Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 597

DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS
557
another man. Nevertheless, the most perfect are ad-
mitted into Swarga, and the most guilty are plunged into
Naraka. It is solely according to their good or bad deeds
that their transmigration, advantageous or otherwise, is
determined and the good or evil they will have to ex-
perience in the various states through which they pass is
determined in the same manner.
The distinctions and differences which are to be observed
amongst mankind must be attributed to the same causes.
Some are rich, and others poor some are weakly, others
enjoy good health some are handsome, others ugly
some are of low birth, others highly born some are happy,
others unhappy. These differences are not the result of
mere chance, but of goodness or wickedness, as the case
may be, in preceding existences.
of
;
'
;
;
;
;
'
Man
is
the highest form of
To be born a man,
all
the creatures on earth.
in whatever caste
presupposes a certain degree of merit.
it
may
be,
always
Among men the Brahmins hold the first rank. The
honour of giving a soul to a Brahmin is the reward only of
the accumulated merits of many previous generations.
To practise virtue in the hope of some reward is always
but to practise it with entire disinterested-
a good thing
ness and without expecting any return or recompense, this
is the most perfect.
Those who thus practise it are certain
of the happiness of Swarga, and are no more subject to
'
'
;
change.
This then is the fruit of our deeds. This is the reason
why the same soul lives sometimes in the body of a man,
at other times in that of an animal.
This is why it is at
one time happy, at another time unhappy, in this world
and in the other.'
I will not follow the author in his detailed enumeration
of the penalties which are reserved for various sins.
I shall
confine myself to the most important of them.
He who kills the cow of a Brahmin will go after death
to hell, where he will for ever be the prey of serpents,
and tormented by hunger and thirst. After thousands of
years of horrible sufferings he will return to the world to
animate the body of a cow, and will remain in this state
as many years as the cow has hairs on its body.
At length
'
'