History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c95.362

v7.c95.362

Another objection is on the ground of heredity. We often find a strong likeness between parents and children in body and sometimes in mental faculties also. How are we to explain this? One answer may be that by some law not yet discovered the soul that has to undergo rebirth is born to parents suited to his condition. Besides, children are not exactly like their parents, some resemble in several physical features the mother or the father, but not in all and children of the same parents differ among themselves even as regards physical features. As regards mental qualities, children do not very often resemble their parents. What sort of mental equipment was possessed by the parents of such men of genius as Shakespeare, Newton, Ramanujan, Einstein? Karma does not express what a man inherits from his ancestors, but it expresses that which he inherits from himself in some previous state or states of existence.