The Destiny of the Soul: A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life

, slavish tradition and audacious speculation, besotted ritualism and heaven storming spirituality, are mingled toget

from Java to Japan, and from the Ceylonese to the Samoyedes, practically considered, in reference to their actually received dogmas and aims pertaining to a f

anslation of the Rig Veda, that the references to this subject in the primeval Sanscrit scriptures are sparse and incomplete. But no one has so thoroughly elucidated this obscure question as Roth of Tubingen, in

er of their doom is furnished. They were supposed either to be annihilated, as Professor Roth thinks the Vedas imply, or else to live as demons, in sin, blackness, and woe. The good go up to heaven and are glorified with a shining spiritual body like that of the gods. Yama, the first man, originator of the human race on earth, is the beginner and head of renewed humanity in another world, and i

ng is, where is the wo

tality, the everla

vasvat's son, in the

ig

waters flow, oh, make

om unrestrain'd, whe

's in

htest glory are, oh,

er

joyments are, where bl

fli

satisfied, oh, make

ii. pp.

st in the multiplying developments and specifications of a mystical phil

single fishes thousands of miles in every dimension. The celestial spaces are occupied by a large number of heavens, called "dewa lokas," increasing in the glory and bliss of their prerogatives. The worlds below the earth are hells, called "naraka." The description of twenty eight of these, given in the Vishnu Purana,2 makes the reader "sup full of horrors." The Buddhist "Books of Ceylon" 3 tell of twenty six heavens placed in regular order above one another in the sky, crowded with all imaginable delights. They also depic

e would be more sakwalas, in the same direction, to which no seed had been thrown, without considering those in the other three quarters of the heavens. In comparison with this Eastern vision of the infinitude of worlds, the wildest Western dreamer over the vistas opened by the telescope may hide his diminished head! Their other conceptions are of the same crushing magnitude, Thus, when the demons

demons, and various grades of animal life occupying this immeasurable array of worlds

trans. pp

s. vol. iii. p

ncient and Hindu

a succession of rising and sinking existences, ranging through all the earths, heavens, and hells of the universe, bound by the terrible links of merit and demerit in the phantasmagoric dung

d vices. When a man dies, if he has an excess of good desert, he is born, as a superior being, in one of the heavens. According to the nature and degree of his merit, his heavenly existence is prolonged, or perhaps repeated many times in succession; or, if his next birth occurs on earth, it is under happy circumstances, as a sage or

souls of great

eings shall

icious spirits

tures, sharks, an

gay, the witty

oward, courtier

congenial fo

ing for his wa

the fruits of former acts," "bound in the chains of deeds." Merit or demerit can be balanced or neutralized only by the full fruition of its own natural and necessary consequences.6 The law of merit and of demerit is fate. It works irresistibly, through all changes and recurrences, from the beginning to the end. The cessation of virtue or of vice does not put an end to its effects until its full for

. 2

erican Oriental Soc

ns, or on the rolling and many colored wheel of metempsychosis may secure for him next a celestial birthpl

rls, unruffled lakes where the lotus blooms, palaces of gems, crowds of friends and lovers, endless revelations of truth, boundless graspings of power, all that can stir and enchant intellect, will, fancy, and heart. In some of the heavens the residents have no bodily form, but enjoy purely spiritual pleasures. In others they are self resplendent

thus: experiencing an insatiable hunger in a body as large as three mountains, he is tantalized with a mouth no larger than the eye of a needle.8 The infernal tormentors, throwing their victims down, take a flexible flame in each hand, and with these lash them alternately right and left. One demon, Rahu, is seventy six thousand eight hundred miles tall: the palm of his hand measures fifty thousand acres; and when he is enraged he rushes up the sky and swallows the sun or the moon, thus causing an eclipse! In the Asiatic Journal for 1840 is an article on "The Chinese Judges of the

rths, and all the repulsive exposures of finite life, the Hin

nual of Bud

hology of the

this contrast of finite restlessness and pain with infinite peace and blessedness, a contrast which constitutes the preaching of their priests, saturates their sacred books, fills their thoughts, and broods over all

rch of a dewa loka, now writhe and die as a bat in the shrivelling flame."11 "The Supreme Soul and the human soul do not differ, and pleasure or pain ascribable to the latter arises from its imprisonment in the body. The water of the Ganges is the same whether it run in the river's bed or be shut up in a decanter; but a drop of wine added to the water in the decanter imparts its flavor to the whole, whereas it would be lost in the river. The Supreme Soul, therefore, is beyond accident; but the human soul is afflicted by sense and passion. Happiness is only obtained in reunion with the Supreme Soul, when the dispersed individualities combine again with it, as the drops of water with the parent stream. Hence the slave should remember that he is separated from God by the body alone,

