The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c11.24

c11.24

And now the passage of these souls from one kind of receptacle to another, from man to man, from man to animal, plant, or stock, or stone, follows inevitably. The records of primitive beliefs are full of it. I will merely remind you of the belief in werwolves as one instance of this kind. In the final outcome of all these notions some peoples, eager to account for the destiny of man after death, have assumed a chain of variegated existences. And with this goes very generally some notion of evolution forward or backward. The character of the creature in a certain given existence controls the degree of the next existence. This last bit of logic has flowered out in India as the important doctrine of *karma* or "deed."¹