This theory of transmigration, according to the Hindūs, explained the origin of evil. Evil must proceed from antecedent evil, and the resulting penalty must be borne by the evil-doer in succeeding existences. This was the terrible incubus which it was the great object of Indian philosophers to remove. It was equally Gautama’s object, but how could he accept soul-transmigration, denying as he did the existence of any spirit, as distinct from material organization? He therefore put forth a view of his own, thus:—Every being is composed of five constituent elements called Skandhas (Pāli Khandha), which have their source in Upādāna ([p. 103]) and are continually combining, dissolving, and recombining, viz. 1. Form (rūpa), i. e. the organized body. 2. Sensation (vedanā) of pain or pleasure, or of neither, arising from contact of eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin, and mind with external objects. 3. Perception (sañña = sañjñā) of ideas through the same sixfold contact. 4. Aggregate of formations (saṃkhāra = saṉskāra, i.e. combination of properties or faculties or mental tendencies, fifty-two in number, forming individual character and derived from previous existences; compare the similar saṃkhārā pl. at [p. 102]). 5. Consciousness (viññāṇa = vijñāna) or thought[51]. This fifth is the most important. It is the only soul recognized by Buddhists. Theoretically it perishes with the other Skandhas, but practically is continued, since its exact counterpart is reproduced in a new body.
For although, when a man dies, all the five constituents of existence are dissolved, yet by the force resulting from his actions (karma), combined with Upādāna, ‘clinging to existence’ (one form of the fetters at [p. 127]), a new set of five, of which consciousness is still the dominant faculty, starts into being. The process of the new creation is so instantaneous that it is equivalent to the continuance of the same personality, pervaded by the same consciousness; though each personality is only really connected with the previous by the force of acts done and character formed in each—such force operating through Upādāna. In short, to speak of transmigration of souls in Buddhism gives a wrong idea. Metempsychosis with Buddhists resolves itself into continuous metamorphosis or Palingenesis. For no true Buddhist believes in the passing of a soul from one body to another, but rather in the passing on of what may be called act-force, or of the merit and demerit resulting from a man’s acts, so as to cause a continuous succession of transformations—a succession which may be compared to the rolling on of a wheel through different scenes and over every variety of ground; or to the burning on, through day and night, of a flame which is not the same flame at the beginning of the day and end of the night, and yet is not different. It is this act-force (Karma), combined with Upādāna, ‘clinging to existence’ (=abhi-niveṡa in the Yoga II. 9), which is the connecting link between each man’s past, present, and future bodies.
In its subtle and irresistible operation it may be compared to stored-up chemical or electric energy. It is a force which continually creates and re-creates the whole man, and perpetuates his personal identity through separate forms, whether it compels him to ascend or descend in the scale of being.
Yet to say that personality is transmitted, when there is no consciousness of any continuity of identity, amounts, after all, to denial of continuous existence.
Be it observed, too, that the scale of existence is limited in Buddhism to six classes of beings—gods, men, demons, animals, ghosts, and dwellers in hell ([p. 121]). Transmigration is not extended, as in the Brāhmanical system, to plants, stocks, and stones; though a man could be born as a tree-god ([p. 112]).
Gautama Buddha himself was merely the last link in a long chain of corporeal forms, and he had been preceded by twenty-four Buddhas, who were to previous ages of the world what he was to the present. Every one of these Buddhas was gifted with the faculty of recollecting his previous personalities, and Gautama often gave an account of his own former existences. The stories of about five hundred and fifty of his births (Jātakas) are even now daily repeated to eager listeners in every Buddhist country, and are believed to convey important lessons, though full of puerilities.
The interchange of ideas between Brāhmanism and Buddhism is well exemplified not only by the twenty-five Buddhas, who correspond to the fourteen Manus, or representative men, in each world-period (Antara), but also by the birth-stories, many of which are mere modifications of old fables long current in India, while others have been imported from Buddhism into Sanskṛit literature. They constantly remind one of similar stories in the Pañća-tantra, Hitopadeṡa, Rāmāyaṇa, and Mahā-bhārata. The noteworthy point about the repeated births of Gautama Buddha is, that there appears to have been no Darwinian rise from lower to higher forms; but a mere jumble of metamorphoses. Thus we find him born four times as Mahā-brahmā, twenty times as Indra, once as a hare, eighty-three times as an ascetic, fifty-eight as a king, twenty-four as a Brāhman, once as a gamester, eighteen times as a monkey, six as an elephant, eleven as a deer, once as a dog, four times as a serpent, six as a snipe, once as a frog, twice as a fish, forty-three times as a tree-god, twice as a pig, ten times as a lion, four as a cock, twice as a thief, once as a devil-dancer, and so on. He was never born as a woman, nor as an insect, nor as a Preta, nor an inhabitant of hell ([p. 119]), and in all his births he was a Bodhi-sattva (pp. [98], [135]). And in all he suffered and sacrificed himself for the good of the world.
Here is the substance of an account of Gautama’s birth as a hare, given by himself (Ćariyā-Piṭaka I. 10, translated by Dr. Oldenberg):—
‘In one of my lives I was a hare living in a forest. I ate grass and did no one any harm. An ape, a jackal, and an otter dwelt with me. I used to teach them their duties and tell them to abstain from evil and give alms on the four fast-days in every month. They did as I told them, and gave beans, corn, and rice. Then I said to myself:—Suppose a worthy object of charity passes by, what can I give him? I live on grass only; I cannot offer a starving man grass; I must give him myself. Thereupon the god Ṡakra, wishing to test my sincerity, came in a Brāhman’s form and asked me for food. When I saw him I said joyfully:—“A noble gift will I give thee, O Brāhman; thou observest the precepts; thou painest no creature; thou wilt not kill me for food. But go, collect wood, place it in a heap, and kindle a fire. Then I will roast myself, and thou may’st eat me.”
‘He said:—“So be it,” and went and gathered wood and kindled a fire.