Saṃsāra

Traditional Tibetan painting or Thanka showing the wheel of life and realms of saṃsāra

Saṃsāra (sanskrit: संसार) literally meaning "continuous flow", is the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth (i.e. reincarnation) within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other Indian religions. The word has its origins in the sramanic traditions of ancient India, and is today used in many modern Indian languages to refer to the physical world, or family, or the universe. In modern parlance, samsara refers to a place, set of objects and possessions, but originally, the word referred to a process of continuous pursuit or flow of life. In accordance with the literal meaning, the word should either refer to a continuous stream of consciousness, or the continuous but random drift of passions, desires, emotions and experiences.

In most Indian religions, life is not considered to begin with birth and end in death, but as a continuous existence in the present lifetime of the organism and extending beyond. The nature of the actions (karma) committed during the course of each lifetime, (good or ill) determines the future destiny of each being. Samsara is closely linked with the idea of rebirth (or reincarnation), but mainly refers to the condition of life, and the experience of life.

In Buddhism, at death the consciousness (consciousness of the different senses, such as eye consciousness, ear consciousness etc.), at the moment of death, act as the seed for the spawning of the new consciousness in a new biological structure, conducive to the volitional (Saṅkhāras) impulses at the moment of death (which are themselves affected by previous volitional impulses). In other Indian religions, the volitional impulses accrued from the present life are transmitted to a consciousness structure popularly known as the soul, which, after an intermediate period (in Tibetan called the bardo), forms the basis for a new biological structure that will result in rebirth and a new life. This cyclical process ends in the attainment of moksha.

If one lives in extremely evil ways, one is reborn as an animal or other unfortunate being.[1]

Contents

Etymology and origin

Samsara means "to flow on", to perpetually wander, to pass through states of existence.

The historical origins of a concept of a cycle of repeated reincarnation are obscure but the idea appears frequently in religious and philosophical texts in both ancient Greece and India during the middle of the first millennium B.C.E.[2] Orphism, Platonism, Jainism and Buddhism all discuss the transmigration of beings from one life to another. In India the concept appears to have originated outside the mainstream Vedic religion by the heterodox Sramanic culture. Buddhism and Jainism are continuations of this tradition, and the early Upanishadic movement was influenced by it. Reincarnation was adopted from this religious culture by Brahmin orthodoxy, and Brahmins first wrote down scriptures containing these ideas in the early Upanishads.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

The Sanskrit word "Samsara" is the root for the Malay word "sengsara", which means suffering.

Cycle of rebirth

The concept of samsara is closely associated with the belief that one continues to be born and reborn in various realms in the form of a human, god, animal, or other being (depending on karma).[1] In particular, Jainism[9] maintains that, if one performs extremely evil karma, one can be reborn also as a plant or even as a rock, and similar tendencies can be found in Purāṇas, in the Bhagavadgītā, in the Manusmṛti[10] and in similar texts. Nonetheless, most philosophic traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism[11] maintain that plants and even more obviously rocks cannot be included in saṃsāra since they lack the possibility of experience (bhoga) and, hence, of karma.

Saṃsāra in Hinduism

In Hinduism, it is avidya, or ignorance, of one's true self that leads to ego-consciousness of the body and the phenomenal world. This grounds one in kāma (desire) and the perpetual chain of karma and reincarnation. Through egoism and desire one creates the causes for future becoming. The state of illusion that gives rise to this is known as Maya.

Through ascetic practice one finally attains sanctity and liberation (moksha or mukti) - the equivalent of salvation in Indian religions.

Broadly speaking, the holy life (brahmacarya) which leads to liberation is a path of self-purification by which the effects of sins are released.

The Hindu Yoga traditions hold various beliefs. Moksha may be achieved by love of Ishwar/God (see bhakti movement, see Mirabai), by psycho-physical meditation (Raja Yoga), by discrimination of what is real and unreal through intense contemplation (Jnana Yoga), and through Karma Yoga, the path of selfless action that subverts the ego and enforces understanding of the unity of all. Advaita Vedanta believes that Brahman, the ultimate Truth-Consciousness-Bliss, is the infinite, impersonal reality (as contrasted to the Buddhist concept of shunyata); all temporal states like deities, the cosmos and samsara itself are revealed to be nothing but manifestations of Brahman. <---(there is differing thought on this within hindu schools, many vedanta schools are seperated because they have different views on duality)

Saṃsāra in Jainism

In Jainism, Saṃsāra is the worldly life characterized by continuous rebirths and reincarnations in various realms of existence. Saṃsāra is described as mundane existence, full of suffering and misery and hence is considered undesirable and worth renunciation. The Saṃsāra is without any beginning and the soul finds itself in bondage with its karma since the beginningless time. Moksha is the only liberation from saṃsāra.

