CHAPTER XXVIII
DEATH AND BEYOND
The theory of rebirth and the binding nature of Karma become axiomatic truths in India. According to the Indo-Iranians and their Aryan descendants of the early Vedic period man came but once to this world. This one life of man received its completion after death in the next world. The earthly life was one of probation. The harvest of the seeds of the good or evil deeds that man sowed in this world was to be reaped in the other world. This view of the future life of man was already undergoing a change in India during the later part of the Vedic period. The belief grew that the ideal of life cannot be realized within the limits of a single life upon earth. A long series of lives were required before the soul can purify itself of its impurities and win emancipation. By the sixth century b.c. the theory of the cycle of rebirths had become the universally acknowledged theory in India. Man may reap reward and retribution according to his desert for a temporary period in the next world, but he had to return to this world to enjoy or expiate the consequences of his good or evil deeds that he committed in his past life. Life is living out actions or Karma in a round of rebirth. To the philosophers of this period, this world is no longer what it used to be for the early Vedic seers, the abode of joy and hope. Not only is this world, in their view, transitory, its happiness illusive, its hopes hollow, but it is positively woeful. In such a world of sorrow and suffering man is condemned to sojourn. Periodical life in heaven for a pious man between his death and rebirth is no recompense owing to his impending life upon earth. Higher than heaven and greater than virtue's reward is beyond heaven. The goal of life is the final deliverance from the round of rebirth, the liberation of the soul from the bondage of the ever recurring life so that it may rest in the transcendent peace in Brahma. The one task of religion and philosophy, therefore, is to teach the way of emancipation to
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