Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/107

 v] Consciousness and Rebirth 9 1 birth 1. The manner in which the vijf1ana produced in the womb is determined by the past vijfiana of the previous existence is according to some authorities of the nature of a reflected image, like the transmission of learning from the teacher to the disciple, like the lighting of a lamp from another lamp or like the impress of a stamp on wax. As all the skandhas are changing in life, so death also is but a similar change; there is no great break, but the same uniform sort of destruction and coming into being. New skandhas are produced as simultaneously as the two scale pans of a balance rise up and fall, in the same manner as a lamp is lighted or an image is reflected. At the death of the man the vijf1ana resulting from his previous karmas and vijf1anas enters into the womb of that mother (animal, man or the gods) in which the next skandhas are to be matured. This vijf1ana thus forms the principle of the new life. It is in this vijf1ana that name (nama) and form (riIPa) become associated. The vijf1ana is indeed a direct product of the sarpskaras and the sort of birth in which vijf1ana should bring down (niimayati) the new existence (upapatti) is determined by the sarpskaras 2, for in reality the happening of death (marwzablzflva) and the instil- lation of the vijf1ana as the beginning of the new life (upapatti- bhava) cannot be simultaneous, but the latter succeeds just at the next moment, and it is to signify this close succession that they are said to be simultaneous. If the vijf1ana had not entered the womb then no namarupa could have appeared 3. This chain of twelve causes extends over three lives. Thus avidya and sarpskara of the past life produce the vijf1ana, nama- 1 The deities of the gardens, the woods, the trees and the plants, finding the master of the house, Citla, ill said" make your resolution, · May I be a cakravartti king in a next existence,'" Sat!lyutta, IV. 303. .. sa cediilla1ldavifiiiina'.n 11Iiitu!zkuk#1Il niivakYllllleta, na tat kala/am kalalatviiya sannivartteta," .III. V. 552. Compare Caraka, Siirira, III. 5-8, where he speaks of a .. upapiiduka sattva" which connects the soul with body and by the absence of which the character is changed, the senses become affected and life ceases, when it is in a pure condition one can remember even the previous births; character, purity, antipathy, memory, fear, energy, all mental qualities are produced out of it. Just as a chariot is made by the combination of many elements, so is the foetus. 3 Madhyalllaka vrtti (B. T. S. 202-203)' Poussin quotes from Digha, 11.63, "si Ie vijtana ne descendait pas dans Ie sein maternel la namarupa s'y constituerait-il?" Govindananda on Sankara's commentary on the Brahma-sletras (II. ii. 19) says that the first consciousness (vijfiiina) of the foetus is produced by the sarp.skaras of the previous birth, and from that the four elements (which he calls niima) and from that the white and red, semen and ovum, and the first stage of the foetus (kalala-budblldiivastha) is prod uced.