Saṃsāra in Buddhism

Main article: Samsara (Buddhism)

The concept of Saṃsāra as a cycle of rebirth and suffering is taught in Buddhism. To understand the concept of Saṃsāra it is important to know about the six realms, rebirth, karma, and nirvana or the liberation from the suffering.

Saṃsāra in Sikhism

In Sikhism, it is thought that due to the commendable past actions and deeds (known as karma or kirat) that people obtain the chance of human birth, which is regarded in Sikhism as the highest possible on Earth and therefore an opportunity that should not be wasted. Only by continued good actions and the "Grace of the Almighty" can one obtain liberation from the continuous cycle of births and deaths of various bodily forms that the soul has been undergoing since the creation of the universe. The end of the cycle of transmigration of the soul is known as mukti. For Sikhs, the state of mukti can be achieved whilst still alive, known as "Jivan Mukat", literally "liberated whilst alive".

Saṃsāra in Surat Shabda Yoga

In Surat Shabda Yoga, attaining self-realization results in jivan moksha/mukti, liberation/release from samsara, the cycle of karma and reincarnation while in the physical body.

Surat Shabda Yoga cosmology presents the constitution of the initiate (the microcosm) as an exact replica of the macrocosm. Consequently, the microcosm consists of a number of bodies, each one suited to interact with its corresponding plane or region in the macrocosm. These bodies developed over the yugas through involution (emanating from higher planes to lower planes) and evolution (returning from lower planes to higher planes), including by karma and reincarnation in various states of consciousness.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Reaching the Level of the Gods", Hinduism, The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  2. ↑ See McEvilley (2002)
  3. ↑ “This confirms that the doctrine of transmigration is non-aryan and was accepted by non-vedics like Ajivikism, Jainism and Buddhism. The Indo-aryans have borrowed the theory of re-birth after coming in contact with the aboriginal inhabitants of India. Certainly Jainism and non-vedics ... accepted the doctrine of rebirth as supreme postulate or article of faith.” Masih, page 37.
  4. ↑ Karel Werner, The Longhaired Sage in The Yogi and the Mystic. Karel Werner, ed., Curzon Press, 1989, page 34. "Rahurkar speaks of them as belonging to two distinct 'cultural strands' ... Wayman also found evidence for two distinct approaches to the spiritual dimension in ancient India and calls them the traditions of 'truth and silence.' He traces them particularly in the older Upanishads, in early Buddhism, and in some later literature."
  5. ↑ Gavin D. Flood (1996), An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge University - Press : UK ISBN 0-521-43878-0 - “The origin and doctrine of Karma and Samsara are obscure. These concepts were certainly circulating amongst sramanas, and Jainism and Buddhism developed specific and sophisticated ideas about the process of transmigration. It is very possible that the karmas and reincarnation entered the mainstream brahaminical thought from the sramana or the renouncer traditions.” Page 86.
  6. ↑ Padmanabh S. Jaini 2001 “Collected Paper on Buddhist Studies” Motilal Banarsidass Publ 576 pages ISBN 81-208-1776-1: "Yajnavalkya’s reluctance and manner in expounding the doctrine of karma in the assembly of Janaka (a reluctance not shown on any other occasion) can perhaps be explained by the assumption that it was, like that of the transmigration of soul, of non-brahmanical origin. In view of the fact that this doctrine is emblazoned on almost every page of sramana scriptures, it is highly probable that it was derived from them." Page 51.
  7. ↑ Govind Chandra Pande, (1994) Life and Thought of Sankaracarya, Motilal Banarsidass ISBN 81-208-1104-6 : Early Upanishad thinkers like Yajnavalkya were acquainted with the sramanic thinking and tried to incorporate these ideals of Karma, Samsara and Moksa into the vedic thought implying a disparagement of the vedic ritualism and recognising the mendicancy as an ideal. Page 135.
  8. ↑ "The sudden appearance of this theory [of karma] in a full-fledged form is likely to be due, as already pointed out, to an impact of the wandering muni-and-shramana-cult, coming down from the pre-Vedic non-Aryan time." Kashi Nath Upadhyaya, Early Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita. Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1998, page 76.
  9. ↑ Schmithausen,L. (1991a).Buddhism and Nature. The Lecture delivered on the Occasion of the EXPO1990. An Enlarged Version with Notes. Number VII in Studia Philologica Buddhica Occasional Paper Series. The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.
  10. ↑ śarīrajaiḥ karmadoṣair yāti sthāvaratāṃ naraḥ (Manusmṛti 12.9).
  11. ↑ Kelsang Gyatso. (1994). Tantric grounds and paths: How to begin, progress on, and complete the Vajrayana path. London: Tharpa Publications, p. 151

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