Monachis

u Purana

nual of Budd

searches, vol

erican Oriental Soci

te representation of the vivid and inexhaustible amplification with which they set forth the direful disgusts and loathsome terrors associated with the series of ideas expressed by the words conception, birth, life, death,

it not for the shade afforded by the tree of emancipation? . . . Travelling the path of the world for many thousands of births, man attains only the weariness of bewilderment, and is smothered

empsychosis: "Him that overcometh I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out forever." The testimony of all who have investigated the subject agrees with the following assertion by Professor Wilson: "The common end of every system studied by the Hindus is the ascertainment of the means by which perpetual exemption from the necessity of repeated births may be won."15 In comparison with this aim, every thing els

Merge in thy gold our souls' alloy:

and end of certain stupendous epochs called kalpas. Four thousand three hundred and twenty million years make a day of

u Parana

Karika, pre

u Purana

takes place, every thing merging into the Absolute One, until he shall rouse himself renewedly to manifest his energies.17 Although created beings who have not obtained emancipation are destroyed in their individual forms at the periods of the general dissolution, yet, being affected by the good or evil acts of former existence, they are never exempted from their consequences

assume form; as moonlight, impinging upon various objects, appears crooked or straight.19 Bharata says to the king of Sauriva, "The great end of all is not union of self with the Supreme Soul, because one substance cannot become another. The true wisdom, the genuine aim of all, is to know that Soul is one, uniform, perfect, exempt from birth, omnipresent, undecaying, made of true knowledge, dissociated with unrealities."20 "It is ignorance alone which enables Maya to impress the mind with a sense of indivi

regard to the nature and destiny of the human soul. They may be considered in two classes. First, there are some who defend the idea of the personal

25. Hardy, Manual of

Parana, pp

e, Essays, v

u Purana

Ancient and Hindu

Purana, pp

erican Oriental Soci

of part and whole. "As gold is one substance still, however diversified as bracelets, tiaras, ear rings, or other things, so Vishnu is one and the same, although modified in the forms of gods, animals, and men. As the drops of water raised from the earth by the wind sink into the earth again when the wind subsides, so the variety of gods, men, and animals, which have been detached by the agitation of the qualities, are reunited, when the disturbance ceases, with the Eternal." 25 "The whole obtains its destruction in God, like bubbles in water." The Madhava sect believe that there is a personal All Soul distinct from the human soul. Their proofs are detailed in one of the Maha Upanishads.26 These two groups of sects, h

ied, or was lame, or deaf, or occupied, or idle, all would at once be born, die, be lame, deaf, occupied, or idle. But Professor Wilson says, "This doctrine of the multitudinous existence or individual incorporation of Soul clearly contradicts the Vedas. They affirm one

their wishes to be reached by one means only; and that is knowledge, real wisdom, an adequate sight of the truth.

vol. iv

u Purana

lesungen uber Indische Li

ya Karik

ee of merit, or to bring the soul into such a state of preparedness, as will compel the truth to reveal itself. And still others devote themselves to the worship of some chosen deity, by ritual acts and fervid cont

ndage."28 "The virtuous is born again in heaven, the wicked is born again in hell; the fool wanders in error, the wise man is set free." "By ignorance is bondage, by knowledge is deliverance." "When Nature finds that soul has discovered that it is to her the distress of migration is owing, she is put to shame by the detection, and will suffer herself to be seen no more."29 "Through knowledge the sage is absorbed into Supreme Spirit."30 "The S

h the perforations of a flute is distinguished as the several notes of the scale, so the Supreme Spirit is single, though, in consequence of acts, it seems manifold. As every placid lakelet holds an unreal image of the one real moon sailing above, so eac

creation's rim, Yet every b

e everywhere by totality, not by portions. If God be omnipres

d. pp.

pp. 48,

u Purana

id. p

ns from the Veda, 2d ed., L

t be in every particle of matter, in e

cted to the soul, although the soul is not the actual seat of pain." This is the reason why every Hindu yearns so deeply to be freed from the meshes of nature, why he so anxiously follows the light of faith and penance, or the clew of speculation, through all mazes of mystery. It is that he may at last gaze on the central TRUTH, and through that sight seize the fr

ho seems a se

is rounds, an

f self again

in the gen

vague as a

rm shall s

soul from

know him w

ly succeed, the love inspired and deep musing genius of the English thinker can f

ll sit at e

ach the ot

dream can

earth! He s

st and shar

e spirits

place, to c

lose oursel

ving person necessarily feels it; thirdly, that it is desirable to be freed from it; fourthly, that the only deliverance from it is by that pure knowledge which destroys all cleaving to existence. A Buddha is a be

infinite stellar systems, with hungry love and boundless ambition, to the throne and sceptre of absolute immensity, he vows within himself, "I will become a Buddha." The total influences of his past, the forces of destiny, conspiring with his purpose, omnipotence is in that resolution. Nothing shall ever turn him aside

