ཚ་འཕ་བ་ཇ་ལྟར་འགྱར་བ་ཞས་པའ་མད intro.10

intro.10

The argumentation against such a Vedic eschatology follows several strategies. Sometimes it invokes the fully developed theory of karma governing reincarnation, the worldview of moral causality and retribution accepted in most post-Vedic Indian thought. For example, wealth, poverty, and the like do not remain constant throughout one’s subsequent lives, as they are karmic results that vary because of the ethical nature of actions in those lives. At other times simple human common sense and observation is invoked: for example, if beings, after their death, supposedly continued on with their relatives and ancestors in a “world of Death,” they would be unable to recognize one another, for their usual physical form is obviously destroyed in cremation or in the grave. At still other times the argument depends upon the supernatural. For example, dreams and apparitions of the deceased turn out to be due to a very special type of spirit that mimics the appearance of the deceased in order to trick the living into making offerings that the spirits can then appropriate.