History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.144

v7.c95.144

This is one of the most fundamental doctrines of the Indian system of religion and philosophy, is an endeavour to answer the question that occurs to all thoughtful persons, viz. what happens to man after the death of the body and has influenced for thousands of years or at least from the times of the Upaniṣads all Indian thought and all Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. This is a vast subject and has during the last few decades attracted the minds of numerours writers in the West. There is now a voluminous literature in the West on reincarnation.2487a Several countries in historical times believed in transmigration. Herodotus2487b states that some of the Greeks (whose names he knew but did not disclose) had used that doctrine as their own, but that the Egyptians were the first to teach that the human soul was immortal and that at the time of the death of the body it entered into some other living thing then coming to birth. Pythagoras appears to have believed in it and there are controversies whether he derived it from India. Prof. A. B. Keith (in J. R. A. S. for 1909 pp. 569-606) after a lengthy discussion holds that Pythagoras did not borrow it from India. The present writer does not express any opinion on that subject as it is irrelevant for the purpose of this volume. Hopkins and Macdonnell accept the theory of Indian influence on Pythagoras, but Oldenberg and Keith do not.