ld in the space of a bhumi shed more blood than there is water in a thousand oceans. On account of his merit he might always be born amidst the pleasures of the heavens; but since he could there make no progress towards his goal, he prefers being born in the world of men. During his gradual advance, there is no good he does not perform, no hardship he does not undertake, no evil he does not willingly suffer; and all for the benefit of others, to obtain the means of emancipating those whom he sees fastene

behind in these discourses a body of wisdom sufficient to guide to salvation all who will give attentive ear and heart, the Buddha then his sublime work of disinterested love being completed receives the fruition of his toil, the super essential prize of the universe, the In

ed against their claim that no one could obtain emancipation until after being born as a Brahman and passing through the various rites and degrees of their order. In the face of the most powerful and arrogant priesthood in the world, he preached the perfect e

near the middle of the sixth century before Christ. It soon overran the whole country, and held sway until about eight hundred years after Christ, when an awful persecution and slaughter on the part of

method of salvation in Gotama's system is to vanquish and annihilate all desire for existing things. How is this to be done? By acquiring an intense perception of the miseries of existence, on the one hand, and an intense perception, on the other hand, of the contrasted desirableness of the state of emancipation, or Nirwana. Accordingly, the discourses of Gotama, and the sacred books of the Buddhists, are filled with vivid accounts of every thing disgusting and horrible connected with existence, and with vivid descriptions, consciously faltering with inadequacy, of every thing supremely fa

ed to him like a house on fire, and he longed to be extricated from the dizzy whirl of existence, and to reach the still haven of Nirwana. Finding ere long that he had now, as the reward of his incalculable e

Topes, or Buddhist Monumen

oked through the world to see who should be caught that day in the net of truth, and took his measures accordingly to preach in the hearing of men the truths by which alone they could climb into Nirwana. When he was expiring, invisible

udes, and is in safety forever." Baur says, "The aim of Buddhism is that all may obtain unity with the original empty Space, so as to unpeople the worlds."35 This end it seeks by purification from all modes of cleaving to existing objec

e have once been men, And in

on through a decease in a dewa loka. Still, it is the common view that emancipation from all existence can be secured only by a human being on earth. The last birth must be in that form. Th

of Nirwana; for herein to them hides all the power of thei

ihilation of all the principles of existence." "Nirwana is the completion and opposite shore of existence, free from decay, tranquil, knowing no restraint, and of great blessedness." "Nirwana is unmixed satisfaction, entirely free from sorrow." "The wind cannot be squeezed in the hand,

rnal of the American Ori

ythologie, th. ii

e Hardy's valuable work, "Eastern Monachism," c

rwana may be used in different senses by different schools.37 A few persons a small party, represented perhaps by able writers may believe in annihilation in our sense of the term, just as has happened in Christendom, while the common doctrine of the people is the opposite of that. In the second place, with the Oriental horror of individuated existence

nnihilation as we understand that word. Mr. Hodgson believes that the Buddhists expect to be "conscious in Nirwana of the eternal bliss of rest, as they are in this world of the ceaseless pain of activity." Forbes also argues against the nihilistic explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of futurity, and says he is compelled to conclude that Nirwana denotes imperishable being in a blissful quietude.39 Many additional authorities in favor of this view might be adduced, enough to balance, at least, the names on the other side. Koeppen, in his ver

the exclusion of succession, very plainly is not a denial of all being, but only of our present modes of experience. The dying Gotama is said to have "passed through the several states, one after another, until

istoire du Buddhisme Indien, A

e, Essays, v

in Ceylon, vol

n by Dr. Ste

ion as affirmation, and, in the last synthesis of contradictions, see the abysmal Vacuum as a Plenum of fruition. As Oken says, "The ideal zero is absolute unity; not a singularity, as the

pleasure of Nirwana." "The sight of Nirwana bestows perfect happiness." "The rahat is emancipated from existence in Nirwana, as the lotus is separated from the mud out of which it springs." "Fire may be produced by rubbing together two sticks, though previously it had no locality: it is the same with Nirawna." "Nirwana is free from danger, peaceful, refreshing, happy. When a man who has been broiled before a huge fire is released, and goes quickly into some open space, he feels the most agreeable sensation. All the evils of existence are that fire, and Nirwana is that open space." These passag

re is no synthetical unit, soul, or personality. Yet in a certain sense death is not the absolute annihilation of a human existence, because it leaves a potentiality inherent in that existence. There is no identical ego to survive and be born again; but karma that is, the sum of a man's action, his entire merit and demerit produces at his death a new being, an

