History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s2.4

c11.s2.4

These reanimations Gosāla endowed with the technical title of *paüṭṭa-parihāra* (abandonments of transmigration), and declared that such a series of reanimations was the fated lot of every soul in the final stages of its rigidly determined passage through *saṃsāra*. At the moment, however, we are not concerned with reanimation as a point of doctrine, but with its significance historically. The *Sūtra* quotes with remarkable circumstantial detail the names of the previous occupants of the seven bodies inhabited in turn by the soul of Udāī, together with the length of time during which they were thus inhabited, and the place at which the soul transferred itself from one body to another. According to the text the soul of Udāī passed from body to body as follows:—