Reincarnation

Term Paper # 100229

Religion and Theology > Buddhism
Religion and Theology > Eastern

Reincarnation

A comparative analysis of the belief of reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism.

3,000 words () | 11 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how reincarnation is a central aspect of the Hindu religion that was rejected by the founder of Buddhism and the emphasis Buddhism places on life in the present. The paper discusses how, although Hinduism has borrowed from Buddhism's attention to dharma, only one stream of Buddhism has incorporated reincarnation from Hinduism, the other stream quite determined to reject its possibility.

Outline:
Introduction
Origins in India
Samsara - What the Buddha Rejected
Buddhist Divisions
The Large Raft and the Little Raft

From the Paper:

"The Buddha described the human being who could reach Nirvana, as a kind of 'blowing out' or extinction of the self. (Waldon 301) He probably meant a person having come to accept the world's suffering and how human beings created their own suffering, a point reached of detachment allowing the person to attend to dharma, causing no suffering to others, elevated from the general unhappiness and darkness of the world. Some Buddhists believe the idea of nirvana was meant to resemble Hinduism's union with the divine though the Buddha stressed the absence of god. The term of atta in Pali is similar to the Sanskrit term of atman or 'soul' but unlike Hinduism's expectation of the soul moving onwards and upwards through proper cultivation, the Buddha believed that a well-developed person would reach a point of anatta -- or having no soul. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Carman, John B. "Duties and Rights in Hindu Society," in Ed. L.S. Rouner. Human Rights and the World's Religions. Grand Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988.
Conze, E. Buddhist Thought in India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973.
Dhamma, Rewata. The First Discourse of the Buddha. Boston: Wisdom Press, 1997.
Hallisey, C. "Ethical Particularism in Theravada Buddhism." Journal of Buddhist Ethics. 3. (1996): 32-43.
King, W. Theravada Meditation - the Buddhist Transformation of Yoga. London: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980, 40-60.