ysiophilosophy, T

ama is represented as having lived through millions of existences, in different states and worlds, with preserved identity and memory. The history of his concatenated advance towards the Buddhaship is the supporting basis and the saturating spirit of documentary Buddhism. And the same idea pervades the whole range of

apprehensible elements of existence. Besides, the attainment of Nirwana is held up as a prize to be laboriously sought by personal effort. To secure it is a positive triumph quite distinct from the fated dissolution of the khandas in death. Now, if there be in man no personal entity, what is it that with so much joy attains Nirwana? The genuine Buddhist notion, as seems most probable, is that the conscious essence of the rahat, when the exterior elements of existence fall from around him, passes by a transcendent climax and discrete leap beyond the outermost limits of appreciable being, and becom

a hundred million years in the uninterrupted enjoyment of perfect happiness, or of translation into Nirwana, he would spurn the former as defilement, and would with unutterable avidity choose the latter. We must

, Manual

a vessel overflowing with honey, his mind overflowed with

l are repeated births. O house builder! I have seen thee. Again a house thou canst not build for me. I have br

n 1856, a small volume entirely devoted to this subject, under the title of "The Indian Nirwana, or the Enfranchisement of the Soul after Death." His conclusion, after a careful and candid discussion, is, that Nirwana had different meanings to the minds of the ancient Aryan priests, the orthodox Brahmans, the Sankhya Brahmans, and the Buddh

it much more satisfactorily than the idea of unqualified nothingness does. "Nirwana is real; all else is phenomenal." The Sankhyas, who do not hold to the nonentity nor to the annihilation of the soul, but to its eternal identification with the Infinite One, use nevertheless nearly the same phrases in describing it that the Buddhists do. For example, they say, "The soul is neither a production nor produc

a Karika,

u Purana

uate perseverance, will at last elicit and behold the real meaning of Nirwana, the achieved insight and revelation forming the widest horizon of rapturous truth ever contemplated by the human mind. The memorable remark of Sir William Hamilton, that "capacity of thought is not to be constituted into the measure of existence," should show the error of those who so unjustifiably affirm that, since Nirwana is said to be neither corporeal nor incorporeal, nor at all describable, it is therefore absolutely nothing. A like remark is also to be addressed to those who draw the same unwarrantable conclusion of the nothingness of Nirwana from the fact that it has no locality, or from the fact that it is sometimes said to exclude consciousness. Plato, in the Timaus, stigmatizes as a vulgar error the notion that what is not in any place is a nonentity. Many a weighty philosopher has followed him in this opinion. The denial of place is by no means necessarily

e severest literal significance of a word as conveying the meaning which a popular doctrine holds in the minds of its believers. There is almost always looseness, vagueness, metaphor, accommodation. But take the term

, Principles of Ps

s under altered conditions. Now, to compare the putting out of a lamp to the death of a man, extinction is not actual des

ill approach it through a preliminary query and quotation. That nothing can extend beyond its l

oth it not seem the impression of a seal Can be no larger than the wax? The soul with that vast latitude must move

al is not self annihilation, but self universalization. It is not the absorption of a drop into the sea, but the dilatation of a drop to the sea. Each drop swells to the whole ocean, each soul becomes the Boundless One, each rahat is identified with the total Nirwana. The rivers of emancipated men neither disembogue into the ocean of spirit nor evaporate into the abyss of nonentity, but are blended

that of Nirvana. But he still feels pleasure; he even uses his reasoning and discriminating powers. The use of these powers ceases in the second stage of meditation, when nothing remains but a desire after Nirvana, and a general feeling of satisfaction arising from his intellectual perfection. That satisfaction, also, is extinguishe

ices. That also must be destroyed; and it is destroyed in the fourth and last region, where there is not even the idea of a nothing left, and where there is complete rest, undisturbed by nothing, or what is not nothing."47 Analyze away all particulars until you reach an uncolored boundlessness of pure immateriality, free from every predicament; and that is Nirwana. This is one possible way of conceiving the fate of

. Heaven is that which delights the mind, hell is that which gives it pain. Hence vice is called hell, and virtue is called heaven." Another author says, "The fire of the angry mind produces the fire of hell, and consumes its possessor. A wicked person causes his evil

t his frail and pitiable consciousness, losing himself, with all evil, to be born anew and find himself, with all good, in God. All sense, passion, care, and grief shall cease with deliverance from the spectral semblances of this false life. All pure contemplation, perfect repose, unsullied and unrippled joy shall begin with entrance upon th

ss intellectual emotion, at so unparalleled

nd Buddhist P

tome i. livre iii. ch. 28: Acqu

ries; And in agonizing rapture falls the moth, and bravely dies. Think not what thou art, Believe

ing. Negative acts, denying function, are antipathetic, and lower the sense of life; positive acts, affirming function, are sympathetic, and raise the sense of life. Therefore t

es, Pal