History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.268

v7.c95.268

There are several features of our present life that can be more satisfactorily explained on the theory of transmigration than on any other. Why do two people who have seen but little of one another feel friendship or hatred? The surmise that in past existences they were friends or had obliged each other or harmed each other offers an explanation. The doctrine of karma and transmigration accounts for the apparently unmerited misery and suffering of many people, while some enjoy undeserved happiness or a good life. Our sense of fairness and justice would be shocked by the inequalities in the world, if such a doctrine were not there. The hypothesis and belief that all human volition and conduct will suitably be rewarded and punished in subsequent existences has an important bearing on present conduct, would act as an urge to continual effort for goodness in this life and is likely to deter men from vice and cruelty This doctrine of karma not only offers an explanation about the varying degrees of happiness and unhappiness among human beings, but also accounts for differences in material well-being and unhealthy bodily conditions It offers a solution of the problem of evil in the world and explains precocious abilities in mathematics, music and arts among children and grown up men as in the case of Ramanujan about whom Prof. Hardy of Cambridge (in 'Ramanujan,' Cambridge, 1940) says that he was the most romantic figure in the recent mathematics. If rightly understood, it is not pessimistic or fatalist, but rather emphasizes all out human effort in this life. It will be seen how many of the works on Dharmaśāstra or connected with it as sources emphasize effort (puruṣakāra) as against views of various people that it is *Daiva* or *Svabhāva* or time or the combination of all these that yield rewards or retribution in this life It also explains sudden accession of prosperity or high position such as, for example, a poor man's son being adopted by a prince or queen and then becoming an enlightened and famous ruler as was the case with the late Sayajirao Maharaj Gaikwad of Baroda.