History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.361

v7.c95.361

The first objection raised against the doctrine of Karma by Pringle-Pattison in 'Idea of immortality' (Oxford, 1922) is that absence of memory of the pre-existence is fatal to it (p. 112) and that immortality without recollection is quite useless. Miss Lily Dougall in 'Immortality' by Canon Streeter and others raises a similar objection (p. 29). This objection can be answered in various ways Does any one remember anything of what one did during the first two years of his life? It is also well-known that men do not correctly remember in old age even the names of their grand-children nor does a man remember what he did exactly ten years ago during his present life. It is rather merciful that there is no memory of past lives. If all the multifarious memories of many lives were to crowd on us in the present life, our minds would be confused and matters in the present life would be very much complicated. Karma is a cosmic law like the law of gravitation. The latter was not recognized by humanity for thousands of years but all the same it existed and worked. Several people claim to remember their past lives. The story of Śāntidevī was published as a case of re-incarnation by Lala Deshbhandhu Gupta, Pandit Nekiram Sharma, and Tarachand Mathur. The 'Theosophist Monthly' for January 1925 mentions concrete instances of the memory of past lives 'The lives of Alcyone' (Adyar, 1924) is a work in two volumes by Mrs Besant and Mr Leadbeater in which 48 lives are traced from 70000 B C to 624 A. D with photographs of some of them as they must have appeared in the respective incarnations. The present author does not go into that question here In the Essays on Immortality edited by B H. Streeter it is said (on p 297) that lack of conscious continuity between two incarnations of a soul negatives the doctrine. One may ask: what grounds are there to hold or to prove that the reprobate criminal who will be awarded a judgment of eternal punishment will remember while undergoing hell fires his past life on earth? If one can believe in future eternal punishment for a confirmed sinner without any tangible evidence of memory of the sinful life he lived, why refuse to believe in pre-existence merely on the ground of absence of memory? Vide 'Some Dogmas &c.' p. 130. Further, science holds that matter and energy are indestructible, they are only transformed into other forms. Why should one regard it as absurd if one were to hold that the soul (to which post-existence is granted by Christianity and some other religions) should be held to come into existence in the present life all at once and not be held to have had previous existence but only in a different form? The continuity of the soul in past and future existences is merely a metaphysical question and cannot be affected by the loss of memory. The latter occurs in one life of many years as to numerous happenings and at least in that one life the soul is admittedly one throughout