1
The philosophers of the School of Pythagoras held that these souls
were not only immortal but eternal that is to say, they existed before
they entered the bodies of living creatures. The soul, they said, cannot
otherwise all things might become immortal.
be born of anything mortal
Nor can the soul be reborn of anything immortal, because that which is
immortal cannot be reproduced. They held, therefore, that the soul is
part of God Himself.— Dubois.
1
;
;