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Mahabharata 12.211.32

Mahābhārata 12.211.32

Language
Sanskrit

12.211.32

avidyāṃ kṣetramāhurhi karma bījaṃ tathā kṛtam |
tṛṣṇāsaṃjananaṃ sneha eṣa teṣāṃ punarbhavaḥ || 32 ||

(Hence objects that are themselves material cannot by any means be causes for the production of things immaterial).--Some are of opinion that there is rebirth and that it is caused by Ignorance, the desire for acts, cupidity, heedlessness, and adherence to other faults. They say that Ignorance (Avidya) is the soul. Acts constitute the seed that is placed in that soil. Desire is the water that causes that seed to grow, in this way they explain rebirth. They maintain that that ignorance being ingrained in an imperceptible way, one mortal body being destroyed, another starts I up immediately from it; and that when it is burnt by the aid of knowledge, the destruction of existence itself follows or the person attains to what is called Nirvana. This opinion also is erroneous. [This is the doctrine of Buddhists]. It may be asked that when the being that is thus reborn is a different one in respect of its nature, birth, and purposes connected with virtue and vice why should I then be regarded to have any identity with the being that was? Indeed, the only inference that can be drawn is that the entire chain of existences of a particular being is not really a chain of connected links (but that existences in succession are unconnected with one another).

Kisari Mohan Ganguli 1883, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

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