History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.358.3

v7.c95.358.3

This book contains numerous references to Greek and Roman writers and to modern English and German poets and philosophers from whose works extracts are cited for showing that they believed in Karma and reincarnation such as Shakespeare, Hume, Goethe, Wordsworth; ‘Indian Philosophy’, by Dr S. Radhakrishnan (1941) pp. 244–249, ‘The circle of life’ by Kenneth Walker (Jonathan Cape, London, 1942) chap. VIII and IX pp. 81–104, ‘Karma and re-birth’ by Christmas Humphreys (London, 1944); in chap. VII pp. 62–66 he tries to show that Schopenhauer, Tennyson, Browning, Rossetti and John Masefield, the English Poet Laureate, believe in this doctrine; ‘The problem of re-birth’ by Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry, 1952); ‘The Brahmasūtras’ by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (1959), pp. 194–207 of the Introduction; ‘The dogma of re-incarnation’ by J. E. Sanjana (New Book Co., Bombay, 1954) pp. 1–134 with an Appendix on the rationale of the dogma of rebirth, pp. 137–157. This is one of the largest and latest works on ‘re-incarnation’ that the present author read. Mr. Sanjana writes bitterly and sometimes in offensive language about those from whom he differs. He asserts that he is a true Zoroastrian and that ‘it can be said without any exaggeration and with the most perfect reason and justice that a man who believes in re-incarnation is not a true Zoroastrian’ (p. 125). None need quarrel with his first belief, but the latter part of the sentence invites serious consideration.