Sacred Texts: Buddhism

Buddhism in Translations - Chapter III - Karma and Rebirth - Introduction

Henry Clarke WarrenPali Canon TranslationsTheravada Buddhism

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This is a chapter from a Western scholarly introduction to Buddhism, written in an expository tradition aimed at making Buddhist doctrine accessible to non-specialist readers. Its central task is resolving an apparent paradox: if Buddhism denies any permanent self or soul, what exactly transmigrates or is reborn? The author argues that karma — meaning not just deeds but the cumulative character shaped by deeds — functions as the vehicle of rebirth, and draws a striking parallel to Western Christian notions of personal immortality, suggesting both traditions point to the same thing (surviving character/soul) but differ only in whether they posit an underlying Ego. A second analogy compares karma to biological heredity, using the example of bird eggs to illustrate how a causal chain can perpetuate a distinct form across generations without requiring an identical, continuous substance. A distinctive claim is that karma must attach to desire to be "fruitful" — action performed in complete passionlessness produces no karmic fruit and thus ends the chain of rebirth. The chapter closes by introducing the Jataka birth stories as folkloric illustrations of rebirth doctrine, noting with scholarly interest that several of these tales appear in Aesop and European literature, making them evidence of cross-cultural fable transmission.

Buddhism in Translations - Chapter III - Karma and Rebirth - Introduction

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