Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/214

 174 THE ARAB AL-BIRUNI ON HINDU RELIGION Here, now, the Hindus quit the path of philosophical speculation and turn aside to traditional fables as re- gards the two places where reward or punishment is given, saying, for instance, that man exists as an in- corporeal being in the world beyond the present, and that, after having received the reward of his actions, he again returns to a bodily appearance and human shape in order to be prepared for his further destiny. Some, therefore, do not consider the reward of para- dise a special gain, because it has an end and is not eternal, and because this kind of life resembles the life of this our world; for it is not free from ambi- tion and envy, having in itself various degrees and classes of existence, whilst cupidity and desire do not cease save where there is perfect equality. We have already said that, according to the belief of the Hindus, the soul exists in these two places with- out a body. But this is only the view of the educated among them, who understand by the soul an inde- pendent being. However, the lower classes, and those who cannot imagine the existence of the soul without a body, hold very different views concerning this sub- ject. One is this, that the cause of the agony of death is the soul's waiting for a shape which is to be prepared. It does not quit the body before a cognate being of similar functions has originated, one of those which nature prepares either as an embryo in a mother's womb or as a seed in the bosom of the earth. Then the soul quits the body in which it has been staying.